Opinion ID: 1511681
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the Employee's Injury Arose Out of His Employment

Text: The commissioner rested his conclusion that Wentzell's injury did not arise out of his employment on three grounds: (1) Crowley was not a supervisor and had no authority to issue the orders; (2) there was nothing to indicate that this was a hazard connected with business or any evidence that it had ever occurred before; and (3) there was a ten-minute cooling off period between the argument and the assault that transformed the work-related quarrel into a personal one. The appellant-employee argues that these factors do not, as a matter of law, support the commissioner's conclusion. Ramsdell v. Naples, Me., 393 A.2d 1352 (1978), decided after the date of the commissioner's decree in the instant case, is dispositive of this issue. Ramsdell worked as a meat cutter in a small room along with one Crawford. On the day of the incident, Ramsdell threw a piece of meat against the wall of the room, an action which offended Crawford since Crawford was responsible for cleaning the room. After a verbal exchange, Crawford drove a boning knife through Ramsdell's hand. In affirming the commissioner's conclusion that Ramsdell's injury arose out of his employment, we cited Larson's treatise for the proposition that it is universally agreed that if the assault grew out of an argument over the performance of the work . . . the assault is compensable. 1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law § 11.12, cited in Ramsdell v. Naples, supra at 1355. See also Wolfe v. Shorey, Me., 290 A.2d 892 (1972). In the instant case, there is no doubt that the assault arose out of an argument over the performance of work. The dispute centered on the question of which employee would trim the rubber sheets, an important part of each employee's job. As the commissioner found, there was no evidence of prior animosity between Wentzell and Crowley. Moreover, since their shifts were back to back, the dispute arose at the only time the employees could discuss the allocation of responsibility to trim the sheets. The fact that Crowley was not in a supervisory capacity is irrelevant. Finally, we reject the commissioner's conclusion that the ten-minute period between the argument and the assault transformed the dispute from a quarrel having its origin in work to a personal vendetta between the co-employees. While recognizing that some jurisdictions have held that a cooling off period between a work-related dispute and the actual attack may relieve an employer of liability, see 1 Larson, supra at § 11.13 n. 56, the critical element is not the length of the cooling off period but what occurred during that period. Id. at § 11.13. In the instant case, there was no intervening quarrel between the employees that severed the link between the argument over the performance of work and the assault. The commissioner erred in concluding that Wentzell's injury did not arise out of his employment.