Case Title: Rico v. PRECISION ENGINEERING & MFG. CO.

Citation: 381 So. 2d 170

Docket Number: 

State: mississippi

Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Date: 1980-03-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
381 So. 2d 170 (1980) Louis N. RICO, Jr. v. PRECISION ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC. No. 51657. Supreme Court of Mississippi. March 12, 1980. Moreton, Woodfield, Raines & Bloss, George F. Bloss, III, Gulfport, for appellant. White & Morse, John H. Rice, Gulfport, for appellee. Before ROBERTSON, P.J., and WALKER and LEE, JJ. ROBERTSON, Presiding Justice, for the Court: Louis N. Rico, Jr. sued his employer, Precision Engineering and Manufacturing Company, Inc. (Pemco), in the Circuit Court of Jackson County for damages sustained by him when he viewed his personal tool box left on the employer's premises and broken into by his employer when Rico failed to show up for work. Pemco filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, stating in its motion: The court sustained Pemco's motion to dismiss, the order stating: The facts, gleaned from the pleadings and exhibits, are rather unusual. Rico worked for Pemco as a machinist. On August 17, 1975, when Rico failed to show up for work, L.W. Zettler, vice president of Pemco, broke the lock on Rico's personal tool box and removed blueprints of the job on which Rico was working so that Pemco *171 could expedite the job. Plaintiff's declaration states: Rico first filed a claim with the Workmen's Compensation Commission but after Pemco answered, denying that Rico was injured on the job, and also filed its answers to interrogatories propounded to it, Rico moved for a voluntary dismissal or non-suit of his claim, and the administrative judge, on March 20, 1978, entered an order of voluntary dismissal, stating in part: Rico has assigned as error that: The Mississippi Workmen's Compensation law provides, among other things: In Etchison v. State Accident Insurance Fund, 8 Or. App. 395, 494 P.2d 455 (1972), the Oregon Court of Appeals sustained a finding that the claimant's injury was compensable, where the employee had hurt his back while moving a work bench on a Saturday morning when he was not about his regular job. The court stated: Pemco contends that the use of a tool box is just as much for the benefit of an employer as a work bench. Pemco also asserts that the case at bar is analogous to one *172 where an employee is assaulted by a fellow employee. As stated in Dunn, Mississippi Workmen's Compensation, § 161 (2nd Ed. 1967): This further language from Etchison, supra, seems applicable: The injury, if any, to Rico occurred when he was investigating the damaging of his tool box. The tool box was on Pemco's premises when forced open by his employer, and still there when Rico investigated. According to Pemco, the break-in occurred when Rico failed to show up for work and it was necessary for Pemco to obtain the blueprints of the job on which Rico was working so that the job could be expedited. We are of the opinion that the injuries, if any, did arise out of and in the course of his employment, and that his sole and exclusive remedy is under the provisions of the Mississippi Workmen's Compensation Act. For these reasons the order of the circuit court, dismissing with prejudice Rico's declaration on the ground that plaintiff's sole and exclusive remedy is in a proceeding before the Workmen's Compensation Commission, is affirmed. AFFIRMED. *173 PATTERSON, C.J., SMITH, P.J., and SUGG, WALKER, BROOM, LEE, BOWLING and COFER, JJ., concur.