Case Name: Helena Amelia Hopper, appellant, v. Cliff T. Koenigstein, appellee
Court: Nebraska Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Nebraska
Decision Date: 1939-02-24
Citations: 135 Neb. 837
Docket Number: No. 30447
Parties: Helena Amelia Hopper, appellant, v. Cliff T. Koenigstein, appellee.
Judges: Heard before Simmons, C. J., Rose, Paine, Carter, Mess-more and Johnsen, JJ., and Chappell, District Judge.
Reporter: Nebraska Reports
Volume: 135
Pages: 837–849

Head Matter:
Helena Amelia Hopper, appellant, v. Cliff T. Koenigstein, appellee.
284 N. W. 346
Filed February 24, 1939.
No. 30447.
Fay H. Pollock, for appellant.
Kennedy, Holland, De Lacy & Svoboda, contra.
Heard before Simmons, C. J., Rose, Paine, Carter, Mess-more and Johnsen, JJ., and Chappell, District Judge.

Opinion:
Johnsen, J.
The sole question involved is whether the death of Roy Hopper arose out of his employment, so as to entitle his widow to benefits under the workmen's compensation law. The compensation court dismissed her claim, and the district court, to which she appealed, similarly denied a recovery. She has appealed to this court.
Hopper was employed as a service man in the electrical refrigerating business operated by defendant at Norfolk, Nebraska. On June 24, 1936, he was sent to Stuart, Nebraska, to repair and adjust a beer cooling system, which he had installed about a month previously, in the tavern or beer parlor of Carroll Eaton. He began work about 1:30 p. m. The condenser motor, located in the basement of the tavern, had burned out. It was removed and replaced with a larger motor. The refrigerating system then had to be balanced by adjusting the pressure and temperature control valves, so the beer would have proper foam content. The time usually required for the whole task was approximately four hours, although there is testimony that, under special conditions, it might take ten or twelve hours.
Irvin Kouba, the salesman who had sold Eaton the equipment, accompanied Hopper to Stuart and remained with him most of the time he was working in the basement. About 4:30 p. m. Kouba and Eaton decided to go fishing. Hopper still had to adjust the valves which controlled the amount of refrigerant going into the coils. These valves were located on the main floor of the beer parlor, two inside and one just outside the cooling compartment.
From that time on Hopper struck up an acquaintanceship with Floyd Denton, a polish salesman, who had come into the beer parlor during the afternoon. For about three and a half hours they fraternized and drank beer with each other. Witnesses describe them as talking, laughing and joking together. Hopper offered to buy drinks for two women who came into the tavern. The four seated themselves at a table, indulged in sociability, and consumed several rounds of beer. Denton undertook to sing, but was stopped by the tavern keeper. When the women had to leave, Denton invited them to return later. Denton's indulgences ultimately produced intoxication. There is no testimony that Hopper became intoxicated, and, on the autopsy performed a couple of hours after his death, no evidence of alcoholism was observed. It does appear, however, that he drank at least six or seven glasses of beer. Denton says they had forty or fifty glasses together, but his testimony is not worthy of much credence. He was an ex-convict, with a somewhat extensive criminal record.
Hopper apparently made some momentary adjustments of the temperature control valves during the course of his companionship with Denton. Kouba, however, personally checked the thermometer, on his return from the fishing trip about 8:00 p. m., and asked Hopper to adjust the valves. Hopper did so and then returned to the bar where he was drinking with Denton. No further temperature adjustments were made or needed, although the caps or covers on the valves were not yet replaced. Within a few minutes thereafter, Denton struck Hopper with his fist, rupturing a blood vessel in the brain, and causing Hopper's immediate death.
Hopper was shown to have been a peaceable man, of good reputation and character. There was nothing in the conversation between him and Denton that had attracted the attention of the five or six other persons standing at the bar when the blow was struck. The record discloses no acceptable provocation, notwithstanding Denton sought to claim, in a deposition taken at the state penitentiary, where he was committed for Hopper's death, that Hopper had called him a vile name. At the time of his arrest he had made the following simple explanation to the village mar-shall: "I thought I would just bloody up his nose for him, and I hit him a crack." The assault, seemingly, was one of those expressions of resentment or assumed superiority which drunken men sometimes unloose toward those with whom they have been fraternizing.
The widow insists in this situation that she is entitled to compensation on the grounds, (1) that the assault was occasioned by the special risk to which Hopper's work in the beer parlor exposed him, and (2) that, even if the assault did not result from exposure to any special risk, Hopper's fraternizing and drinking with Denton were such reasonable and permissible incidents of his employment as to constitute part of the hazard of the industry.
The general rule is that, unless other controlling factors are involved, injury or death from assault occurring during the course of employment is compensable, (1) where the conditions of the employment expose the workman to the likelihood of such special risk, or (2) where there is an immediate causal connection existing between the employment and the assault. 112 A. L. R. 1262; annotation.
The case of Socha v. Cudahy Packing Co., 105 Neb. 691, 181 N. W. 706, where compensation was allowed for death resulting from the playful application of an air hose to the deceased's person by a fellow employee, is an example of the first class. It was there said: "If a person familiar with the whole situation could reasonably contemplate that such an accident might result from the peculiar nature and circumstances of the employment, and the nature of the place where the injured man was required to work, then it may reasonably be said to arise out of it."
In the present case, however, we are unable to accept the contention that Hopper's death was due to the fact that he was required to work in a beer parlor. If the beer parlor constituted a special hazard, as it is argued, the assault was not occasioned by that hazard. Hopper was struck, not because of his presence in the beer parlor, but because of his relationship with Denton. It was the culminating incident of their extended fraternizing and drinking together. Denton did not assault a stranger, of whom there were several at the bar, but his comrade of the afternoon, toward whom he did not feel the usual conventional restraints. He had apparently grown tired or resentful of Hopper, or he wanted to display his superiority, for, as he expressed it immediately after the assault, "I thought I would just bloody up his nose for him." . The compensation court and the district court were right, therefore, in holding that Hopper's death did not result from a special risk to which his employment had exposed him.
There remains to be considered the contention that Hopper's fraternizing and drinking with Denton were incidents which his employer might reasonably have expected he would do in connection with his work, and that the consequences thereof accordingly arose out of the employment and were part of the industrial risk.
The term "arising out of the employment" in the workmen's compensation law covers all risks of accident from causative acts done or occurring within the scope or sphere of the employment. All acts reasonably necessary or incident to the performance of the work, including such tnatters of personal convenience and comfort, not in conflict with specific instructions, as an employee may normally be expected to indulge in, under the conditions of his work, are regarded as being within the scope or sphere of the employment.
The rule applicable to personal ministrations of the workman has been stated by a text-writer as follows: "Acts of ministration by a servant to himself, such as quenching his thirst, relieving his hunger, protecting himself from excessive cold, performance of which while at work are reasonably necessary to his health and comfort, are incidents to his employment and acts of service therein within the workmen's compensation acts, though they are only indirectly conducive to the purpose of the employment. Consequently no break in the employment is caused by the mere fact that the workman is ministering to his personal comforts or necessities, as by warming himself, or seeking shelter, or by leaving his work to relieve nature, or to procure drink, refreshments, food, or fresh air, or to rest in the shade." 1 Hcmnold, Workmen's Compensation, p. 381.
The cases of Moise v. Fruit Dispatch Co., ante, p. 684, 283 N. W. 495, and Miller v. Reisch Co., 132 Neb. 338, 271 N. W. 853, illustrate this principle. Goodwin v. Omaha Printing Co., 131 Neb. 212, 267 N. W. 419, is an example of another type of incident which was recognized as not constituting such a substantial deviation from the employment as to create an independent hazard.
The test to be applied in such a situation to any act or conduct of an employee which does not constitute a direct performance of his work is whether it is reasonably incident thereto, or whether it is so substantial a deviation as to constitute a break in the employment and to create a formidable independent hazard. The rule necessarily is not capable of formulaic application, and the particular facts of each case must be carefully considered.
It may be that, in the circumstances of the present case, as the widow contends, Hopper could reasonably be expected to take a drink of beer as an incident of his employment. Hopper's employer in fact testified that sometimes a service man sampled beer to test its temperature, although the customary way was to look at the thermometer. But even if it were Hopper's privilege to sample beer in testing its temperature, or to take a drink as a reasonable incident of a leisure interval of his employment, that privilege could not be carried to the point of license, so that it, and not the emp'oyment, became the dominating factor in his conduct and relationship. The drinking by Hopper of six or seven glasses of beer in a three and a half hour period, the cultivation and continuance of a personal relationship with Denton to the point of Denton's intoxication, and the general sociabilities which were engaged in during the afternoon together created a hazard that went beyond the privileges or reasonable incidents of Hopper's employment. At the time of the assault, he stood at the tavern bar exposed to a formidable independent hazard which he, and not Ms employment, had created.
His death, as held by the compensation court and the district court, did not arise out of his employment, within the meaning and intendment of the workmen's compensation law.
Affirmed.