Court Opinion

ID: 9683819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:37:25.228511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:50.462146
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Judge, dissenting. I respectully dissent. I would reverse this case as I cannot agree that an employee who injures himself by working on his own time, for his own aims and diversions, in which the employer has no conceivable interest or benefit, can be said to have incurred an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. No advantage in any real sense was derived by the employer from the activity of the employee at the time of his injury so as to enable one to say that the ends of the employer were somehow served. It is not even contended that the employee acquired greater skill by his off-time use of the machinery so that the employer would have ultimately benefitted by the increased skill of the employee. The end result of such a holding is that employees could lose some of the benefits they may now enjoy, as employers will presumably be more likely to preclude any permissive use of company facilities rather than undergo additional risk of injury.