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Plaintiff en reprise d’instance, Marcel Trottier, on the 10th of December, 1963, was 17 years old. He was employed by the defendant who is a butcher and grocer. He, young Trottier, was given the job of mincing meat. The mincing was done by a machine composed of a table, at its centre was a hole into which the meat to be minced was pushed; at the bottom of the hole was the mincing apparatus composed of sharp grinders or knives. The operation of mincing, a comparatively simple one, was to place the meat on the table, push it into the mincer by using a “rammer”, a pestle shaped wooden object, and, at times push, or tamp, it down onto the grinders. This table stood on a small platform making the surface thereof about 5 feet high. Behind the operator were lights; to his right and in front of him, across the full width of the table was the switch which activated the machine; that is in order to start the machine it was necessary to reach right across the table to engage or throw, the switch. At the time of the accident Marcel Trottier stood approximately five feet six inches high; consequently, when he stood in front of the mincing machine the edge of the table’s surface would traverse a line approximately midway between his nose and the end of his chin. The orifice into which the meat was pushed stood in the centre of the table. Young Trottier, therefore, unless he mounted a box or step of some kind when standing on the ground could see just over the rim of the orifice but not down into the cutting area. There was no guard around the hole at the bottom of which were the grinders. Accordingly on the day of the accident the machine and the operator, young Trottier were as above described.
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