Case Title: Natco Corporation v. Mallory

Citation: 80 So. 2d 274

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1955-04-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
80 So. 2d 274 (1955)
NATCO CORPORATION
v.
Stanton MALLORY.
6 Div. 728.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
April 28, 1955.
Rehearing Denied May 26, 1955.
Burr, McKamy, Moore & Tate, Wm. Henry Beatty, Birmingham, for appellant.
R. B. Jones, Erwin C. Betts, Birmingham, for appellee.
LIVINGSTON, Chief Justice.
This is a certiorari to review a ruling and judgment of the circuit court awarding compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law of Alabama.
There is no complaint by the employer in respect to the correctness of the finding of facts. The complaint is, that as a matter of law the facts as thus found do not support the right to compensation. The facts found by the trial judge material to the inquiry, not here repeating the formal incidents of his (employee's) employment, showing the application of the Workmen's Compensation Law, are as follows:
The question to be decided, as in all such cases, is whether the employee was injured by an accident "arising out of and in the course of his employment," as contemplated by Sec. 253, Tit. 26, Workmen's Compensation Law, Pocket Part, Code 1940. Similar questions have received careful consideration by the courts and text writers. There seems to be substantial unanimity in all of them. Some of the cases cite and quote the applicable principles from other leading cases. We will first refer to the case of Mack v. Branch No. 12, 207 S.C. 258, 35 S.E.2d 838, 840, and make a quotation from it at length, inasmuch as it is a leading case and quotes from other leading cases, as follows:
"Report of the cited decision of the California Supreme Court (en banc) is also found in Whiting-Mead Commercial Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm., 178 Cal. 505, 173 P. 1105, 5 A.L.R. 1518 and there is an accompanying annotation in which the editor states that the fact that an employer must expect an employee to resort to the use of tobacco as a necessary adjunct to the discharge of his employment is recognized in every case in which a court has been called upon to pass upon the question of awarding compensation to an employee who was injured through smoking. And several other cases to that effect are digested in the annotation. No authority to the contrary has been cited or found. 71 C.J. 675 contains the following: `If the employee is injured on account of circumstances attending the employment while taking a smoke, there being no objection on the part of the employer to his smoking, the injury arises out of the employment, and in the course thereof.' See also, Horovitz, p. 115, and cases in the footnotes."
From Bradford's Case, 319 Mass. 621, 67 N.E.2d 149, 150, we quote the following:
1 Larson's Compensation Law, pages 309, et seq., Sec. 21.40, cites the above mentioned cases and others with approval.
Our own cases are in line, though we do not seem to have a smoking or other tobacco case. We have cases supporting the principle and applied it where the employee stepped aside for some other purpose pertaining to his own activities while on duty. Baggett Transp. Co. v. Holderfield, 260 Ala. 56, 68 So. 2d 21; Jackson v. Tennessee C. I. & R. Co., 259 Ala. 85, 65 So. 2d 167; Carraway Methodist Hospital v. Pitts, 256 Ala. 665, 57 So. 2d 96; Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. Bruce, 249 Ala. 675, 32 So. 2d 666; Overton v. Belcher, 232 Ala. 396, 168 So. 442; Alabama Concrete Pipe Co. v. Berry, 226 Ala. 204, 146 So. 271; Ex parte Rosengrant, 213 Ala. 202, 104 So. 409; Wells v. Morris, 33 Ala. App. 497, 35 So. 2d 54.
We find no conflict with the foregoing in the cases cited by appellant as follows: Vickers v. Alabama Power Co., 218 Ala. 107, 117 So. 650; Bullard v. Cullman Heading Co., 220 Ala. 143, 124 So. 200; Bouler v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 224 Ala. 211, 139 So. 289; Morgan v. City of Guntersville, 239 Ala. 669, 191 So. 877.
We are in accord with the trial court in the conclusion reached from the facts found.
Affirmed.
SIMPSON, GOODWYN and MAYFIELD, JJ., concur.