Court Opinion

ID: 9854276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:04:17.373123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:59.992604
License: Public Domain

STANFORD, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
Having written the original opinion in this case but not having a majority of the members of the court to concur with me, I now, in the main, submit the same opinion as and for my dissent, except facts, already stated, and except for supplementing briefly at the close.
This action has to do with an unexplained death, and this court — in the case of Martin v. Industrial Commission, 73 Ariz. 401, 242 P.2d 286, 288, which had to do with a case in which the deceased was killed on May 6, 1950 in an automobile collision in Maricopa County, Arizona, where there was nothing to show what caused the death, there being no eyewitnesses — stated:
“The petitioner contends that under these circumstances a presumption or at least an inference arises to the effect that Martin was within his employment at the time of the accident. For support she relies upon the annotation in 120 A.L.R. 683 and the rule stated therein as follows: ‘It is generally held that when it is shown that an employee was found dead at a-place where his duties required him to be, or where he might properly have been in the performance of his duties during the hours of his work, in the absence of evidence that he was not engaged in his master’s business, there is a presumption that the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment within the meaning of the compensation acts.’ ift ?{C ‡ »
In our case just referred to, the award of the Industrial Commission denied compensation but it was set aside by this court.
In Medina v. New Mexico Consol. Min. Co., 51 N.M. 493, 188 P.2d 343, 345, where previously compensation was denied the widow of Ignacio Medina, believing that the deceased had met his death by suicide the Supreme Court had this to say:
“ * * * Whether a violent death is accidental or suicidal, the law presumes that it is accidental until the contrary is shown by a preponderance of the evidence. * * *
“We do not attempt to explain the death. To do so leads to speculation, conjecture and surmise. Here, as in most death cases, the dependent is deprived of her best witness, the employee himself. However, the essential facts necessary to a recovery need not be proved by direct evidence, but may be established by reasonable inferences drawn from proven facts.”
In the instant case, however, the respondent does not have as a defense that suicide was the cause of death of Martin.
*419The testimony of Eleanor P. Durkee in the case before us, in part is as follows:
“Q. Did you have occasion to see Mr. Martin on the morning of January 7, 1952? A. Yes, sir, I did.
“Q. Where did you see him? A. It was approximately in the alley-way, right past my office, and why I remembered it is that Mr. Martin had some business in our office and he was going to have some business in our office the following day, and I was going to stop him and tell him to be up there at a certain time, but it was a miserable day and I just said, ‘Hi,’ and kept going and thought I would call next day. The time was between 9:30 and 10 o’clock. I usually go out for coffee at that time.”
Charles Edwin Herring testified in the case as follows:
“Q. Did you have occasion to see Andrew Martin on the morning of January'7, 1952? A. I did.
“Q. Will you state to the Referee just what you saw? A. Well, I was standing in the west window looking south, watching a car trying to get away from the curb across on Santa Fe Street, and Andy came by the street with a tooth pick in his mouth and nodded to me as he went by.”
In reference to the witnesses giving such testimony as above quoted, we quote now from Lee v. Industrial Commission, our own case, 71 Ariz. 171, 224 P.2d 1085, 1086:
“The Commission cannot disregard the undisputed evidence of a disinterested person. * * * ”
• Mr. John Conrard testified that he was the owner of his own machine-shop at Flagstaff, and his place of business was just east of the place where the truck in question was stored; that he went to the warehouse in question when the body was found and that he used the inhalator on Andy Martin after his body was removed from the truck. He was asked these questions, among others:
“Q. Were any refrigeration units working when you went in, do you know? A. Yes, the two stationary ones back there. I don’t know whether they were both running, but one was; I heard that. And the one on the truck was operating.”
The coroner’s jury impanelled in this matter brought in a verdict to the effect “That Andrew J. Martin came to his death on the 7th day of January, 1952, in Flagstaff, Coconino County, Arizona, by carbon monoxide poisoning; and that his death was accidental.”
In this court’s case of Strauss v. Industrial Commission, 73 Ariz. 285, 240 P.2d 550, 554, we said:
“ * * * Acts of the employee for his personal comfort and convenience *420while at work such as taking a drink of water, lighting a cigarette, warming himself, do not interrupt the continuity of the employment. * * * ”
In Andreski v. Industrial Commission, 261 Wis. 234, 52 N.W.2d 135 (a 1952 case), where a sheriff had gone to visit many taverns in his own county on his own personal business and had likewise gone into another county prior to his unexplained death, the court, in setting aside the award of the Industrial Commission, and the Circuit Court, which confirmed the commission’s action, quoted from its case of Tewes v. Industrial Commission, 1928, 194 Wis. 489, 215 N.W. 898, 899, as follows :
“ * * * when it is established that employees have entered upon the performance of their duties and are found at' a place where they might properly be in the discharge of those duties, nothing appearing to the contrary, the presumption of continuity obtains,
The evidence in this case shows that when the first person arrived at the warehouse that morning, about ten minutes of six o’clock, he said “nothing was on” in the way of a motor and he passed right by the truck. Neither the motor of the truck nor the plug-in of the refrigerator that held the products' that the truck hauled were on. Later on, however, as the testimony above-quoted will show, a witness came upon the scene and said that the electricity caused by plugging into the wall and running the refrigerator was running. This indicates that after the seeing of Martin by the first witness, John W. Hickey, and the time when others came on the scene hours after-wards, someone had plugged in the refrigerators and they were receiving the electricity to restore them. The inference is that no one would do it but Martin.
Flagstaff, Arizona, has an elevation of 6,896 feet; it was snowing on the morning of January 7th; the wind was blowing and people took shelter in places to get out of the weather. Who needed his products so early, or why should his truck take out over the mountain roads to cover the distance from Winslow, Arizona to the east to Ash Fork to the west, a distance of 109 miles?
If Martin slept in his truck at the place of business of Swift & Company when trouble was imminent at home, the petitioner should not be penalized for it. He was protecting his master’s interests. He may have temporarily abandoned his home but he never abandoned his job.
Referring to the time when rigor mortis sets in, the majority opinion relies on the testimony of Dr. Sechrist, the physician who was present when the body was taken from the truck. He testified, “he had been dead from two to eight hours.” William L. Compton, the mortician, said rigor mortis *421had not set in when the body was removed from the track. When a doctor is called at time of death he generally, unless life is in sight, takes but a moment, but the mortician lives with the dead. Who knows best? But the testimony definitely shows that Dr. Sechrist worked on the body for
IS minutes when it was taken from the truck, hoping to restore life, and at the same time oxygen was being given to Martin.
Without hesitation, I say the award of the industrial commission should be set aside.