Court Opinion

ID: 9670512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:21:47.069253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:51:17.041347
License: Public Domain

McGehee, C.J.,
dissenting.
It is to be conceded that when an employee makes a slight deviation from his course of travel for the purpose of performing some mission of his own, and which is in no manner in furtherance of the business of his employer, there may be liability on the part of the employer for the negligent act of the employee that may have caused injury to someone while the slight deviation is being-made on such private mission. But in the instant case that which causes a difference of opinion among the judges is as to whether or not the deviation here was a substantial or a slight one. It is my view that when the employee Jessie Moon, after being within a block of the place of business of his employer and to which he was returning in the truck, deviated for a distance of 5 or 6 blocks via his home to ascertain what his wife wanted for supper, and injured the appellee before he had stopped the truck at the Moon home, he had made a substan*880tial deviation on a private mission of Ms own, and that consequently under the decision of the case of Bourgeois v. Mississippi School Supply Co., 170 Miss. 310, 155 So. 209, there would be no liability on the part of the employer.
It is no concern of the employer for the employee to completely depart from his course to the place of business in order to find out what Ms wife wanted for supper. I am unable to see how the act of the employee in going by his home for that purpose could have been in furtherance of the business of the employer, or in any manner related thereto.
In the Bourgeois case, supra, the Court did not overlook its prior decision in the case of Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Quick, 167 Miss. 438, 451, 149 So. 107, discussed in the majority opinion herein. On the contrary, the Court in the Bourgeois case distinguished the Quick case, and it seems to me that the Bourgeois case is applicable to the factual situation involved in the case at bar.
Moreover, we held in the case of Persons v. Stokes, (Miss.) 76 So. 2d 517, that where an employee halted his search for the employer’s cows when a dog treed a squirrel, and a fellow employee shot the squirrel, and the employee was struck in the eye by a ricocheting shot, there was no liability on the part of the employer in favor of the employee, even under the liberal construction applied to the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act involved in that case, and this was true notwithstanding that squirrel-shooting on the job was condoned by the employer where it did not interfere with the general work in which the employee was engaged. The Court said: “He did not receive his injury at a time when he was fulfilling any of the duties of Ms 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. *
*881If I could agree that the deviation in the instant case was a slight one, I would be in full accord with the majority opinion herein. For instance, if an employee should make a slight deviation from a highway to the front of a nearby grocery or drug store to get a cold drink or buy some cigarettes, or for a like purpose, such action would be reasonably anticipated by the employer and would only be a slight deviation, and the employer would be liable if the employee struck someone with his vehicle in driving up to the store. I dissent solely on the ground that in my version of the undisputed evidence here the employee in the instant case had made a substantial deviation from his journey back to the place of business of his employer, and on a mission strictly of his own and that therefore the employer should not be held liable for the employee’s negligent act in running over a pedestrian before the truck had come to a stop at the employee’s home, and consequently before he had resumed his act of returning to the place of business to which he was supposed to drive the truck.
Holmes, J., joins in this dissent.