Mr. BAILEY. I can understand those timber violations now. Mr. MOSGROVE. That was the reason, Congressman, why it was hard for me to understand that there were so few in comparison with the others, because each month I take the State inspector's investigation. I write up on a red card the name of the person, the date of the accident, and all that, and I send that red card to each of my coal companies. They place that on a bulletin board so that all of the men can see that and take warning from it to be more careful themselves. That is sent out immediately after each fatal accident.

We do not hide anything. We send it out. We make it public, if one of our coal companies has a fatal accident. We have nothing to hide. We want safety, too.

Mr. McCONNELL. Now, Mr. Mosgrove, of those accidents-and most of them seem to be due to falling roofs-how many were due to failure of the companies to comply with the requirements of the safety laws? Mr. MOSGROVE. I can read here from the investigation what it says, if I may have the time:

Rolled over locomotive. Evidently not facing direction of travel.

Mr. McCONNELL. That would be a human carelessness accident? Mr. MOSGROVE. I would rather not interpret it. I will leave that to you gentlemen.

Loose roof; not timbered; insufficient safety posts; sudden reversing of locomotive caused wreck. Not standing in clear when slate was pulled. Failure to examine roof. Did not ride where required by rules.

Mr. McCONNELL. You say, "Failure to examine roof." Failure by whom?

Mr. MOSGROVE. By foreman and man.

Insufficient timbering in the working place.
No examining roof after blasting.

Inattention to surroundings.

Knocking timber from under loose roof with hammer.

Mr. McCONNELL. Have you checked in any way whether the Federal Bureau has brought certain of those accident hazards to the attention of the company prior to their happening?

Mr. MOSGROVE. No, sir; I have not checked.

Mr. McCONNELL. You have not checked that?

Mr. MOSGROVE. If I understand correctly, the Federal Government does not make investigations of single fatal accidents.

Mr. McCONNELL. No. But they have inspected these mines, I presume, prior to the accidents.

Mr. MOSGROVE. Oh, yes.

Mr. MCCONNELL. And did they call attention to hazards that might exist? Did they call the company's attention to them?

Mr. MOSGROVE. I do not have that in my records.

Mr. McCONNELL. Now, here you speake of the code. I presume you mean the Federal Mine Inspection Code; is that right? Mr. MOSGROVE. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCONNELL. You just say "This code is vague and indefinite, causing many misunderstandings and is certainly not written in such a way as to cover the whole mining industry of the United States." Would you explain that just a little, to be a little more definite and a little more explicit in your statement?

Mr. MOSGROVE. That will require me to go through the code and pick out a few of the things in it. May I have the time?

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chairman, in order to save time of the committee, may I suggest that the witness develop his statement more explicitly and submit the evidence to the committee to be included in the hearings if that is agreeable to the chairman.

Mr. KELLEY. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MOSGROVE. Very well, sir.

(The material referred to is as follows:)

BIG SANDY-ELKHORN COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION,

Hon. AUGUStine Kelley,

House of Representatices, Washington, D. C.

Pikeville, Ky., June 21, 1949.

SIR: The attached three sheets contain the words and phrases contained in the Federal Mine Safety Code for Bitiuminous-Coal and Lignite Mines of the United States that seem vague or indefinite.

This is as requested by the committee to be entered with my testimony against the proposed legislation (H. R. 3023) to give Federal inspectors police powers. You can readily see that the underscored words and phrases could be interpreted differently by different persons, and it would seem that it would be giving the Federal inspector quite a bit of power if all this is left to his discretion. I trust that you and the committee will give this your consideration. Very truly yours,

J. H. MOSGROVE,
Safety Director.

WORDS OR PHRASES THAT SEEM VAGUE OR INDEFINITE IN THE FEDERAL MINE SAFETY CODE FOR BITUMINOUS-COAL AND LIGNITE MINES OF THE UNITED STATES

Page 2, article 1, section 1. In dusty locations, electric motors, switches, and controls shall be of dusttight construction.

Structures shall be kept free of coal-dust accumulations.

Where coal is dumped at or near air-intake openings, reasonable provisions shall be made to prevent the dust from entering the mine.

Where repairs are being made to the plant, proper scaffolding and proper overhead protection shall be provided for workmen wherever necessary.

Page 3, article 1, section 2, Naphtha or other flammable liquids in lamp houses shall be kept in approved containers or other safe dispensers.

When not in service, flame safety lamps and electric cap lamps shall be under the charge of a responsible person.

Good housekeeping shall be practiced in and around mine buildings and yards. Page 4, article 11, section 1. Smoking in or about surface structures shall be restricted to places where it will not cause fire or an explosion.

Unless existing structures located within 100 feet of any mine opening are of reasonably fireproof construction, fire doors shall be erected at effective points in mine openings *

* *

Page 7, article IV, section 1. Surface magazines for storing and distributing high explosives in amounts exceeding 125 pounds shall be:

1. Reasonably bulletproof and constructed or incombustible material or covered with fire-resistive material.

Page 8, article IV, section 1. Provided with doors constructed of %-inch steel plate lined with a 2-inch thickness of wood, or the equivalent.

Page 12, article IV, section 3. Explosives and detonators shall be transported underground by belt only under the following conditions:

1. In the original and unopened case, in special closed cases constructed of nonconductive material, or in suitable individual containers.

Suitable loading and unloading stations shall be provided.

Underground section boxes or magazines shall be of substantial construction

Page 13, article IV, section 5. The use of permissible explosives shall comply with the following:

*

1. Fired only with electric detonators of proper strength.

Page 16, article IV, section 6. Blasting cables shall be: 1. Well insulated

*

Page 24, article V, section 1.

* * *

that it (installation of a main fan) would not materially increase the hazards of the mine * * *.

Page 40, article VI, section 1. Coal dust shall not be permitted to accumulate excessively on roadways and along conveyor lines. Page 41, article VI, section 1. Where mining operations raise an excessive amount of dust into the air, water or water with a wetting agent added to it or other effective methods shall be used to allay such dust at its source.

Page 46, article VII, section 3. The roadbed, rails, joints, switches, frogs, and other elements of the track of all haulage roads shall be constructed, installed, and maintained in a manner consistent with speed and type of haulage operations being conducted to insure safe operation.

Track switches, except room and entry development switches, shall be provided with properly installed throws, bridle bars, and guardrails, switch throws and stands, where possible, shall be placed on the clearance side.

Page 47, article VII, section 4. Ample clearance shall be provided at all points where supplies are loaded or unloaded along haulage roads or conveyors.

Page 50, article VII, section 6. Standing cars on any track, unless held effectively by brakes, shall be properly blocked or spragged. Cars shall be secured effectively at working faces.

Page 51, article VII, section 7. Cars on the man-trip shall not be overloaded, and sufficient cars in good mechanical condition shall be provided.

Men shall not load or unload before the cars in which they are to ride or are riding come to a full stop, and men shall proceed in an orderly manner to and from man-trips.

Page 55, article VIII, section 3. Switchboards installed after the effective date of this code shall be located so that ample room will be provided between the switchboard and passageways or lanes of travel

*

**

*

Page 57, article VIII, section 4. Trolley and feeder wires shall be installed as follows:

**

*

Guarded adequately where it is necessary for men to pass or work under them regularly.

* *

Anchored securely and insulated properly at the ends.

Page 58, article VIII, section 6. Fuses or equivalent protective devices of the correct type and capacity shall be installed on electric equipment to protect against excessive overload.

Page 60, article VIII. Telephone lines, other than cables, shall be carried on insulators, installed on the opposite side from power or trolley wires, and where they cross power or trolley wires they shall be insulated adequately.

Page 61, article VIII, section 9. Permissible equipment shall be maintained in a good state of repair

**

Page 62, article VIII, section 9.

If a dangerous condition exists, the machines

* 串 *

shall be stopped until such dangerous condition is removed. Page 62, article VIII, section 10. Temporary splices on trailing cables shall be made in a workmanlike manner, mechanically strong, and well insulated. Page 64, article X, section 1. Each mine shall be provided with suitable firefighting equipment, adequate for the size of the mine, Page 69, article XI, section 4. there is danger of fire entering the surface fires entering the mine. Page 70, article XI, section 4. tion

* *

Mine openings at isolated locations, where mine, shall have adequate protection against

Stairways shall be of substantial construc

Each mine shall have an adequate supply of

Page 77. article XII, section 5. In those special instances where a Federal coal-mine inspector finds that an imminent danger exists,

NOTE.

*

Italicized words and phrases are considered to be vague and indefinite.

Mr. McCONNELL. That is all.

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Werdel?

Mr. WERDEL. In the statements that you have made in regard to the Federal inspection, will you explain to me what the inspectors do, how often they frequent these mines, and what their authority really is here?

Mr. MOSGROVE. The Federal inspectors?

Mr. WERDEL. Yes.

Mr. MOSGROVE. As I understand, their power is recommending power. How often they inspect, I have no way of knowing.

Mr. WERDEL. And after they make their inspection and make their recommendation, what authority do they have to put it into effect? Mr. MOSGROVE. If I understand correctly, they pass along their recommendations to the Department of Mines of Kentucky, and I think that the Kentucky Department of Mines is checking on their inspections.

Mr. BAILEY. They also give those recommendations to the operators, too?

Mr. MOSGROVE. That is right.

Mr. WERDEL. Now, do all of the mines have what they classify as a safety engineer?

Mr. MOSGROVE. Oh, no.

Mr. WERDEL. In that regard, whom do they rely upon?

Mr. MOSGROVE. The supervisor.

Mr. WERDEL. Of a particular shaft, or in the mine generally, or what?

Mr. MOSGROVE. Well, it could be the mine foremen or the assistant mine foremen, or even the superintendent. They all work together toward the safety movement.

Mr. WERDEL. Now, whether the Kentucky law or the law in a particular State in which the mine is located has a compulsory workmen'scompensation law or not, I assume that there are some mines in those States, even though they do not require it, that do have a workmen's compensation insurance policy?

Mr. MOSGROVE. Congressman, I feel safe in saying that every company in the Big Sandy-Elkhorn Operators' Association has provisions for a man who is injured in a coal mine.

Mr. WERDEL. Of course, if the State does not have a workmen's compensation act, the insurance would not be workmen's compensation, then; it would be a straight insurance policy of some kind; is that correct?

Mr. MOSGROVE. I do not know just what sort of set-up they have on that. You see, my work is strictly safety work. I have nothing to do at all with the compensation.

Mr. WERDEL. The point I want to make is that the reason workmen's compensation laws were passed originally was that in the event of an employee's injury and his undertaking to sue the company, or the widow's suing the company or the employer, the suits were always dragged out for such a long period of time that nobody ever recovered. And at the same time, we had in the common law, and in our law in most of our States, the defense provision that the negligence of the other employee would be a good defense for the employer.

So we passed the workmen's compensation act in most of our States. And when we passed it, we deprived the employee of his right of action in a court. In other words, he has one action, and that is through the workmen's compensation insurance act.

92725- -49- -12

Now, if Kentucky has no such act and these mines still have their insurance, then necessarily it follows that even though they have that insurance, the employee still has an action in court against the mine for carelessness. But as you have pointed out, the negligence of other employees or the supervisor could easily be a defense for the employer. Can you tell us whether or not the insurance companies have safety inspectors going through the mines?

Mr. MOSGROVE. They do.

Mr. WERDEL. And how often do they go through?

Mr. MOSGROVE. I have no way of knowing that, Congressman. I would like to say it is frequently.

Mr. WERDEL. We are talking here about mines that are unsafe and that are safe, We have another situation in our law that I would like to call to your attention because it is an analogous situation. We sometimes say that a person is sane or insane, but in medicine, as I understand it, there is no such word as "insanity."

But in law, we draw degrees of sanity. You can be sane enough to write a will and still not sane enough to carry on your business, in the same court. They will appoint a guardian for you to take care of your business, even though you are sane enough to write a will, and

so forth.

Then when you get into court on an issue of sanity, you can find one doctor to testify for the plaintiff that the man is insane on that subject, and you can find another doctor to testify for the defendant based upon a reasonable medical certainty that the man is sane. And it seems to me that that is the subject we are up against here.

In other words, if we picked Einstein as the normal, we would all be insane. If they picked you or me as the normal, everybody would probably be a genius.

Now, when we are talking about safety in mines, we have no normal, have we?

Mr. MUSGROVE. I would not say so.

Mr. WERDEL. And the mines will have a man who believes that the situation is safe, and then as an afterthought, we find that it was not, after the accident happened.

Now, after looking at the picture that way, I want to find out from you as a safety engineer if you think that there are situations because of geological structure, and so forth, where mining companies open up deposits and go ahead and explore them without doing the proper timbering because of the exceeding cost that might be involved which would prohibit removing the coal, and thus they did it with a little gamble on cave-ins. Do you think those situations exist?

Mr. MOSGROVE. No company should fail to timber properly. I might go ahead and say that I do not believe that we have any companies that do fail to timber properly.

Mr. WERDEL. Depending upon how a stratum of coal is opened up and where it is opened up and from what angle, the various costs of timbering and exploration, so far as two different companies are concerned, differ, do they not?

Mr. MOSGROVE. Yes, there are different mining systems in different States, due to the seams. And, of course, some are slog, some slope, and some drift mines. The thickness of the seams and overburden and all those things enter into how you would handle your mine.