Title: Siebert v. Hoch

State: kansas

Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court

Document:

199 Kan. 299 (1967)
428 P.2d 825
MARION A. SIEBERT, Widow and Guardian of David D. Siebert, Minor Dependent of Donald J. Siebert, Deceased, Appellees,
v.
ORVILLE J. HOCH and R.F. HOCH, d/b/a HOCH'S DAIRY, ORVILLE J. HOCH, d/b/a VICTORY ALL STAR DAIRY, and ST. PAUL FIRE & MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellants.
No. 44,915

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed June 10, 1967.
Raymond L. Spring and Jerry W. Hannah, both of Topeka, argued the cause, and Clayton M. Davis and Mark L. Bennett, both of Topeka, were with them on the brief for the appellants.
Charles L. Davis, Jr., of Topeka, argued the cause, and Byron M. Gray, Robert D. Hecht, and David L. Ryan, all of Topeka, were with him on the brief for the appellees.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
HARMAN, C.:
This is a workmen's compensation proceeding brought by the widow and minor child of Donald J. Siebert to obtain compensation for his death. The workmen's compensation examiner and the director, upon review, denied such an award. Upon appeal by claimants the district court granted it.
The sole question presented in this appeal by respondents and their insurance carrier is whether the district court's conclusion that the death of the workman arose out of and in the course of his employment is supported by the evidence.
The evidentiary facts and circumstances surrounding the death, to the extent they were developed at the hearing before the examiner, are not in dispute. There is dispute as to the interpretation and conclusion to be drawn from those facts  in view of their paucity  and as to that which actually occurred, as shown by the evidence.
The story is perhaps best told initially by stating the comprehensive findings of fact made by the district court as follows:
From the foregoing the district court concluded the workman's death was by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment and awarded compensation accordingly. The respondents and their insurance carrier, appellants herein, assert the record contains neither direct evidence nor logical inference to support the court's finding as a fact and conclusion as a matter of law that the workman's death arose (1) out of and (2) in the course of his employment.
Our workmen's compensation act (K.S.A. 44-501) provides that in order to be compensable an accidental injury must arise "out of" and "in the course of" the employment. The two phrases have separate and distinct meanings (Floro v. Ticehurst, 147 Kan. 426, 76 P.2d 773, Bailey v. Mosby Hotel Co., 160 Kan. 258, 160 P.2d 701); they are conjunctive and each condition must exist before compensation is allowable (Pinkston v. Rice Motor Co., 180 Kan. 295, 303 P.2d 197, Tompkins v. Rinner Construction Co., 194 Kan. 278, 398 P.2d 578); and as to them every case must be determined upon its own facts.
The phrase "in the course of" employment relates to the time, place and circumstances under which the accident occurred, and means the injury happened while the workman was at work in his employer's service (Pinkston v. Rice Motor Co., supra).
This court has had occasion many times to consider the phrase "out of" the employment, and has stated that it points to the cause or origin of the accident and requires some causal connection between the accidental injury and the employment. Some of our decisions to this effect are: Carney v. Hellar, 155 Kan. 674, 127 P.2d *304 496; Jones v. Lozier-Broderick & Gordon, 160 Kan. 191, 160 P.2d 932; Neal v. Boeing Airplane Co., 161 Kan. 322, 167 P.2d 643; Hilyard v. Lohmann-Johnson Drilling Co., 168 Kan. 177, 211 P.2d 89; Pinkston v. Rice Motor Co., supra; and Bohanan v. Schlozman Ford, Inc., 188 Kan. 795, 366 P.2d 28.
This general rule has been elaborated to the effect that an injury arises "out of" employment when there is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury (see Hudson v. Salina Country Club, 148 Kan. 697, 84 P.2d 854; Wilson v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 185 Kan. 725, 347 P.2d 235; Rorabaugh v. General Mills, 187 Kan. 363, 356 P.2d 796).
An injury arises "out of" employment if it arises out of the nature, conditions, obligations and incidents of the employment (Bohanan v. Schlozman Ford, Inc., supra; Geurian v. Kansas City Power & Light Co., 192 Kan. 589, 389 P.2d 782). In Taber v. Tole Landscape Co., 181 Kan. 616, 313 P.2d 290, this court stated the foregoing tests exclude an injury not fairly traceable to the employment and not coming from a hazard to which the workman would have been equally exposed apart from the employment.
Passing the problem of whether the death was shown to have occurred "in the course of" employment, we examine the record in the light most favorable to claimants, appellees herein, to ascertain if there was sufficient competent evidence to support the trial court's conclusion that the death arose "out of" the employment. The crucial finding, of course, is No. 13 wherein the court concluded the workman was killed by some unknown person intent on burglary and larceny. From this it is asserted by appellees, and the trial court so reasoned, that the workman was exposed to the hazard of attempted burglary and consequent assault while on and in charge of the premises where the employer's money was kept, thereby rendering the assault causally connected and incident to the employment.
Appellants contend there is no evidence to suport finding No. 13. This finding is merely a conclusion of fact and appellees must stand, if at all, on the evidentiary matters stated in the preceding twelve findings. The record does contain other items of evidence which are not in dispute but, from appellees' standpoint, nothing additional *305 in support of the burglar theory beyond that contained in the first twelve findings. Some of those other items will be mentioned later.
Appellees contend that finding No. 10  that seven months later the building was burglarized and the safe in the room in which Siebert was killed was opened  is evidence of burglarious entry on June 14, 1963. This is the only evidence advanced in support of the June burglary. We must determine, first, whether this, with the other circumstances, is sufficient evidence in support of finding No. 13.
Appellees rely primarily on Phillips v. Kansas City, L. & W. Rly. Co., 126 Kan. 133, 267 Pac. 4, for their position the evidence sufficiently supports finding No. 13. Phillips was a proceeding to obtain compensation for the death of appellee's husband who, while employed as a ticket agent at appellant's station in Kansas City, was fatally injured by blows on the head inflicted by someone whose identity was not ascertained. Decedent Phillips had been given the privilege of operating a lunch counter in the waiting room of the station where candy and sundries were sold. He was required to keep the ticket office, waiting room and stand open daily until 10:15 p.m. About 9:00 p.m. he was found unconscious inside the gate by the candy counter. The door of one showcase was open. He had earlier deposited money from sales of tickets in the safe of the freight room, but smaller amounts of money were found in the ticket drawer, in a cigar box, in a cigar can under the counter and in his pockets. His damaged spectacles were found under the icebox. During the two years Phillips had acted as agent the ticket office had been robbed four or five times and the freight office once. There was hearsay testimony indicating the station was robbed at the time decedent was injured but this testimony was not considered. This court stated:
Here the workman was shot in the head while asleep in the locked and darkened office. Appellees contend he was shot by a burglar intent on larceny, asserting whoever entered the building the night Siebert was murdered is the same unknown person who returned seven months later and completed the burglary.
Appellees are entitled to all reasonable inferences and deductions to be drawn from the evidence, circumstantial as well as direct. But we are unable to infer that a burglary occurred on the night Siebert was killed simply from the fact a burglary under mysterious circumstances occurred at the same place seven months later. We regard this as sheer speculation and conjecture.
There was no direct evidence introduced to indicate an attempted burglary. The affair was investigated by Topeka police. The investigating detective found no evidence indicating a burglary and attempted larceny and was of opinion there was no such attempt. A uniformed patrolman who had provided night protection to the buildings in the area knew of no incidents at the dairy in the two years of his employment preceding the homicide, although it was shown there had been burglaries in the neighborhood at some undisclosed time prior to Siebert's death. There was not the slightest indication in the evidence a would-be burglar was frightened away, or that the same person returned, as hypothecated by appellees.
The examiner who initially heard the case found the evidence was lacking to show Siebert was shot as a result of an attempted burglary but that to the contrary the circumstantial evidence pointed to his death as a result of being shot over personal matters. The director found similarly, stating he could not find in the record sufficient evidence to show a causal connection between the accident and the employment.
We believe the Phillips case must be distinguished from the case at bar. There the premises had been robbed at least five or six times *307 before, with the result money was kept in various places in small sums. The small working space was invaded. The door to the candy case was opened, indicating the deceased had been lured to the place of assault. This court, aside from the hearsay testimony, believed the rational inferences to be drawn supported the theory of banditry.
Appellants argue that, as the examiner found, the only rational inference to be drawn here from the evidence is that Siebert met his death because of personal reasons not associated with the employment.
It is not necessary for us to decide whether this proposition is established. The burden of proof is not upon appellants to make out a defense. The burden remains on appellees to establish by evidence the connection of the death with the employment. Such connection may not rest on mere surmise or conjecture (Jones v. Lozier-Broderick & Gordon, 160 Kan. 191, 160 P.2d 932). The record does contain other evidence, beyond that in the trial court's finding, tending to support the examiner's conclusion. Siebert's brother Jim, who was not called as a witness and who also worked for respondents evidently at Emporia, knew about Siebert's pistol being in Siebert's automobile; the automobile was parked outside the dairy the night of the murder; the pistol, conceivably the murder weapon, was never found. Siebert's widow, one of the appellees, told an agent of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation she thought her brother-in-law, Jim, had shot her husband; however, the agent, as a result of his examination, concluded she really had no firsthand knowledge of how the crime was committed.
We conclude finding No. 13 is not supported by the evidence.
The general rule has been stated that assaults for private reasons do not arise out of the employment unless, by facilitating an assault which would not otherwise be made, the employment becomes a contributing factor (1 Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law, § 11.00). Viewed as a totally unexplained assault appellees still may not prevail in the light of the rules already stated. Once the burglary theory is eliminated, the record contains no showing the employment brought the workman in contact with the risk that in fact caused his death or that it increased that risk  as was the situation in Stark v. Wilson, Receiver, 114 Kan. 459, 219 Pac. 507, and in Phillips  or of any connection at all between the employment and the death.
*308 Proof of the shooting of Siebert by an unknown assailant, for no known reason or motive, without more, fails to meet the statutory requisite that the death arose "out of" the employment. It becomes unnecessary to consider whether it arose "in the course of" the employment.
The judgment is reversed
APPROVED BY THE COURT.