Court Opinion

ID: 9706160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:33:09.433851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:19.813766
License: Public Domain

Crumpacker, J.,
Concurs Dubitante. — It is with considerable reluctance that I subscribe to the court’s opinion in this case and I do so only because recent decisions of the courts of this jurisdiction and elsewhere, while vigorously asserting that an employer is not an insurer of the safety of his employees, have, to all intents and purposes, made him one by indulging in surmise, speculation and conjecture which, to give them legal substance, are characterized as “reasonable inferences” or “presumptions.” It seems to me that many of these decisions were prompted by the courts’ social *685conscience which apparently regards the injection of common law principles into workmen’s compensation cases as unwarranted.
The evidence most favorable to the board’s award establishes that on November 22, 1950, Robert C. Leonard was employed by the appellant as a salesman. On the morning of said day he was driven to an airport near Valparaiso, Indiana, where he kept a private plane in which he intended to fly to Cudahy, Wisconsin, for the purpose of calling on certain of the appellant’s customers in that area. When last seen he was preparing for the “take-off” and four months and eleven days later, to-wit, April 2, 1951, his dead body was washed ashore in Lake Michigan at or near the city of South Haven, Michigan, which is across said lake from his destination and many miles outside the area of his employment. No trace of his airplane was ever found. A certificate of death, issued by the Michigan Department of Health, Vital Records Section, was introduced in evidence. Upon information furnished by one W. B. Leonard said certificate states that appellees’ decedent met his death by accidental drowning in Lake Michigan on November 22, 1950. A medical certificate attached thereto and signed by the coroner of Van Burén County, in which the city of South Haven is situated, states that said drowning was suicidal. However another certificate of death signed by said coroner indicates that accidental drowning was the cause of death.
On this evidence the Industrial Board found that on November 22, 1950, the appellees’ decedent “sustained personal injuries by reason of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, which said accidental injury resulted in his death” and entered an appropriate award. From Horowitz on Workmen’s Compensation, 1944 Edition, p. 133, I quote the follow*686ing: “Unexplained deaths have made Sherlock Holmeses of many judges. The distinction between ‘reasonable inferences’ (compensable) and speculation, conjecture and surmise (non-compensable) would certainly and often baffle a Watson’s credulity.” However, “The courts usually abide by the decision of the hearer of the facts, unless they can say that ‘taking all the factors into account the board drew an inference that no reasonable man could draw.’ ” While the reasonableness of the inferences drawn by the board in this particular case, in my opinion, is extremely doubtful I am reluctant to say as a matter of law that no reasonable man could have drawn them.
Note. — Reported in 131 N. E. 2d 162.