Court Opinion

ID: 9687432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:27:50.307685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:27.181149
License: Public Domain

Otis, Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot agree that every injury which occurs “in the course of employment” necessarily “arises out of” such employment, as the foregoing opinion appears to hold.
The syllabus states:
“Where an employee is specifically instructed and encouraged to entertain customers and prospective customers as a means of developing good will and increasing the business of his employer, accidents sustained while in the course of such activities are within and covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act.” (Italics supplied.)
The opinion further holds:
“Consequently, as long as the necessity for a trip was created, as here, *390by employee’s employment, such employment was a contributing cause and one leading to his death. Therefore, his death is compensable under the Minnesota act and Minnesota decisions.”
It concludes with the following rule:
“It is our view that the unquestioned facts demonstrate that employee at the time of the accidental injury was traveling and engaged in pursuance of his employment and suffered a fatal injury in an activity incidental to such employment. The Industrial Commission properly found that his death arose out of and in the course of his employment.” (Italics supplied.)
As I construe the opinion, we have now read out of Minn. St. 176.011, subd. 16, the provision that an injury not only must occur while the employee is furthering his employer’s business but it must also be an injury which results from a condition caused by such employment. Here it is conceded that the decedent died while in the course of his employment. Nevertheless, the conditions of his employment had no bearing on the fact he choked to death. His injury resulted entirely from an unintentional but self-inflicted mishap. There is no evidence whatever that the choking was induced by any business activity.
The purpose of the compensation act is to recognize and rectify illness and accidents which result from an unusual exposure to occupational hazards not encountered to the same extent by persons not so employed. It is not intended to insure an employee against injuries resulting from risks which are neither created nor aggravated by his occupational activities.
In every case cited by the foregoing opinion, the Industrial Commission, and the employee, the injury or death resulted from a hazard which was caused or greatly increased because of the employee’s work-related duties.
In Stansberry v. Monitor Stove Co. 150 Minn. 1, 183 N. W. 977, 20 A. L. R. 316, the employee was killed in a hotel fire, a risk not of his own making and one to which he would not have been exposed except for his work. In Kaletha v. Hall Merc. Co. 157 Minn. 290, 196 N. W. *391261, the risk was an extraordinary one created by the necessity for wearing an inflammable beard. In Krause v. Swartwood, 174 Minn. 147, 218 N. W. 555, 57 A. L. R. 611, the poisoned food resulted from conditions thrust on the employee over which she had no control. The hazard was one imposed on her. She did not create it herself. The same may be said of Ohlsen v. J. G. Dill Co. 222 Minn. 10, 23 N. W. (2d) 15, and Fisher v. Fisher, 226 Minn. 171, 32 N. W. (2d) 424. They involved injuries where, in the one case, the risk was greatly increased because of the hazards inherent in hunting or fishing, and, in the other, a thrown object over which the employee had no control struck him at an athletic event.
It has heretofore been the law that an injury incurred by an employee will be compensated only “if the employment, as a part of the working environment, peculiarly exposes the employee to an external hazard whereby he is subjected to a different and a greater risk than if he had been pursuing his ordinary personal affairs. In other words, if the injury has its origin with a hazard or risk connected with the employment, and flows therefrom as a natural incident of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the work, it arises out of the employment.” Nelson v. City of St. Paul, 249 Minn. 53, 56, 81 N. W. (2d) 272, 275.
In my opinion choking on a piece of meat because it is cut too large and swallowed too fast is not the result of a “peculiar exposure” to an “external hazard” which subjects an employee to a different or greater risk than he experiences wherever or whenever he is engaged in the process of eating a meal. I would therefore reverse.