Title: De Arman v. Ingalls Iron Works Co.
Citation: 61 So. 2d 764
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: December 4, 1952

61 So. 2d 764 (1952)
DE ARMAN
v.
INGALLS IRON WORKS CO., Inc. et al.
6 Div. 100.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
December 4, 1952.
*765 Jas. W. Aird, Birmingham, for appellant.
London &amp; Yancey, Birmingham, for appellees.
LIVINGSTON, Chief Justice.
Action for death of plaintiff's intestate, Mark Myatt DeArman, under the Homicide Statute. Section 123, Title 7, Code of Alabama 1940.
Myrtle C. DeArman, as administratrix of the estate of Mark Myatt DeArman, sues Ingalls Iron Works, Inc., a corporation; the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation, a corporation; Monroe B. Lanier; Clement S. Walter; and J. M. Shelton. The plaintiff's intestate was an employee of either one or the other of the corporate defendants and the individual defendants are employees of the corporate defendants who exercised control over the works, ways and machinery of the corporate defendants or were in charge of directing the work of the plaintiff's intestate at the time he met his death by electrocution while engaged in the performance of his duties as a welder for the corporate defendants.
The complaint, as amended, contains four counts sounding in damages for the wanton or wilful killing of plaintiff's intestate. Counts One and Three are framed under the provisions of the Employer's Liability Act of Alabama, Section 326, Title 26, Code of Alabama 1940. Counts Two and Four are framed under the common law and *766 charge wilful or wanton killing of plaintiff's intestate by the defendants, their servants, agents or employees, while acting within the line and scope of their authority in failing to provide safe working tools to plaintiff's intestate and in failing to warn plaintiff's intestate of the inherent danger incident to the use of an electric welding machine furnished plaintiff's intestate by defendants for use in the performance of his work for defendants.
The court below sustained defendants' demurrers to plaintiff's complaint, and to each count thereof, separately and severally. Whereupon, plaintiff took a voluntary nonsuit because of such adverse ruling by the trial court with right of appeal.
It is contended by appellant that the following quoted averment of each count of the complaint makes a case for common law liability or liability under the Employer's Liability Act of the State of Alabama, Sections 326-329, Title 26, Code of Alabama 1940, making recovery of damages under the Homicide Act, Section 123, Title 7, Code of Alabama 1940, permissible under the facts alleged in the four separate counts of plaintiff's complaint:
It is argued that the factual allegation of the several counts of the complaint showing that the defendants had knowledge that the use of the electrical welding machine furnished to the plaintiff was likely to cause death by the use thereof and that plaintiff's intestate had no knowledge of the inherent danger incident to the use of the machine, clearly shows that on the part of the defendants, the event, plaintiff's intestate's death, was neither unexpected nor unforeseen. The allegations of the complaint show knowledge on the part of the defendants from which death could both be foreseen and expected by virtue of the fact that plaintiff's intestate was required to use an inherently dangerous machine, known to the defendants as being inherently dangerous and known to the defendants to be likely to produce death by the use thereof by a person unacquainted with such inherent dangers.
On the other hand, appellees insist that the complaint states a cause of action, if any, under the Alabama Workmen's Compensation Act. The case then turns on a proper construction of the definition of "accident," contained in Section 262, Title 26, Code of Alabama 1940. The word "accident" is there defined as follows:
It is apparent that appellant has attempted to bring her case within the ambit of the decision rendered by this Court in the case of Gentry v. Swann Chemical Co., 234 Ala. 313, 174 So. 530. In our opinion, this case is not here controlling.
Assuming, as appellant argues, that the death of appellant's intestate was not *767 an unexpected or unforeseen event as concerns the appellees, it is not argued, nor can it be successfully argued, that it was not an unexpected or unforeseen event as regards the appellant's intestate. Nothing more is required to bring the case under the Workmen's Compensation Act than that the harm that appellant's intestate sustained shall be unexpected or unforeseen by him. The test as to whether injury is unexpected and unforeseen so if received on a single occasion occurs "by accident" is that the sufferer did not intend or expect that injury would on that particular occasion result from what he was doing. What was actually probable, or even inevitable, because of circumstances unknown to the sufferer, is unimportant. Many cases defining "accidental injuries," accidents, and the like, hold that the unexpected and unforeseen event is one unexpected or unforeseen by the injured employee. Jakub v. Industrial Commission, 288 Ill. 87, 90, 123 N.E. 263; John H. Kaiser Lumber Co. v. Industrial Commission of Wisconsin, 181 Wis. 513, 195 N.W. 329; Early-Stratton Co. v. Rollison, 156 Tenn. 256, 300 S.W. 569.
Stated another way, under the compensation statutes, an accident may be an event not expected or designed by the workman himself although it may have been designed by another, and be the result of wilful, intentional, or designed acts on the part of others. As stated in 71 C.J., Section 328, at page 571:
While we do not seem to have a case deciding the specific point, our decisions comport with the foregoing construction.
In the case of Dallas Mfg. Co. v. Kennemer, 243 Ala. 42, 8 So. 2d 519, 520, it is said:
In the case of Howard Odorless Cleaners v. Blevins, 237 Ala. 210, 186 So. 141, 142, a deceased employee was hired to fire the boiler at night and protect the premises, and was allowed to sleep on the premises of his employer. He was furnished a pistol and a flashlight. It further appeared that while on duty, robbers entered the premises, bludgeoned the workman and crushed his skull, and the safe was broken into. There, the court said:
In the case of Dean v. Stockham Pipe &amp; Fittings Co., supra, this Court held that where a night watchman was killed, he *768 met his death due to an accident which arose out of and in the course of his employment.
In the case of Gulf States Creosoting Company v. Walker, 224 Ala. 104, 139 So. 261, 262, it was said:
The rule is stated in 71 C.J. 234, Section 9, as follows:
Under the foregoing authorities, we are clear to the conclusion that the appellant's intestate was killed by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment and is within the purview of the Alabama Workmen's Compensation Act. See also Mallory S. S. Co. v. Higgins, 22 Ala.App. 26, 111 So. 758; Garrett v. Gadsden Cooperage Co., 209 Ala. 223, 96 So. 188.
Suggestion is also made that the point of the applicability of the Alabama Workmen's Compensation Act was not properly raised by a demurrer and that the act should have been pleaded; this, in order to give appellant the opportunity to plead the fact that the deceased employee left no dependents within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
This direct question was presented to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in the case of Patterson v. Sears Roebuck &amp; Co., 196 F.2d 947, 949, appealed from the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, and decided May 16, 1952. That court, speaking through Chief Judge Hutcheson, said:
In addition, it is well settled in Alabama that:
We find no error in the record, and the cause is affirmed.
Affirmed.
FOSTER, SIMPSON and GOODWYN, JJ., concur.