Title: Bergren v. SE GUSTAFSON CONSTRUCTION COMPANY

State: south-dakota

Issuer: South Dakota Supreme Court

Document:

68 N.W.2d 477 (1955) Geraldine BERGREN, Claimant and Respondent, v. S. E. GUSTAFSON CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, Employer, and Travelers Insurance Company, Insurer, Appellants. No. 9452. Supreme Court of South Dakota. February 4, 1955. Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz & Smith, and Robert C. Heege, Sioux Falls, for employer, insurer and appellants. Boyce, Warren, Murphy & McDowell, Sioux Falls, for claimant and respondent. SMITH, Judge. Whether the death of the employee in the course of his employment, which resulted directly from lightning, is an injury arising out of his employment, is the question presented by this appeal in a workmen's compensation proceeding. The principal finding from which the Industrial Commissioner concluded the injury was not compensable reads as follows: The circuit court reviewed the record on appeal and concluded that the single inference reasonably to be drawn from the undisputed facts is that the employment exposed the employee to a greater risk or hazard from lightning than the general public, and hence that the injury arose from the employment and is compensable. The denial of award was therefore accordingly reversed and the Commissioner was directed to amend the findings and make a proper award of compensation to the claimant. The employer and its carrier have appealed to this court. We affirm the judgment of the circuit court. The statute defines "injury" or "personal injury" as only injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment. SDC 64.0102(4). As we have indicated, our sole concern is whether the described injury did arise out of the employment. It is conceded that the injury was accidental and in the course of the employment. A recognized purpose of the Workmen's Compensation Act, SDC 64.0101 et seq., is to transfer from the worker to the employer, and ultimately to the public, a greater portion of the economic loss due to industrial accidents and injuries. 58 Am. Jur., Workmen's Compensation, § 2, p. 576. The act is remedial and should be liberally construed. Meyer v. Roettele, 64 S.D. 36, 264 N.W. 191; Wilhelm v. Narregang-Hart Co., 66 S.D. 155, 279 N.W. 549; and Schwan v. Premack, 70 S.D. 371, 17 N.W.2d 911. The phrase "arising out of * * * the employment" has been considered by this court. In Anderson v. Hotel Cataract, 70 S.D. 376, 17 N.W.2d 913, 916, we quoted with approval from the Minnesota court in Hanson v. Robitshek-Schneider Co., 209 Minn. 596, 297 N.W. 19, 21, as follows: In Caswell's Case, 305 Mass. 500, 26 N.E.2d 328, at page 330, the Massachusetts court borrowed the words of Lord Shaw in Thom v. Sinclair [1917] A.C. 127, Ann.Cas.1917D, 188, to indicate the sweep of this phrase. It wrote, "It need not arise out of the nature of the employment. An injury arises out of the employment if it arises out of the nature, conditions, obligations or incidents of the employment; in other words, out of the employment looked at in any of its aspects." In Bauer's Case, 314 Mass. 4, 49 N.E.2d 118, at page 119, that court said, "`If a workman is injured by some natural force such as lightning, the heat of the sun, or extreme cold, which in itself has no kind of connection with employment, he cannot recover unless he can sufficiently associate such injury with his employment. This he can do if he can show that the employment exposed him in a special degree to suffering such an injury.'" Similar passages are found in the following decisions dealing with injuries by lightning. Mixon v. Kalman, 133 N.J.L. 113, 42 A.2d 309; McKiney v. Reynolds & Manley Lumber Co., 79 Ga.App. 826, 54 S.E.2d 471; Madura v. City of New York, 238 N.Y. 214, 144 N.E. 505; Newman v. Industrial Commission, 203 Wis. 358, 234 N.W. 495; and Crutchfield v. Bogle, Okl., 270 P.2d 640. The cases are collected in annotations in 13 A.L.R. 977; 40 A.L.R. 401; 46 A.L.R. 1218; and 53 A.L.R. 1084, and 83 A.L.R. 235. In Schneider, Perm.Ed., Vol. 6, § 1553, p. 89, it is written, "A reasonable interpretation of the general rule relating to injuries or death resulting from lightning, may be said to be that where the nature of the employment, or some condition therein or environment thereof, combines with the elements to produce injury or death, such injury or death is compensable as arising out of a risk incident in that employment." The crucial inquiry, in our opinion, is whether the employment, viewed in any of its aspects, contributed to the injury of the deceased. These facts appear without dispute in the record. The employer had just constructed a new ten-foot grade of wet earth. The duties of the employee placed him on that grade at the moment of his death. As he stood there his head projected several feet above any other object within a radius of at least 200 feet. The only expert testimony in the record is that because of his position on that wet grade, with his body projecting above his surroundings, deceased's peril was increased. The expert further testified that his altitude was more significant than the mass of the steel track caterpillar which stood on somewhat lower wet ground 50 feet away. According to the record, except for the described conditions contributed by the employment, the employee would not have been injured. In our opinion the only inference permissible therefrom is that the deceased received the discharge of a particular bolt of lightning because of his exposed position on the described moist grade. It was the employment which threw up the new wet grade and placed the employee in a position of peril thereon. Hence, we conclude *480 that the injury arose from the employment. Whether, under other circumstances, a comparison of the lightning hazard of those in the employment with that of others in the community may aid in determining the causal relation of the employment to a particular injury, we need not now decide. It is our view that neither the words nor the spirit of the act indicate an intention to deny compensation because the conditions contributed by the employment are but typical of those natural conditions which may expose the general public to the hazard of lightning, if it does appear that conditions actually contributed by the employment have combined with the elements to cause the employee to be struck by a particular bolt of lightning. Because the record will only support the single inference that the injury arose out of the employment, compensability becomes a question of law. Schlichting v. Radke, 67 S.D. 212, 291 N.W. 585. The judgment of the circuit court directing a proper award of compensation is affirmed. All the Judges concur.