Court Opinion

ID: 9721467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:00:10.997349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.147655
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. An employee or his dependents are not eligible for Workmen’s Compensation benefits unless his injury or death arose “out of and in the course of the employment.” I.C. 22-3 — 2-2 (Burns Code Ed. Supp.1980).
I have no quarrel with the conclusion of the majority that Mosbey’s death occurred while he was “in the course of” his employment. I do not agree, however, that it “arose out of” that employment. The causal connection necessary to the latter statutory requisite is that the death must arise “out of a risk which a reasonable person might comprehend as incidental to the employment, or where the evidence shows an incidental connection between the conditions under which the employee worked and his resulting injury or death.” Majority opinion at 912. There is certainly no connection incidental or otherwise between Mosbey’s condition of work, i. e., lodging in a motel room, and the independent criminal act which resulted in his death; nor do I perceive that death from stab wounds inflicted by a robber is a risk which a reasonable person might comprehend as incidental to Mosbey’s employment as a surveyor for a construction project.
As the Court acknowledged in Burroughs Adding Machine Co. v. Dehn (1942) 110 Ind.App. 483, 493-494, 39 N.E.2d 499, 503:
“While the courts have struggled arduously to determine whether particular accidents ‘arise out of the employment,’ and while they have attempted to express general principles or general formulas as a basis of their determination, it is true *917that the decided cases are in irreconcilable conflict.”
The majority acknowledges the lack of harmony in Indiana case law, but for its result relies upon those cases involving injuries sustained by traveling employees on the highways or sidewalks. Business Systems Inc. v. Gilfillen (1950) 120 Ind.App. 565, 92 N.E.2d 868 involved an automobile accident which occurred while a traveling salesman was returning home. C & E Trucking Corp. v. Stahl (1962) 135 Ind.App. 600, 181 N.E.2d 21 also involved a vehicle accident while a truck driver during an overnight wait for cargo, was driving from a restaurant. In re Harraden (1917) 66 Ind.App. 298, 118 N.E. 142, involved an employee who while walking to a business appointment slipped on the sidewalk and in Burroughs Adding Machine Co. v. Dehn, supra, the injury was sustained while the employee was walking on his way to a business call. Be that as it may, the risk of a stabbing in a motel room at night by a robber is totally dissimilar to the reasonably comprehensible risks undertaken by every employee who is required to travel from one place to another by vehicle or by foot.
Support in this respect may be drawn from the definitive Indiana treatise, Small, Workmen’s Compensation Law in Indiana, (1950) § 6.8, p. 130 which states:
“Therefore, if the argument and resulting violence come from a source independent of the employment relation, there can be no compensation.”
A case quoted in Burroughs, supra, and written by then New York Court of Appeals Judge Cardozo dramatizes the unrelated nature of the risk which resulted in Mosbey’s death here. In Heidemann v. American District Telegraph Co. (1921) 230 N.Y. 305, 130 N.E. 302, a night watchman was accidentally shot and killed during police pursuit of burglars.
The Court said:
“Heidemann’s duties involved exposure to something more than the ordinary perils of the street, with its collisions, its pitfalls, and the like. (Citations omitted.) For him, in a measure not common to the public generally, there was exposure to the perils that come from contact with the criminal and lawless. Other men, if the ill fortune was theirs to be close to an affray, might, indeed, encounter a like fate. (Citations omitted.) His calling multiplied the chance that he would be near when trouble came, and in multiplying the chance increased exposure to the risk. ‘He was brought by the conditions of his work “within the zone of special danger.” ’ (Citation omitted.)
******
The sudden brawl, the ‘chance medley’ (citations omitted) are dangers of the streets, confronting with steady menace the men who watch while others sleep. Casual and irregular is the risk of the belated traveler, hurrying to his home. Constant, through long hours, was the risk for Heidemann, charged with a duty to seek, where others were free to shun. The difference is no less real, because a difference of degree. The tourist on his first voyage may go down with the ship, if evil winds arise. None the less, in measuring his risk, we do not class him with the sailor for whom the sea becomes a home.” 130 N.E. at 303.
But cf. Katz v. Kadans & Co. (1922) 232 N.Y. 420, 134 N.E. 330 (chauffeur while delivering cheese stabbed by insane man). In Golden v. Inland Steel Co. (2d Dist. 1976) 171 Ind.App. 233, 359 N.E.2d 252 we affirmed a denial of benefits to a claimant injured in the company parking lot by a stranger during an altercation following a traffic incident. We observed:
“Thus Golden did not sustain his injury ‘by being specially and peculiarly exposed by the character and nature of his employment to the risk of the danger which befell him.’ Polar Ice & Fuel Co. v. Mulray (1918), 67 Ind.App. 270, 273, 119 N.E. 149, 150; Delco-Remy Corp. v. Cotton (1933), 96 Ind.App. 493, 497, 185 N.E. 341; Burkhart v. Wells Electronics Corp. (1966), 139 Ind.App. 658, 215 N.E.2d 879.” 359 N.E.2d at 253.
*918Although Bell may have been a disgruntled former employee of Olinger there is no evidence that he was attempting to visit retribution upon his former employer by doing violence to Mosbey. To the contrary the only evidence is that Bell intended to and did rob Mosbey. More recent than Golden v. Inland Steel Co., however, is Wayne Adams Buick, Inc. v. Ference (1st Dist. 1981) Ind.App., 421 N.E.2d 733 in which the First District adopts an extremely broad “actual street-risk” test which is virtually identical with the “positional risk” theory adopted by the majority opinion today.1
Even those cases which have permitted compensation for a victim of a robbery involve employees whose employment required them to carry sums of money or other property which would be inviting to someone bent upon theft. Our case is totally different. Mosbey carried no work-related items of value. The sole reason for Bell’s choice of Mosbey as a victim was that Bell assumed Mosbey would have some money and had admired a wrist watch worn by Mosbey. Bell did not know for whom Mosbey worked — only that Mosbey had something to do with the overall construction project.
Even the First District under their “actual risk” theory would undoubtedly deny benefits under the facts before us:
“Employer is correct in its assertion that ordinarily an assault by a third person not connected to the employment cannot be considered incidental to the employment. A personal squabble with a third person culminating in an assault is not compensable. Davies et al. v. Robinson, (1932) 94 Ind.App. 104, 179 N.E. 797; Merchantile-Commercial Bank Receiver et al. v. Koch et al., (1925) 83 Ind.App. 707, 150 N.E. 25; Lincoln, supra. However, where the assault is one which might be reasonably anticipated because of the general character of the work, or the particular duties imposed upon the workman, such as a baking route salesman who carried money and was shot and robbed, or a night watchman killed by intruders, such injuries and death may be found to arise out of the employment. National-Helfrich Potteries Co. v. Collar, (1939) 107 Ind.App. 225, 23 N.E.2d 620; Hunt et al. v. Gutzwiller Baking Co., (1937) 104 Ind.App. 209, 9 N.E.2d 129. Under this doctrine it can be logically asserted that a bookkeeper on the street with company mail could be a target for hoodlums who may believe the mail might contain valuables.” 421 N.E.2d at 736-37.
In the final analysis, however, even if some Indiana cases have adopted a “positional risk” concept, e. g., Wayne Adams Buick, Inc., supra; Lasear, Inc. v. Anderson (1934) 99 Ind.App. 428, 192 N.E. 762, and even though the majority would limit the doctrine’s application to travelling employees, I would reject them and today’s decision as contrary to the clear statutory requirement that the injury or death not only arise in the course of employment but also out of that employment.
I am unable to accept the premise that the legislature intended such limitless application to the workman’s compensation law, particularly in light of the fact that the statute still requires that the injury or death arise both out of and in the course of employment. The majority holding today strikes “out of” from the statute. As stated by the dissenting Justice in C.A. Dun-ham, supra:
“The majority opinion has effectively eliminated the ‘arising-out-of’ requirement, and has put the employer into the insurance business, at least to the extent of working hours. This was not the intent of the statute. (Citation omitted.) We have not yet converted the act of employing another into an absolute guar*919anty of his safety from any and all the vicissitudes of life.” 156 N.E.2d at 929-930.

. Compare 1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law (1978), § 9.50 with id. §§ 10 et seq. The positional risk concept merely extends application of the actual street risk doctrine to locations other than streets and sidewalks. See, e. g., C.A. Dunham Co. v. Industrial Commission (1959) 16 Ill.2d 102, 156 N.E.2d 560 in which an employee killed by a bomb placed on an airliner was held entitled to Workmen’s Compensation benefits.