Court Opinion

ID: 9778983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:30:59.984955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:23:41.754687
License: Public Domain

Burkett, Justice
(dissenting).
Mr. Justice Prewitt joins me in dissenting to the majority opinion in the above case.
This is a workmen’s compensation case. The trial judge after a full hearing determined that the dependents of the deceased employee, Sam Jackson, were entitled to compensation under the A,ct. Necessary steps have been taken to seasonably perfect an appeal to this Court where excellent briefs have been filed, argument heard and we now have the matter for determination.
All questions are conceded allowing the petitioners compensation except the plaintiffs in error contend that at the time of the injuries and death of the deceased employee this did not arise during the course of the employment. In plaintiff in error’s brief it is said: “the only question presented to the Court was whether or not death due to an act of God, to-wit, a tornado, was compensable when there was no causal connection between the death and the employment and the workman was exposed to no more hazards than others in the same locality. ’ ’
Clark & Fay, Incorporated, had employed one G-atson to do certain brick work or masonry work at Cotton Plant, Arkansas, which is about 20 miles from Brinkley, Arkansas, and around 100 miles from Memphis, Tennessee'. Gatson among others employed the deceased employee, Sam Jackson, to make the trip to Arkansas and do the work. Additional labor was furnished from the farm. Clark & Fay, Incorporated, arranged for the transportation of these employees from Memphis and for *144their meals, and hotel accommodations at Brinkley, Arkansas, .as there were no accommodations for them at Cotton Plant, Arkansas. Clark & Fay, Incorporated, furnished the gasoline and arranged for Gratson to use his truck to transport these men to and from their work ,at Cotton Plant, Arkansas, to Brinkley, Arkansas, where they were housed at night during this work.
This work had started some two days before the deceased was injured and died as a result of these injuries. Each evening after work at about 5:30 they quit their work at the plantation and were taken in the truck, furnished by the defendants to Brinkley, Arkansas, and each morning they were transported back to this work in this truck. On the third day, March 21, 1952, the men, including the injured employee were engaged in laying-brick and fixing a chimney .at the direction and under the control of ■ a supervisor for the plaintiffs in error. At about 5:00’ o’clock on the fatal evening it began raining and the men were instructed by their superior to quit for the day and to cover their work. They did this. After this was done they were directed to get into the truck- to be taken to their hotel where they were staying at Brinkley, Arkansas, for the purpose of spending the night to return to the job the next morning. Their supervisor had preceded them in his car. As they were driving along the road, the truck being driven by a fellow employee, and when they were about 9 miles from their place of work and nearly halfway to where they were kept for the night, they noticed a big cloud approaching. The truck driver tried to outrun what turned out to be a tornado, but without success. This tornado hit the truck and carried the truck and the men in it about 150 yards over into '.a field, demolishing it, and throwing the men *145about tbe field, all of whom were injured. The deceased employee, Jackson, was so badly hurt that he was left behind and was later taken by someone to a hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he died during the night. The trial court found:
“The Court finds that the presence of Sam Jackson in that particular truck, on that particular road, at the particular time ,and place that the tornado struck, was incidental to the said employment, and pursuant to the arrangements made by, and the directions of the employer; that the said circumstances occasioned,and contributed to the death of Sam Jackson; and contributed to and participated with the tornado in making the set of circumstances which caused and resulted in the injuries and death of Sam Jackson; and his injuries and death arose out of and in the course of his employment, as this clause is liberally construed. ’ ’
It is conceded that the Courts of this State have never had before them the exact question herein, that is, whether or not one injured by an .act of Grod is compensable under our Compensation Act. Numerous cases pro and con on the question are cited in the briefs of the respective parties. It would not profit anything to review these cases as it seems to us that the facts of the particular case under the applicable statutory enactment of the State as interpreted by the Courts of that State are probably controlling in the respective opinions.
The basis of the argument contesting the applicability of our Workmen’s Compensation Law to the facts of this case are that in the instant case there is no causal connection between the injury and the employment and that the employment and the tornado must be essentially related. *146It is said that the cases wherein compensation is allowed are based on facts which showed that the employment presented additional hazards to the act of God, not shared in by other members of the community. To illustrate this argument it is conceded "had the deceased in this case been actually laying briclc at the time the tornado struck a chimney or a wall causing it to topple upon him producing death then no one would .argue against recovery.” Then following this concession it is said that under the evidence which is true, that "at the time the tornado struck the deceased he was riding with others in a truck upon an open road along with other vehicles which were likewise struck.” It is hard to get the wise distinction between being required to lay brick and being struck by the tornado and being required to ride the truck and getting hit by the tornado.
As we view the matter the facts of the case show, and it was so found by the trial judge, that at the time of the injuries which resulted in the death of this employee, he was being transported by his employer from a place of work to a place where he was kept by the employer during the night and then would be transported back to the place of the work the next day. In other words if the employee had not been at this particular point at the time that the tornado struck he would not have been injured and killed probably. He was at this point at the direction of his employer and was in a conveyance furnished by the employer and operated by the employer’s servant. Under such circumstances it is hard for us to make any fine distinction between one thus injured and one being run into by a truck when he is traveling along the road in the employer’s conveyance at the direction of the employer and is killed. Under such circumstances, where *147no act of God intervened but just the negligence of another, we do not think it would be contended that the dependents of the employee were not entitled to compensation.
We have consistently held that where transportation is furnished an employee as a part of the employment contract that the employee’s accidental death while on the way to work in the morning is compensable as arising out of and in the course of employment. W. C. Sharp Drug Stores v. Hansard, 176 Tenn. 595, 144 S. W. (2d) 777; and that where a policeman was injured along his way home from work in arresting a guilty drunk driver was entitled to compensation; Mayor and Aldermen of Town of Tullahoma v. Ward, 173 Tenn. 91, 114 S. W. (2d) 804, and that a candy salesman who died in a fire in Atlanta where his employment required him to spend the night preparatory to keeping his work was entitled to compensation; Carter v. Hodges, 175 Tenn. 96, 132 S. W. (2d) 211. We could repeat a number of other cases if time was sufficient for our investigation to point these out. It seems though that this line of cases is sufficient to show the thought of the courts in determining the question. The question in the cases cited is related to the question under consideration.
As heretofore said the question in this suit is, Did the accident arise out of Jackson’s employment1?
It is argued with great force, by the employer, that the definition of this term (“out of the employment”) has been fixed by this Court in many previous decisions. And particularly by the language used in Scott v. Shinn, 171 Tenn. 478, 482-483, 105 S. W. (2d) 103, 104, as follows:
“ ‘Excludes an injury which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proxi*148mate cause and which comes from a hazard to which the workmen would have been equally exposed apart from the employment. The causative danger must be peculiar to the work and not common to the neighborhood. * * * It need not have been foreseen or expected, but after the event it must appear to have had its origin in a risk connected with the employment, and to have flowed from that source as a rational consequence.’ ”
The .author of American Jurisprudence says of the term:
“Whether an injury arises out of and in the course of the employment, so as to be compensable under a workman’s compensation act, depends upon the peculiar circumstances of each case. The question may not be resolved by reference to any fixed formula. ’ ’ 58 Am. Jur., page 718, Sec. 210.
An English Lord has said (the term is lifted bodily from the English Act):
“The few and seemingly simple words ‘arising out of and in the course of the employment’ have been the fruitful (or fruitless) source of .a mass of decisions turning upon nice distinctions and supported by refinements so subtle as to leave the mind of the reader in a maze of confusion. From their number counsel can, in most cases, cite what seems to be an authority for resolving in his favour, on whichever side he may be, the-question in dispute.” Lord Wrenbury in Herbert v. Foxx & Co., 1916, 1 A. C. 405, 419.
We think that this statement is without a doubt one .of the most truthful that can be found anywhere in the law books. Anyone who makes any search and study of the decisions will find the statement true without question.
*149We again refer to the definition of the term or statement of the term above quoted from Scott v. Shinn, supra. A careful analysis of this opinion will show the reader that this conclusion is largely based upon an opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in the McNicol’s Case, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N. E. 697, L. R. A. 1916A, 306. It was expressly stated in the Shinn case, after quoting at length from the Massachusetts case, that this case had been cited with approval by this Court in several previously reported decisions. Many of these decisions .are cited in the Shinn case. In 1940 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in Caswell’s Case, 305 Mass. 500, 26 N. E. (2d) 328, 330, adopted what seems to us a much more applicable and fair definition of the term. In adopting this definition, hereinafter to he quoted in full, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts was dealing with an injury to an employee who was injured by reason of a cyclone striking a building in which he was working and knocking the building down on him and injuring him. Be this as it may the definition of the term thus employed in allowing this employee compensation seems to us the fair, reasonable and the more correct definition to he applied to the term. The Massachusetts Court said:
“There is another principle upon which the employee, in our opinion, is entitled to compensation. Unquestionably, the injury was received in the course of his employment. The only other requirement is that the injury he one ‘arising out of’ his employment.' It need not arise out of the nature of the employment. An injury arises out of the employment if it arises out of the nature, conditions, obligations or incidents of the employment; in other words, out of the employment loohed at in any of its aspects.” (Emphasis supplied.)
*150We think the italicized language more nearly meets the requirements of the Workmen’s Compensation Law than any we have seen. We now expressly approve and adopt such as the correct definition of the term “arising out of the employment”. In fact we have applied such a definition in many cases heretofore decided without expressly so saying.
In Carmichael v. J. C. Mahan Motor Co., 157 Tenn. 613, 11 S. W. (2d) 672, 673, this Court allowed compensation to an employee who was shot in the eye by an air rifle which was being played with by some boys visiting at the motor company. The Court in that case recognized that:
“The Compensation Act cannot be considered as a statute intended to define a situation or fix a liability by adherence to rules of the common law applicable in negligence cases. It was intended to relieve society of an economic burden and to ameliorate a social condition, and therefore must be construed as imposing liabilities without reference to the common law. The language of the act defining compensable injuries must be construed according to the fair meaning of the words used and in their ordinary sense, without reference to conditions under which the common law afforded compensation to an injured employee.”
It is inescapable to our minds under the facts shown by the record and heretofore related in this opinion that one could reach the conclusion that this injury did not arise out of the employment under the circumstances. We too have held that where an employment imposes upon the employee a duty to travel at the will of the employer, making risk of travel directly instant to the employment, *151that the resulting injuries are compensable. Central Surety & Insurance Corporation v. Court, 162 Tenn. 477, 480, 36 S. W. (2d) 907, 908. In this case this Court speaking through Mr. Justice Cook very clearly saw, and so stated, that there were many times within the compensation act wherein rules that had been laid down should have exceptions engrafted on them. In the Court case, supra, the rule relied upon by the employer was that injuries resulting to employees while away from their business and injuries due to common hazards of the street were not compensable. The Court said:
“This general rule calls for an exception where the contract of employment subjects the employee to such risks and hazards as are incident to performance of duty. This is so because the employment imposes the duty upon the employee to go from place to place at the mil of the employer in the performance of duty, and the risks of travel are directly incident to the employment itself. ’ ’
It is obvious that this holding and statement of this Court can very easily be paraphrased to fit the facts of the present case. Here the employment imposed a duty upon Jackson, the employee, to go to the place that he was working and to the home where he was kept by and at the direction of the employer and it seems to us then that any risks that he had were clearly incident to the employment and comes well within the definition of this term that we have herein adopted, heretofore set forth.
In Mayor and Aldermen of Town of Tullahoma v. Ward, 173 Tenn. 91, 114 S. W. (2d) 804, we held that a policeman (off duty) who was hit by a drunken driver was entitled to compensation. The Shinn case was expressly distinguished. We, in effect, applied the term as *152it is herein defined. Again in Whaley v. Patent Button Co., 184 Tenn. 700, 202 S. W. (2d) 649, we held one shot by an insane, discharged employee compensable.
In E. I. Du Pont De Nemours Co. v. Lilly, Ind. App. 1947, 75 N. E. (2d) 796, 798, the appellate courts of Indiana held that an employee struck by lightning while following his employer’s instructions to take shelter a safe distance from explosive powder during a storm, arose out of his employment so as to be compensable. The Court in this case quotes from another Indiana case [Broderick Co. v. Flemming, 116 Ind. App. 668, 65 N. E. (2d) 257] wherein it is said: There is “ ‘evidence in the record to justify and warrant the Full Industrial Board in finding that Flemming would not have been at the place where the accident occurred except for his employment, and for this reason there was and is a causal connection between the conditions and environment of the employment and the resulting fatal accident, and also there is ample evidence to support the finding of the Industrial Board that the accident “arose out of the employment” as those words are used in the Indiana Workmen’s Compensation Act.’ ”
In the Georgia case of McKiney v. Reynolds & Manley Lumber Company, 79 Ga. App. 826, 54 S. E. (2d) 471, 473, that Court held that an employee of the lumber yard who was struck by lightning and killed was entitled to compensation. The court among other things said:
“The evidence shows that the employee was where his duties required him to be, in the large lumber yard among stacks of wet or damp lumber, and the finding was demanded that by reason of his employment he was exposed to a hazard not equally shared by the community. It is of no importance that light*153ning Fad never before struck in tbe lumber yard. Tbe test is not whether tbe injury was caused by an act of God, but whether tbe one injured was by bis employment specially endangered by tbe act of God, be it lightning, tornado, or windstorm. * * * We bold that under tbe evidence in this case tbe employee met bis death from an accident arising out of bis employment * * *.”
Regardless of what definitions our decisions have heretofore applied to tbe term “arising out of tbe employment” we have granted compensation in various cases where tbe facts showed that tbe injury arose out of tbe nature, conditions, obligations or incidence of tbe employment as viewed from most any of its aspects. Those principles were applied by this Court in T. J. Moss Tie Co. v. Rollins, 191 Term. 577, 235 S. W. (2d) 585, where a laborer who was loading cross-ties suddenly stopped after carrying a tie and bis bead snapped and be fell to tbe ground. It appeared that on that date it was very hot and tbe record showed that his death was not due to heart failure but was due to a sunstroke. In Tapp v. Tapp, 192 Tenn. 1, 236 S. W. (2d) 977, we applied tbe same principle again where a truck driver “blacked out”. In this case we held that “causal connection” in applying tbe term meant that it was used in tbe sense that the accident had its origin in tbe hazards to which tbe employment exposed' tbe employee while doing bis work. This Court held in both of those eases that tbe injury was compensable. Then there is tbe Virginia case of Scott County School Board v. Carter, 156 Va. 815, 159 S. E. 115, 83 A. L. R. 229, where a school teacher was killed in a school room which was demolished by a cyclone. The case of Industrial Commission of Ohio v. Hampton, *154123 Ohio St. 500, 176 N. E. 74, is a tornado case. In both of these cases compensation was allowed.
There are decisions denying compensation in similar circumstances hut we are unable to follow them. Such cases are Abell Chevrolet Co. v. Industrial Commission, 370 Ill. 460,19 N. E. (2d) 361, Gale v. Krug Park Amusement Co., 114 Neb. 432, 208 N. W. 739, 46 A. L. R. 1213; Baker v. State Industrial Commission, 138 Old. 167, 280 P. 603; Stone v. Blackmer & Post Pipe Co., 224 Mo. App. 319, 27 S. W. (2d) 459; Rush v. Empire Oil & Refining Co., 140 Kan. 198, 34 P. (2d) 542.
By reason of Sam Jackson’s employment he was at the place where he was injured. He was where his employment took him, and the hazard of the tornado passing-over at that particular time seems to us as incidental to such employment. This is not changed by the fact that the public generally in that vicinity was exposed to the hazards of the tornado. The admitted facts compel the inference that the injury to Jackson resulted from conditions produced by the tornado, and likewise because he was in the particular locality at the time in question. That fact is due to his employment. If he had not been on this employment and required to go backward and forward on this night, he might have been at home in Memphis and not where he was injured and killed. It is certain that if it had not been for this employment and his superior directing him to get in this truck and go home at the time he would not have been on the road when he met his death.
Such being the case, the facts clearly warrant the conclusion that the injury pf Jackson and resulting-death was received in the course of his employment and likewise that his injury arose out of his employment with*155in the spirit, purpose, and meaning of our Workmen’s Compensation Act. The result is that the judgment below should be affirmed.