“'JUST IN FUN,' BUT JOKE COSTS $1,244,” Montreal Gazette. January 7, 1933. Page 4.
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Two Brothers Sued for Setting Match to Gasoline-Soaked Employee
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HORSE PLAY IN GARAGE
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Man Who Became Human Torch Suffered Agonies for Month - Conflict of Testimony
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"Just in fun" Jean Lamarche and Adrien Lamarche poured gasoline on the chest and arm of Alexandre Duperron and set at match to it. Duperron immediately became human torch and suffered agonies in the hospital for more than month. The "fun" of the La marche brothers cost them $1,244 under a judgment of Mr. Justice Lane, of the Superior Court.
"The Court," His Lordship de Clares, "does not for a moment consider that it was done otherwise than in foolish play, yet defendants are responsible for the result o their foolishness and fault in indulging in the sort of play they did."
Some extenuation was found In the fact that both plaintiff and defendants had been drinking.
Duperron and the two Lamarche boys were employed by Joseph Lamarche, roofer and father of the defendants. Duperron had worked for him for 26 years,
On the afternoon of October 15, 1930, plaintiff, defendants and other employees of the roofer had gathered in their employer's garage, for it was raining and roofers do not work in the rain. They passed the time in drinking beer and playing the fool, or, as one of the defendants put it with respect to himself, ‘acting like a baby.’
Part of their play consisted in drenching one another with water.
Duperron was not feeling very well, anyway, the evidence show ed; he was sick as the result of a bust" of the previous evening. So he did not drink in the morning, but in the afternoon, seeing his fellow-workers enjoying themselves it was only natural, as Mr. Justice Lane put it, that he should want to join the glad throng and help them dispose of the beer.
In one corner of the garage there appears to have been a metal bucket containing a mixture of gasoline and water in which thp work men were used to washing grimy hands. One of the defendant threw some of this mixture over Duperron, then Jean Lamarche said, “I think there is gasoline in it."
In order to find out, he struck a match and applied it to Duperron's left wrist. A flame broke out and was at once extinguished, A little while later Duperron wan drenched again by Adrien Lamarche and Jean Lamarche applied a match to his coat, which immediately burst into flames.
BODY BADLY BURNED.
Duperron became a human torch. His two ears were burnt, his face and neck and his body from the throat to the abdomen, his two arm pits and his left wrist.
He was 39 days in bed in the hospital and for the first 15 days suffered agony, the burns going right through to the flesh. At the time of the trial, a year later, he still bore the scars, which doctors thought, and Mr. Justice Lane believed, would be permanent.
Considerable conflict of testimony developed at the trial and other employees of Lamarche professing ignorance of what happened. "The Court," Mr. .Justice Lane declared, "does not believe that these employees are as ignorant of what happened as they profess to be. They are in the enjoyment of their situations, their employer is a bitter man, and their situations are dependent on his good will, and situations are difficult to procure in this period of depression, especially in the construction business. The Court believes they swore along the line of their own interest, rather than along the line of the truth."
Alter examining all the evidence, Mr. Justice Lane deemed the defendants were to blame for their folly and allowed Dunerron $1,244 damages.
