Court Opinion

ID: 9794443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:05:47.869824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:42.868485
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, C.J.
(dissenting). I dissent to the majority opinion because in my opinion claimant’s injury arose out of and in the course of hazardous employment covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Law. Undoubtedly, the boiler room, in which was situated the usual boiler equipment, a large paper pressing machine, a work bench with all sorts of simple tools for making ordinary repairs in the maintenance of an office building, and the electrically driven floor washing and polishing machines when not in use, is a workshop under the definition thereof in the Workmen’s Compensation Law (85 O.S. 1941 §3). Unquestionably, the claimant at the time of his injury was engaged in manual and mechancial labor in the performance of his duties. The duty being performed by him, that is, the repair of the Venetian blind, could have been performed where he was injured or in the workshop. The workshop was maintained and operated for the purpose of the general maintenance of the building and the particular act of claimant which directly resulted in his injury was incident to the very purpose for which the workshop was maintained. We said in Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Nickens, 199 Okla. 622, 189 P. 2d 184, wherein it was the duty of an employee to operate a freight elevator for the purpose of transporting things from one part of the building to another, that “the carrying of the box down the stairway was incidental to his operation of the freight elevator which was a hazardous occupation. 85 O.S. 1941 §2.” In McDuffie v. Nash Neon Sign Co., 202 Okla. 568, 215 P. 2d 839, we held that the attaching of an advertising neon sign to a garage and super filling station building was incident to the operation of the workshop of the garage. Obviously, under the undisputed facts of this case and the above authorities, the claimant was engaged at the time of his injury in the performance of manual and mechanical labor incident to the operation of a workshop as defined by the Workmen’s Compensation Law, and the finding of the commission that his injury resulted from the mere cleaning of a Venetian blind is erroneous and its determination that claimant was not engaged in a hazardous employment at the time of his injury is erroneous as a matter of law.
Then, too, though “a publishing company” is not under the Workmen’s Compensation Act eo nomine, the employer in this case maintains and operates one of the biggest workshops in the Southwest, and the maintenance of the office building thereto attached by ramp is largely in furtherance of the business of this workshop. I think all manual and mechancial labor in the maintenance of the office building is incident to the work of the workshop.
The order denying compensation should be vacated.