Court Opinion

ID: 9651601
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:28:33.313388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:36.632313
License: Public Domain

STONE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). This is an action for personal injuries under the Workmen’s Compensation Act of the state of Kansas. From a judgment on a directed verdict, defendant sues this writ of error. The accident was caused by Connell throwing his hand in the way of moving knives on a box-cutting machine during a playful scuffle which arose between him and his fellow workman while they were working at the machine. The play arose over the caps of *406the two workmen and the threatened move of the other workman to pnt Connell’s cap where it would he cut by the knives. But one question- is presented here. That question is whether the master is liable, under the Kansas Workmen’s Compensation Act, for injuries resulting from playful pranks between workmen of age where the employer has not notice or knowledge of such habits or play and does not permit it. Of course, the answer to this question has to be sought in the proper construction to be given that act. The construction o'f a state statute is a matter of local law; therefore, the decisions of the Supreme Court of Kansas must be examined to ascertain whether that court has determined the question before us. If it has, that decision is binding here.
There are several cases, not involving injuries from pranks or play, which state generally the view of the Supreme Court of Kansas as to how the cause or occasion of, the injury must be connected with the employment to come within the act. The most recent statement of this general (jharaeter is contained in Stark v. Wilson, Receiver, 114 Kan. 459, 219 P. 507, which was a suit, under the act, for death of a street ear conductor who had been stabbed by a passenger. The court, at page 462 (219 P. 508), said:
“The accident must result from a risk naturally and reasonably incident to the employment. The risk must be within rational comprehension as an incident of the employment, and must be one to which the workman would not be equally exposed outside of the employment. It is not enough for the dependents to say the conductor-would not have been killed if he had not been at his place on his ear at the time he was stabbed. They must say he was killed because he was a street car conductor on duty, and so was overtaken by a hazard to which performance of his duty exposed him.”
Also, see Peavy v. Contracting Co., 112 Kan. 637, 639, 211 P. 1113, 29 A. L. R. 435.
Fortunately, we are not left to apply such general statements of the rule to eases, like the present, where the injury is the direct-result of playfulness or pranks. The Kansas Supreme Court has considered liability from such causes in the cases of Thomas v. Manufacturing Co., 104 Kan. 432, 179 P. 372, 6 A. L. R. 1145, White v. Stockyards Co., 104 Kan. 90, 177 P. 522, and Stuart v. Kansas City, Kansas, 102 Kan. 307, 171 P. 913, and 102 Kan. 563, 171 P. 913. Stuart v. Kansas City, Kansas, 102 Kan. 307, 171 P. 913 (on rehearing 102 Kan. 563, 171 P. 913), was an eye injury to plaintiff from mortar thrown in sport by a fellow workman during the course of the work. The instruction of the trial court permitted recovery irrespective of the notice or knowledge of defendant as to the habit of the workman, who threw the mortar, to engage in dangerous play. Because of this error in the instruction, the case was reversed, the Supreme Court, at page 310 (171 P. 914), saying:
“A clear and concise statement of the law governing compensation for injuries to employees caused by play is found in Workmen’s Compensation Acts, a Corpus Juris treatise, by Donald J. Kiser (page 79), and is ps follows: ‘An employee is not entitled to compensation for an injury which was the result of sportive acts of eoemployees, or horseplay or skylarking, whether it is instigated by the employee, or whether the employee takes no part in it. If an employee is assaulted by a fellow workman, whether in anger or in play, an injury so sustained does not arise ‘out of the employment,’ and the employee is not entitled to compensation therefor, unless in a case where the employer knows that the habits of the guilty servant are such that, it is unsafe for him to work with other employees.’ The rule there declared is supported by Western Indemnity Co. v. Pillsbury, 170 Cal. 686; McNicol’s Case, 215 Mass. 497; Scott v. Payne Bros., 85 N. J. Law, 446; In re Loper (Ind. App.) 116 N. E. 324; Clayton v. Hardwich Colliery Co., 85 L. J. K. B. 292. Under these authorities the rule is that where a workman, known by his master to be in the habit of indulging in dangerous play with his fellow workmen, is retained in the master’s employ, the danger of injury from such play becomes an incident of the employment of the other workmen, and injury to any of the other workmen, while performing his regular work, caused by such play, comes within the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act.”
In a short opinion denying a rehearing, the court accentuated its position (102 Kan. 563, 171 P. 913), by saying:
“The plaintiff has filed an application for a rehearing, and, in that application, asks that, if a rehearing is denied and the judg-’ ment stands reversed, the new trial be directed on the proposition on which the judgment -was reversed. The judgment was reversed on the ground that an instruction was erroneous because it did not submit to the jury the question of the defendant’s knowledge of the dangerously playful habits of William Deeds, a fellow workman with *407whom the plaintiff was working at the time of his injury.
“The judgment of reversal is adhered to, and a new trial is granted on the following questions: (1) Was the plaintiff injured by William Deeds, accidentally or in sport? (2) If the plaintiff was injured by William Deeds in sport, was William Deeds in the habit of indulging in dangerous play with his fellow workmen? (3) If William Deeds was in the habit of indulging in dangerous play with his fellow workmen, did the defendant have notice or knowledge of that habit ?”
To the same effect is the case of White v. Stockyards Co., 104 Kan. 90, 177 P. 522. Also, see statement in Monson v. Battelle, 102 Kan. 208, at page 213, 170 P. 801. Both the Stuart and the White Cases were instances of injuries to adults from the pranks of other adults.
Admitting that the above rule would govern if the injury was occasioned to and by an adult, defendant in error contends that a different application of the rale must be made as to children or youths. His position is that although there would have to be proof of notice and knowledge in the employer respecting the habit of dangerous play if the injury concerned adults alone; yet, as to children or youths, this notice and knowledge must be conclusively presumed to exist because the playfulness and recklessness of young people is universally known. His counsel well states this position as follows:
“The position taken by plaintiffs in error is, that the rale applies only in cases where the sportive characteristics of the employees are known to the employer or where - ‘horse play’ has become habitual. Granting that to be a true statement of the rale, the District Judge gave it proper consideration because the sportive characteristics of boys must always be known to the employer. Of men of mature years — no. That where the ■employees are all grown-up men of the world, to render the employer liable for their pranks it must be shown that ‘horse play’ is •or has been common. But the employer cannot close his eyes and say he does not know, .and has not seen what everybody else does know and has seen- — that ‘boys will be boys,’ .and boys will play, and until all the fun, all "the mirth, and the joy, and the happiness has been ground out of their lives by constant drudgery in the mills, they will continue to do so.”
The view of the able trial court is along .the same line and is strongly and clearly summarized hy counsel for defendant in error as follows:
“In directing a verdict in this case, he announced the same rule — ‘that the defendant in error would not have been injured by the scuffle but for his presence in the factory in association with other workmen.’ He announced the rale here that the defendant in error was brought by his work within the conditions of the zone of special danger. He announced the rule here that whatever men and boys will do when gathered together in such surroundings was one of the perils of the service. He announced the rule here that it' was but natural to expect them to deport themselves as young men and boys replete with the activities of life and health. He announced the rule here that for workmen of that age or even of maturer years to indulge in a moment’s diversion from work to joke with or play a prank on a fellow workman is a matter of common knowledge to every one who employs labor. He announced the rule that the claimant was injured not merely while he was in the factory, but because he was in a factory, in touch with associations and conditions inseparable from factory life, and the risk of such associations and conditions were risks of the employment.”
The plaintiff here was a young man 21 years old at the time of accident. Without undertaking to draw the age line where the rule of notice and knowledge should be applied, if at all, I examine the Kansas decisions to ascertain if there is this difference as is contended.
Again, fortunately, the Kansas Supreme Court has decided as to this very distinction in the ease of Thomas v. Manufacturing Co., 104 Kan. 432, 179 P. 372, 6 A. L. R. 1145. The plaintiff there was a girl “about seventeen years of age” and was injured during the noon hour by falling from a small track upon which she and other girls were riding for amusement. There was conflicting evidence as to whether the master had knowledge of and had consented to such use of the track by these girls. As to that matter the court, at page 434 (179 P. 373), said: “The conflict of evidence as to the attitude of the company toward the' girls’ practice of playing with the tracks must of course be resolved in favor of the plaintiff.” After stating that it was necessary to recovery that the injury was “in course of” the employment and “arose out of” it, the court discussed each of those matters. As to the latter, „at page 437 (179 P. 374), it said:
- “Whether the plaintiff’s inj.ury arose out of her employment is a more difficult ques*408tion. Injuries received in play are not usually capable of being so classified. Two illustrative eases are reported, passed upon by a commission and a committee of arbitration, which are in some respects quite similar to that under consideration. Socquet v. Connecticut Mills Co., Conn. W. C. C. C. Digest, 1914-1916, p. 653; Thompson v. W. L. Douglas Shoe Co., 2 Mass. W. C. A. 145. If the present ease is to be taken out of the general rule, it must .be upon the ground that the habit of the girl employees to play with the trucks during the noon intermission, with the knowledge and express consent of the foreman, and without objection by any one representing the defendant, made such practice one of the conditions under which the business was carried on, upon much the same principle as employers are held liable for the results of horseplay which has grown into a custom. White v. Stockyards Co., 104 Kan. 90, 177 P. 522. Injuries have been held to arise out of the employment whenever they are ‘such as the character of the business or the conditions under which it is carried on make likely, and the result either was or should have been in the contemplation of the employer.’ Jacquemin et al. v. Turner & Semour Manufacturing Co., 103 A. 115 (Conn.). The plaintiff’s participation in the use of the truck would not seem necessarily to bar her recovery, her conduct being of a kind to be expected in girls of her age, and the question of-her want of care not being material, the action not being founded on her employer’s negligence.”
The view of the court is summed up in the concluding paragraph of the opinion as follows: i “Inasmuch as the evidence may be regarded as establishing that the play in which the plaintiff was injured had become a settled custom, with the knowledge and indeed the express approval of the foreman in charge of the department, and without objection on the part of any one, the court is of the opinion that her injury may be regarded not only as having occurred in thé course of her employment, but as having arisen out of it.”
The decision in the Thomas Case must he taken as determining the law to he that the distinction urged by defendant in error does not exist.
There was no evidence of any custom or habit of playing, either by the workman causing the injury or by others There was, of course, no evidence of notice or knowledge in the employer as to playing. Although this scuffling and play arose while the injured man was working, yet he voluntarily participated therein, and it was while-playing and as a direct result of such playing that the injury resulted. I am unable, upon the facts, to distinguish this case from the Stuart Case, supra, where the injury occurred while the parties were at their work.
I think the case is governed by the Kansas-decisions cited and should be remanded.