Case Title: Williams v. Preferred Development Corporation

Citation: 452 S.W.2d 344

Docket Number: 

State: tennessee

Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Date: 1970-03-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
452 S.W.2d 344 (1970) Margaret Y. WILLIAMS v. PREFERRED DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION. Supreme Court of Tennessee. March 2, 1970. Ogle & Ogle, Sevierville, for appellee. Paul E. Parker, O'Neil, Parker, Williamson & Jarvis, Knoxville, of counsel, for appellant. McCANLESS, Justice. Mrs. Margaret Y. Williams sued Preferred Development Corporation, developer of a resort on English Mountain in Sevier County, to recover benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Law for the death of her husband, Fletcher E. Williams, Sr., who was killed by a shot from a .22 calibre magnum gun on June 9, 1967. Williams, Holtsclaw, and Clint Huff all were employed by the defendant and the duties of the deceased required him to be on the project at night, and the defendant provided living quarters in a building also used as the project office. On the evening he was killed Williams, Holtsclaw, and Huff prepared a supper at the house in which Huff was staying and after the supper Huff drove the others to the office building. Holtsclaw's wife and young son had arrived from Cleveland to spend the weekend with him, and Mrs. Holtsclaw testified that after the family had gone to bed a whippoorwill disturbed her husband and, expressing irritation at the noise, and taking a miner's helmet equipped with an electric lamp and his gun, he said he was going to "get" the whippoorwill; that he went into the room that Williams occupied and that she heard a report and when she went into William's room she found him fatally shot. Holtsclaw was not a witness and his whereabouts was not known at the time of the trial. Mrs. Holtsclaw was the only person who gave evidence about the shooting, and although she heard she did not see the shot fired. There is an element of mystery about the occurrence but the Circuit Judge found that the shooting was accidental and his finding is supported by substantial evidence. Thus we find that the deceased was killed when and where his employment required him to be by a shot fired accidentally by a fellow worker. The question is whether the accidental death of the deceased was one "arising out of and in the course of employment" and thus compensable. In Shubert v. Steelman, 214 Tenn. 102, 377 S.W.2d 940, the Court, in an opinion by Mr. Justice Felts, said: The facts of this case are distinguishable from those in Knox v. Batson, 217 Tenn. 620, 399 S.W.2d 765, in which recovery was denied in the case of employees who were asphyxiated in a motel room. There the employment was suspended for the night and the employees stopped at the motel because they chose to do so and not because they were required by their employment to stop there. The facts in Carmichael v. J.C. Mahan Motor Co., 157 Tenn. 613, 11 S.W.2d 672, are similar to those of the case now before us. The petitioner was a porter or janitor in the defendant's garage. A customer brought her automobile to the establishment to have it repaired and left three small boys there while she went elsewhere in the city to attend to some business. During her absence the boys climbd to the mezzanine floor and one of them shot the petitioner with an air rifle, with the result that he lost the sight of an eye. The Court said: In this case the deceased was where his employment required him to be at a time it required him to be there. His duty and that of Holtsclaw, among other things, required them to protect the property. It was *346 reasonable to assume that firearms would be available to them and, when a gun discharged and accidentally killed the deceased, his death must be held to have arisen from the employment as well as having occurred during its course. The Judgment of the Circuit Court is affirmed at the cost of the defendant.