Title: Fontenot v. Fontenot
Citation: 100 So. 2d 477, 234 La. 480
Docket Number: N/A
State: Louisiana
Issuer: Louisiana Supreme Court
Date: February 10, 1958

100 So. 2d 477 (1958) 234 La. 480 Delson FONTENOT v. Ulysse FONTENOT. No. 43605. Supreme Court of Louisiana. February 10, 1958. *478 Guillory &amp; Guillory, by Robert K. Guillory, Eunice, for plaintiff-appellant. Paul C. Tate, Mamou, for defendant-respondent. HAMITER, Justice. In this suit plaintiff is seeking compensation payments as for total and permanent disability allegedly growing out of an injury received while he was working for the defendant farmer in Evangeline Parish. The district court rejected his demands, and its judgment was affirmed by the First Circuit Court of Appeal. See 95 So. 2d 212. The case is presently before us on a writ of certiorari directed to the latter tribunal. In written reasons for judgment the district judge (Honorable J. Cleveland Fruge) set forth in detail the facts on which his decision was based, and those findings were concurred in and adopted by the Court of Appeal. They are amply substantiated by the record, and we quote them with approval as follows: "Defendant, Ulysse Fontenot, is a small farmer who owns twenty (20) acres of land in Evangeline Parish. His father, Relis Fontenot, and grandmother, Mrs. Ozema Fontenot, also own land in the same vicinity and defendant, in addition to planting his land, rents approximately sixty (60) acres of their land. The land not rented by defendant is rented to small tenants, some of whom have been on the land for forty years, and some of whom are the children of tenants who stayed with the land after they became grown. There appears to have been from three to five such tenants over the years. The Court of Appeal, after adopting these findings, was also warranted in stating [95 So.2d 214]: Accordingly, the question posed is whether, in view of the above circumstances, plaintiff's injuries are compensable under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Law. R.S. 23:1021 et seq. It is well settled that farming is not a hazardous occupation per se. Robinson v. *480 Atkinson, 198 La. 238, 3 So. 2d 604; Collins v. Spielman, 200 La. 586, 8 So. 2d 608. However, it has often been held that an occupation or a business not hazardous per se becomes amenable to the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Law, and the employer is required to pay benefits to an injured employee under certain circumstances, if it entails the operation of mechanized equipment (such as trucks, tractors, automobiles, etc.) as a necessary incident thereto. Robinson v. Atkinson and Collins v. Spielman, both supra, Reagor v. First National Life Insurance Company, 212 La. 789, 33 So. 2d 521, and Meyers v. Southwest Region Conference Association of Seventh Day Adventists, 230 La. 310, 88 So. 2d 381. With respect to the liability of the employer in the latter type of occupation or business, as well as to the right of recovery of an injured person employed therein, the pronouncements contained in Gallien v. Judge, 28 So. 2d 101, 102 (Court of Appeal, First Circuit, decided in 1947 and a writ of certiorari denied by this court) accurately and fully summarize the jurisprudence of this state. We quote with approval from the opinion of that case, authored by the late Justice Sam A. Le Blanc who subsequently served as a member of this court, as follows: "Broadly stated, the jurisprudence in Louisiana, in cases of this kind, is to the effect that where an employer's main or primary business is nonhazardous but some features of it partake of a hazardous nature and one of his employees is engaged in both parts of the work, his injury may be compensable even though it should occur when he is engaged in the performance of his duties in the nonhazardous part. But, as stated, he must be engaged in both features of the work or at least it should appear that his services are occasionally connected either directly or indirectly with the hazardous part of the business. Where the service he is performing at the time of the accident is wholly disassociated from the hazardous feature of the business his injury and resulting disability is not compensable. * * * In keeping with these pronouncements are observations contained in Richardson v. Crescent Forwarding &amp; Transportation Co., Ltd., 17 La.App. 428, 135 So. 88, Gray v. Tremont Lumber Company, La.App., 185 So. 314 (writ of certiorari denied), and Reagor v. First National Life Insurance Company and Meyers v. Southwest Region Conference Association of Seventh Day *481 Adventists, both supra. Particularly in the Reagor case we observed [212 La. 789, 33 So.2d 522]: "The insurance business is not one of the occupations designated as hazardous under Section 1 of Act 20 of 1914. However, this does not mean that defendant is not amenable to the provisions of the Act if, as plaintiff claims, the business entails the operation of automobiles as a necessary incident thereto. * * * provided, of course, that plaintiff is sometimes brought into contact with the hazardous features. Byas v. Hotel Bentley, Inc., 157 La. 1030, 103 So. 303. Obviously, the mere allegation that some of the solicitors employed by defendant use automobiles in performing their work falls far short of a showing that the operation of automobiles is a necessary incident to defendant's business and that plaintiff was required by his employment to ride in, or be otherwise brought in contact with, the machines." And in the Meyers case we said [230 La. 310, 88 So.2d 385]: "Although the conducting of a church organization is not hazardous per se, this does not mean that such a body is not amenable to the provisions of the Compensation Act if its operations are such as to entail the use of automobiles as a necessary incident thereto. * * * Indeed, it is well established by the foregoing authorities and others too numerous to mention that, if a business normally nonhazardous has hazardous features, any employee regularly exposed to the hazardous features is entitled to workmen's compensation even though, when injured, he is engaged in the nonhazardous branch of his work. * * *" Thus, according to our settled jurisprudence, for an injured employee to receive benefits under the statute, where the business of the employer is essentially nonhazardous, it must be shown that the duties of his employment demanded that he operate or otherwise come in contact with mechanized equipment. No case of this nature has been called to our attention, and we know of none, in which compensation was awarded in the absence of such a showing. This plaintiff, as stated above, was not required by the duties of his employment to, and he did not in fact, come in contact with any of the hazardous features of defendant's farming operations. Consequently, according to the aforediscussed jurisprudence, his injury is not compensable. The cases cited and relied on by plaintiff's counsel do not militate against this conclusion (Collins v. Spielman and Robinson v. Atkinson, both supra; Griffin v. Catherine Sugar Company, Inc., 219 La. 846, 54 So. 2d 121; Norris v. Hargis, La. App.,77 So. 2d 60, and Roy v. Guillot, La. App., 84 So.2d 469). The employee in each was permitted recovery under the statute because he was required to, and did as a part of his regular employment, operate or otherwise come in contact with a mechanized phase of the business involved. In none was it held that an employee, not exposed by his employment to power equipment, was entitled to compensation benefits merely because the employer used some machinery in connection with his ordinarily nonhazardous business. For the reasons assigned the judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed.