Court Opinion

ID: 9566960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:45:32.771364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:32.687290
License: Public Domain

Frankum, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. I think that the evidence in this case demanded a finding that the employee at the time he was killed was not in the course of his employment with the employer, and that the State Board of Workmen’s Compensation erred in entering an award granting compensation to the employee’s dependents on account of his death. As is indicated by the majority opinion, the evidence is silent as to the employee’s intent on the morning that he was killed, but I do not think that whether he intended to stop at the service station which he had been auditing the day before or to proceed past that service station to his employer’s place of business makes one particle of difference. The following facts are undisputed: A part of the employee’s duties consisted of the auditing of sales *299of consigned merchandise made by his employer’s customers, collecting from such customers amounts due his employer, and preparing reports showing such collections. The employee used his own automobile in traveling to the various service stations which he was required to audit. For such travel the employer furnished the gasoline which he used. The employee, solely for his own convenience at the end of the day preceding his accidental death, took collections consisting of cash, checks, gasoline charge cards, etc., to his home where he prepared his report in the evening. On the following morning, while driving his automobile to work and while having in his possession the aforesaid collections and report, he ran off the road and was killed, approximately 15 minutes before his regular time to begin work, and at a point approximately one-half mile before reaching the service station which he had been checking the previous day, which was on the direct route from his home to his employer’s place of business.
Under these circumstances, I do not think his injury and death were compensable. To my mind the facts in the cases of Sylvan v. Sylvan Bros., 225 S. C. 429 (82 SE2d 794), and Repstine v. Hudson Oil Co., 155 Kan. 486 (126 P2d 225), are substantially like the facts in this case, and the ruling by the Supreme Court of South Carolina and the ruling by the Supreme Court of Kansas in’ those cases enunciated sound principles of law applicable to this case. At the time of his injury and death the employee’s workday had not begun, and he had not reached the point at which he was to begin his day’s work for his employer, and this was so whether he may have intended to begin his workday by stopping at the aforesaid service station for the purpose of making a further collection from the operator thereof, or had intended to continue on to his employer’s place of business and later return to the station. The fact that the employee had in his possession money belonging to his employer and his report of his collections, which it was his duty to deliver to his employer, does not alter this result, because the evidence shows that while he was permitted to carry his collections home at the end of the day, it was his employer’s preference that this not be done and that he bring his collections- in to the office at *300the close of each day’s work. I do not think that the mere acquiescence by the employer in the employee’s practice of taking his collections home at night and bringing them in the next morning, where the employer had expressly instructed the employee not to do this, changes the general rule that an employee merely on his way to work and before arriving at the place where he is to perform the duties of his employment is not in the course of his employment within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
The conclusion which I reach is supported by prior rulings of this court and of the Supreme Court of this state, interpreting and applying our Workmen’s Compensation Law. In order for an injury to be compensable under the Workmen’s Compensation Act it must result from an accident arising out of and occurring in the course of the employment. Code § 114-102. An accident occurs in the course of employment within the meaning of the Act when it occurs within the period of the employment and while the employee is at a place where he reasonably may be in the performance of his duties. Employers Liability Assur. Corp. v. Woodward, 53 Ga. App. 778 (187 SE 142). Where the question presented relates to whether an accidental injury occurring while the employee was en route to work is compensable, it generally has been held that such an injury is not one occurring in the course of employment in the absence of a showing that the employer furnished transportation to and from work as a part of the employment contract. Georgia R. &c. Co. v. Clore, 34 Ga. App. 409 (129 SE 799); Wilcox v. Shepherd Lumber Corp., 80 Ga. App. 71 (2) (55 SE2d 382); Bituminous Cas. Corp. v. Humphries, 91 Ga. App. 271, 275 (85 SE2d 456); Travelers Ins. Co. v. Ross, 110 Ga. App. 312 (138 SE2d 474); American Mut. Liab. Ins. Co. v. Curry, 187 Ga. 342 (200 SE 150). The majority opinion completely disregards these authorities which to my mind are controlling.
For these reasons I think that the judge of the superior court erred in entering a judgment affirming the award of compensation.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Felton and Judge Eberhardt concur in this dissent.