Court Opinion

ID: 9647279
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:29:40.598742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:47.621237
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
On June 17, 1952, John J. Eberle, 70 years of age, employed by the Union Dental Company on the third floor of a four-story building in Philadelphia, rose from his work bench at 5:30 p.m., descended the steps to the street on which the building abutted, turned to his right on the sidewalk, heading for the elevated railway which was to take him home, travelled 15 feet on the sidewalk to a brick driveway under the control of his employer, and at this point fell by slipping on a banana peel, sustaining serious injuries. He made claim for Workmen’s Compensation, which was allowed by the Referee, affirmed by the Workmen’s Compensation Board, affirmed by the Court of Common Pleas, disallowed by the Superior Court, and disallowed by the Majority of this Court.
It is admitted by the Majority that Eberle was injured on the premises of thé defendant company, but *118it is asserted that when he reached the foot of the. stairway his employment for the day had. terminated and, therefore, his accident did not occur, within the course of his employment. It has frequently been stated that the Workmen’s Compensation Act is to receive a liberal construction.* If the decision in this case constitutes liberality, then it must be assumed, that the maximum width of this Court’s liberality is 14 feet 11 inches. Eberle was only 15 feet away from the point where compensation would unquestionably have attached, had he fallen there.
It is not contested that if the unknown banana eater had dropped the skin of the banana at the foot of the stairs and it had thrown Eberle at that point, the resulting accident would have fallen within the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Thus, the liberal construction in this case covers a parabola of no greater span than the distance one can cast a banana peel.
I do not believe that the Majority’s decision can be regarded as a liberal construction of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. I believe, on the contrary, that it represents a very narrow construction of that Act and is in opposition to many precedente which would, authorize compensation in the set of facts which obtain here.
The real legal issue in this case, since it is admitted the accident happened on the employers premises, is-: May compensation be paid even though , the employee has ceased his work of the day or has not yet begun it? This question was answered quite definitively in the case of Molek v. Rainey, 120 Pa. Superior Ct. 95, 102, with the statement: “The fact that an employee has not started or has finished his actual work is immate*119rial if kt the time of the accident he is in fact on the premises of his employer."*
In the case of Ganassi v. Pittsburgh Coal Co., 162 Pa. Superior Ct. 289, 293, compensation was awarded wheretlie claimant had ceased his employment and was on his way to catch a ferry boat when he was struck by á railroad car on a siding belonging to the defendant company. What legal difference is there between going to-a ferry boat and going to an elevated railway in order to get home? In the Ganassi, case the Superior- Court said that the claimant “was injured in using the only means of egress from appellant’s mine madé available to him”. In the case at bar the Majority says that Eberle could have turned to the north instead of to the south to catch the elevated.. But travelling north would not have taken him to the elevated— -without girding the globe. There was no eason under the sun for Eberle to have gone in the opposite direction from the one he needed to follow, in order to get home. It isn’t as if there was a barrier in the sidewalk on his right, it isn’t as if a visible danger presented itself in his going to the right. He did not know of the banana peel on the driveway, which, it must be repeated, lay ambushed on the defendant’s premises. Why proceed south when one’s goal is north?
In the case of Jenkins v. Glen Alden Coal Company, 126 Pa. Superior Ct. 326, 329, where the Superior Court awarded compensation to an employee who was injured after his day’s work had terminated, the Court said: “True, his day’s duties had ended, but actual work does not have the same meaning as ‘course of employment.’ Hours of employment are not confined to the period for which services are paid; they may extend beyond that time. The claimant’s employment did not *120end until a reasonable opportunity had been afforded him to leave his employer’s premises.”
Did Eberle have a reasonable opportunity to leave his employer’s premises? One does not leave one’s employment with the precision, speed, and finality of a cannon shot — especially a 70-year old man. There are floors to cross, stairs to descend, sidewalks to be traversed before one is finally on the full tide of his return home, and until that home journey is definitively in train, the employee travels under the protecting canopy of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Incontrovertibly is this true when the mishap which gives rise to the claim for compensation actually occurs on the defendant’s premises, as is the fact here.
To deny compensation in this case is to play checkers with the Workmen’s Compensation Act. If the driveway had had a few feet greater width, taking its northern border to the foot of the stairs so that Eberle would have been continuously on his employer’s premises, even with the accident still happening at the same place, compensation would undoubtedly have been payable. However, since Eberle had to walk 15 feet in order .to get back on the defendant’s premises, once he had left them at the foot of the stairs, this Court holds that in those few steps that the employee walked, he walked out of the tent of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. I don’t agree.
In the case of Grazer v. Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Co., 161 Pa. Superior Ct. 434, the Superior Court held that where an employee was injured on the premises of his employer, while on his way to work, the fact that his actual work duties were one-third of a mile away, did not affect his right to compensation. If a liberal construction of the Workmen’s Compensation Act can stretch one-third of a mile when it deals with an employee on his way to work, what paralyzes its *121elasticity when only 15 feet are involved, and the employee, is on his way home?
Does time as well as lineal measure enter into the computation? In the case of Wolsko v. American Bridge Company, 158 Pa. Superior Ct. 339, 345, compensation was awarded where the employee, while on premises owned by the employer, was still a mile away from his actual place of work and was killed 15 minutes before his work was to begin. The Superior Court said: “... the fact that an employee has not started his actual work is immaterial if at the time of the accident he is in fact on the premises of his employer . . . He is considered to be within the course of his employment if on the ‘premises’ where he is employed a reasonable length of time before the hour fixed to commence his duties.” In the case at bar Eberle could not have been more than a minute or two away from his work bench when he was injured.
It is to be noted from all the authorities cited that the touchstone of the decisions depends on whether the employee is or is not on the employer’s premises at the time .of the accident; not on the intervening time between the moment of the accident and the time of beginning or termination of the workday. Thus, if an employee, after leaving the factory in which he is employed, crosses a State highway and is struck on the other side of the highway, still on premises of the employer, it cannot be doubted that, under the rule that he must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to leave his employer’s premises, compensation would be payable. But in this case, the Majority holds that as soon as Eberle’s feet touched the sidewalk pavement, he was like one banished from Eden and could never again return to the premises of his employer, even only 15 feet away.
*122The Majority leans heavily on the case of Lints v. Delaware Ribbons Manufacturers, 173 Pa. Superior Ct. 540, 544, for authority to support its decision here. An examination of that case shows that while it is a stout enough pillar to hold up the principle there proclaimed, it can only be a weak and feeble reed to support the cumbersome weight the Majority places on it in this case. In the Lints case the claimant had attended a Christmas party given by her employer in the factory building in which she was employed. She left the party, not intending to return. Later she changed her mind and started back to the building, but got lost in a part of the plant which she had never “been around” before. She fell on property owned and under the control of Pennsylvania Ribbon Manufacturers, Inc., not the Delaware Ribbon Manufacturers, her employer. The Superior Court denied compensation, saying: “The most that can be said for claimant is that she was en route to ‘work’ when she opened the boiler room doors and fell into the building. She had not as yet reached the employer’s premises.”
But in the case at bar, I must repeat once more, if monotonously, that Eberle was on the employer’s premises. In the very Lints case the Superior Court laid down the law, citing authorities, which should be controlling here, namely: “Where an entrance or exit is provided by the employer for his employes (citing cases); or where such exit or entrance is available and intended for use (citing case); or is the usual means of ingress and egress within the landlord’s building, to the tenant-employer’s place of business (citing case); or where the employe must traverse property of the employer or the employer’s landlord or employer to reach or leave work (citing case); then such entrance or exit, whether located on property under the control of the employer or not, is a part of the employer’s *123‘premises.’” (Italics in original Opinion). Eberle was traversing property of the employer when injured.
How the Majority can arrive at its conclusion in. this case, in spite of all the authorities cited, can only be explained on the hypothesis that it has decided to make the width of its liberality, in interpreting the humane Workmen’s Compensation Act, not more thán 14 feet 11 inches.
Mr. Justice Cohen joins in this dissent.

 Grazer v. Consolidated, 161 Pa. Superior Ct. 434, 438.

 Italics throughout, mine, unless otherwise indicated.