Court Opinion

ID: 9548276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:00:56.832022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:44.986677
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority opinion rei-iterates the “departmental rule” and attempts to apply it to the facts in this case.
The evidence shows that claimant at the time he was injured was hauling gasoline from the refinery of respondents to a plant in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The delivery of the finished product . of respondent’s refinery to a point where such finished products can- be distributed and sold, in the course of business is an incidental part of the refinery. See Pemberton Bakery v. State Industrial Commission, 180 Okl. 446, 70 P.2d 98; H. J. Heinz Co. v, Wood, 181 Okl. 389, 74 P.2d 353; State Highway Department v. Allentharp, 199 Okl. 78, 182 P.2d 754; Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Nickens, 199 Old. 622, 189 P.2d 184; Ice v. Gardner, 183 Okl. 496, 83 P.2d 378.
The creation of a separate “transportation department” for organizational or accounting convenience is not sufficient excuse to apply the “departmental rule”. If this is done the, spirit and purpose of the Workmen’s Coiiipensation Act' will be violated and an employer engaged in a hazardous business covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act can escape the act merely by creating another so called “depart*150ment”. The “transportation department” of respondents' is not engaged in transportation for hire or in the business of transportation. It merely hauls the products of its refinery (a hazardous business) to convenient points for distribution and such “transportation” is merely an incident to the hazardous business, the refinery.
I dissent.