Court Opinion

ID: 9724573
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:02:44.63176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:02.633211
License: Public Domain

Hallows, J.
(dissenting). When the disobedience of an employee is deliberate and wilful and involves a matter of business policy falling within the scope of the managerial prerogative and not within the performance of the employee’s duty, an employee who is injured under such circumstances is not performing services “growing out of and incidental to his employment.” Prior decisions of this court allowing recovery in disobedience cases have involved safety rules or method of performance of an employee’s duties. This case is not one of an employer’s forbidding an employee from going on a roof of a building to recover a television antenna in the course of performing his duties but rather a case where the employee in disobedience determined what business his employer should engage in and in performing that business was injured. It matters not in such a case whether the employee thinks he is furthering the employer’s business. The employee here was, in fact, not furthering the employer’s business. His manner of “conducting the business” was in violation of the rules of the banking commission and of the statutes. In repossessing the television set and antenna the employee violated sec. 122.16, Stats., forbidding household furniture sold on a conditional sales contract from being retaken without legal process. The employer has the right to determine for himself correctly or erroneously what business he will accept and how he will conduct his business. When an employee usurps in disobedience the role of his employer, he no longer performs a service growing out of and incidental to his employment.