Court Opinion

ID: 9851921
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:21:40.764709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:19.505888
License: Public Domain

Holt, J.,
dissenting.
Tyree was employed from May 15, 1933, until July 14, 1933, the day on which he was hurt. He worked continuously in a quarry where dynamite was constantly used and was familiar with its explosive properties. His work *228consisted in moving broken rock which was to be put through a rock crusher. He testified as to it, in part, as follows:
“Q. Please tell the Commissioner about this accident of yours; state in detail how the whole thing happened and what you did and what you saw.
“A. The rock was lying down at the foot of the pile, and the stick of dynamite was on the top or side of it, and you could knock it off with a sprawl bar.
“Q. You were going to break up the rock after you had released the dynamite, is that right?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. And you did hit it with the rake?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. And your object was to knock loose the dynamite?
“A. Yes, sir.
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“Q. How did you know that the dynamite was in the rock?
“A. It was lying there on the top where you could see it.
“Q. And that was the first thing you saw?
“A. Yes, sir.
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“Q. And you got there and you saw this rock with a piece of dynamite in it, which you say, was right near the pile, and, instead of going on and loading the truck as you were supposed to do, you attempted to break this rock with the dynamite in it?
“A. I aimed to knock that. sheet off and come to the dynamite and then break it; I didn’t aim to hit the dynamite that hard to shoot it off.”
In the finding of the Commission is this statement of facts: “This piece of rock was lying at the foot of the pile and the piece of dynamite was on the top side of it and he intended to knock it off with a sprawl bar. He borrowed a hammer for the purpose of bursting the stone but he planned to knock the dynamite loose with his sprawl fork and *229while in the act of doing it he struck the dynamite causing the explosion.”
Unquestionably the injury from which Tyree suffered arose out of and in the course of his employment. But something more is necessary. Before he can recover it must appear that there was an accidental injury. An accident is something which should have been unexpected. The inevitable result of an act which should have been foreseen by a man of even mediocre intelligence is not an accident.
In U. S. Mutual Accident Asso. v. Barrie, 131 U. S. 100-121, 9 S. Ct. 755, 762, 33 L. Ed. 60, the Supreme Court said: “If a result is such as follows from ordinary means, voluntarily employed, in a not unusual or unexpected way, it cannot be called a result effected by accidental means.” One who is stung as he sticks his hand in a hornet’s nest has suffered no accident and for the same reason a man who beats upon a stick of dynamite stuck in a rock has suffered no accident when he is hurt by its explosion. It is no answer for him to say that he thought it was dead and would not explode. One might as well say that he thought the hornets were asleep.
This was the conclusion reached by the Industrial Commission, to which judgment this court has given little weight. Its findings of fact and its conclusion based thereon are sound, and for that reason I am constrained to dissent.