Court Opinion

ID: 9660025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:01:32.70864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:10.513038
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear.
There has been a petition to rehear filed in this case. This petition to all intents and purposes is nothing but a reargument of the matters heretofore argued orally and by brief. In the petition to rehear now filed there are some additional quotations from the record which we read prior to reaching the conclusion which we reached in the opinion originally handed down. The petitioner now seems to take the position, to some extent, that this opinion is the opinion of the writer and not the opinion of the Court. This obviously is a mistake of fact. The opinion handed down in this case, as in all cases where there is no dissent, is the opinion of the entire Court. That is certainly true in this case.
"We are sorry that the petitioner cannot and does not agree with our reasoning. We think though that the reasoning is sound and logical and does not in any way upset any former opinion of this Court but in fact follows the reasoning and logic of former Workmen’s Compensation opinions as applied to the facts of the different cases. We have never had a case in this State, as far as we know, where the factual situation is the same as here.
The petitioner again reargues and cites as an authority for his argument the dissenting opinions in cases and cites other cases that have been heretofore cited. We in the original opinion recognize that there was a division of opinion on this question but we concluded *671that the conclusion which we reached was the sounder of the two and followed those decisions.
Petitioner now cites as^ authority for the petition to rehear the case of Persons v. Stokes, Dec. 1954, 222 Miss. 479, 76 So.2d 517, 519, as authority and on all fours with the position that the petitioner takes herein. We have very carefully read this case and so far as we can see the only similarity between it and the instant case, and the Kemp case which we cited in our majority opinion as stating the sounder rule, is that this is a Workmen’s Compensation case. In this Persons case the Mississippi court did not cite or make any reference to the Kemp case which we cited in our original opinion wherein there were two published opinions. We cited them both. The Kemp opinion was written by the Supreme Court of Mississippi as was the Persons opinion. By looking at the reports it is seen that the same Justices were sitting in each of those cases and that the Kemp opinion was decided a year and a few months prior to the Persons case. The Persons opinion makes no reference whatsoever to the Kemp opinion obviously because the questions involved in the two opinions are in no wise related.
In the Persons opinion the Court had before it a situation where the servant had stepped aside from the master’s business for some purpose disconnected with his employment. The Court there says among other things:
“The employer did not require, foster, or encourage the hunting of squirrels by his employees while on the job and there is no proof that the employer permitted promiscuous hunting in the pasture to which he sent the appellee on the occasion in question. ’ ’
By reference to the factual situation as fully set forth in the original opinion it will be seen how different this *672is. Another thing in the Persons case, the employee who sought compensation was working on the wage scale of $12 per day at the time the injury occurred while his compensation was written for him when he worked on a wage scale of $1.75 per hour operating a bulldozer. The Court in the Persons case further said:
“He did not receive his injury at a time when he was fulfilling any of the duties of his employment, or at a time when he was engaged in doing something incidental thereto, or at a time when he was engaged in the furtherance of the employer’s business. His injury did not result from a risk to which his employment exposed him.”
As we see it this case has nothing in the world to do with the factual situation as involved in the ease now before us.
The petitioner also cites the case of Dobson v. Standard Accident Ins. Co., La. App., 78 So.2d 258, as authority for his position and as distinguishing the Kern case which we cited in the original opinion. The Dobson case is not in point and has nothing whatsoever to do with the instant case. In the Dobson case the Court said that Dobson was working for his father whose business was covered by a
“policy classification of operations is specified as gasoline or oil dealers, including drivers, chauffeurs and their helpers. The premiums were based on the total annual remuneration of the employees. The business of the employer was shown to be that exclusively of a wholesale distributor of oil and gasoline and of building materials and supplies.”
At the time of the injury the employee was building a fense around some property of his father which had *673nothing to do with the performance of the work which the policy covered. This snit was against the insurance company and based upon the Compensation Act of Louisiana, LSA-R.S. 23:1021 et seq., which according to the Louisiana Court “does not extend coverage to injured employees unless their employment is a regular part of the employer’s trade, business or occupation, or unless the employment has reference to or connection with or is incidental to or in promotion of the employer’s trade, business or occupation.”
That Court in a petition on a motion to rehear says:
“In the Kern case, compensation was sought from the employer, while here the claim is against the insurer.”
As pointed out that court itself recognized the difference between the Kern case and the case now cited as authority.
The most apt and only logical, courteous reply to this petition to rehear is as was said by Mr. Justice Story in Jenkins v. Eldredge, Fed. Cas. No. 7,267, 3 Story 299, that:
“ ‘During a pretty long period of judicial life, * * * it has been my misfortune on many occasions to have differed widely from counsel on one side or the other, in important causes, as to the merits thereof. But this, although a matter of regret, could not, as it ought not, in any, the slightest degree, influence the duties or judgment of the court. ’ ’ ’ Louisville & N. R. Co. v. U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 125 Term, 658, 691, 148 S.W. 671, 680.
It thus becomes our duty to overrule the petition to rehear because we think that the original opinion is absolutely correct and the logical conclusion to reach.