Court Opinion

ID: 9711768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:38:36.551404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.348411
License: Public Domain

Dell, Justice
(dissenting).
In my opinion, to allow an employee who is clearly an aggressor in a fight to recover compensation from his employer for the injuries sustained by the employee as a result of the fight, or to allow dependents of the employee to recover compensation benefits for his death occurring as a result of the fight, is contrary to all justice, and there is no cause the preservation of which is more sacred than the cause of justice. The workmen’s compensation act should receive a broad and liberal construction in the interest of the workman to carry out the policy and purpose of the act. However, it should not be given a strained construction — one that the language of the act does not fairly and reasonably support. The legislature enacted the law to relieve workmen from the many common-law defenses and the difficulties encountered by employees in actions in*318volving the application of the rule of master and servant. Its purpose is to pay the workman for accidental injuries sustained and to pay his dependents compensation benefits occasioned by his death without regard to the question of negligence. It is a wholesome and salutary law. It should be liberally construed so as to compel industry to pay for accidental injuries sustained by employees when injured while engaged in the course of their employment. Where, however, an employee receives injuries in a fight in which he is the aggressor, it cannot be said, in my opinion, that the employee has suffered accidental injuries arising out of and in the course of his employment for such injuries, in my judgment, are directly traceable to the employee’s own acts of aggression. To place a construction upon the workmen’s compensation act permitting an employee who is the aggressor in a fight to recover compensation from his employer is carrying the act far beyond the purposes for which it was intended and for which it was enacted.
In 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 11.15(a), the following is stated:
“The great majority of jurisdictions which have considered the question of aggression apart from express statutory defenses have held that the aggressor in an admittedly work-connected fight cannot recover compensation.”
It is true that recently there have been decisions from some jurisdictions indicating some relaxation of the foregoing rule. However, I feel that the rule followed by the majority of jurisdictions which have passed on the question11 is the sound rule.
*319Since concededly we are confronted with, the necessity of adopting a new rule as applied to the workmen’s compensation law and because I- disagree with the rule announced in the majority opinion, I respectfully dissent.

Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills v. Haynie, 43 Ga. App. 579, 159 S. E. 781; Kimbro v. Black & White Cab Co. 50 Ga. App. 143, 177 S. E. 274; Fischer v. Industrial Comm. 408 Ill. 115, 96 N. E. (2d) 478; Triangle Auto Painting & Trimming Co. v. Industrial Comm. 346 Ill. 609, 178 N. E. 886; Horvath v. La Fond, 305 Mich. 69, 8 N. W. (2d) 915; Staten v. Long-Turner Const. Co. (Mo. App.) 185 S. W. (2d) 375; Garrett v. Texas-Louisiana Power Co. 19 La. App. 858, 141 So. 809; Merkel v. T. A. Gillespie Co. Inc. 10 N. J. Misc. 1081, 162 A. 250; Brown v. Philmac Sportswear Co. 23 N. J. Misc. 378, 44 A. (2d) 805; Vollmer v. Industrial Comm. 254 Wis. 162, 35 N. W. (2d) 304; 6 Schneider, Workmen’s Compensation (Perm, ed.) § 1560(g), p. 179.