Court Opinion

ID: 9734169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:26:50.96671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:46.115789
License: Public Domain

Smith,, J.
(dissenting). This is not the first time we have considered the injury suffered by a workman in the company parking lot after his day’s work is completed and he prepares to embark on his homeward journey. In Daniel v. Murray Corporation of America, 326 Mich 1, we held he could not recover workmen’s compensation. We said he could not because (p 14):
“The fundamental test in this State is that the injury, to be compensable, must have arisen out of and in the course of the employment — there must be some causal connection between the injury and the employment more than the mere fact that the employee was on premises of the employer which had been furnished by the employer for the use and benefit of the employee as an ‘incident’ of the employment. That is not enough.”
Although the opinion was that of a divided court, and was contrary to the parking lot cases in certain other jurisdictions, e. g., Rogers’s Case, 318 Mass 308 (61 NE2d 341, 159 ALR 1394); Pacific Indemnity Company v. Industrial Accident Commission, 28 Cal2d 329 (170 P2d 18), it stands as the law of this •State.
But in the case before us the employee seeks not compensation. He has returned to the common law for relief. In this situation, also, Justice Reid finds no warrant for the action, saying, in part, “Our *421workmen’s compensation act taken in its entirety * * * bars plaintiff’s action.” Thus the result of our holdings is that the workman, though grievously injured, has no recovery whatever. All doors are closed to him, the court’s as well as the commission’s.
To reach a result so disastrous to the injured workman requires words of legislative command so clear and so loud that we cannot hear his cries for relief. Justice Reid finds those words in the title and in the act as a whole. My respect for his years on this Court and his learning have caused me to scan the act anew, but what is so obvious to him remains hidden to my sight. Our precise question is whether or not. the remedy given by the act is exclusive. For the answer I turn to the exclusive remedy section of the statute. It is found in CL 1948, § 411.4 (Stat Ann 1950 Rev § 17.144), providing as follows:
“Where the conditions of liability under this act exist, the right to the recovery of compensation benefits, as herein provided, shall be the exclusive remedy against the employer.”
The remedy is exclusively in the act, then, when “conditions of liability under this act exist.” What are those conditions of liability? There are several, but so far as our present problem is concerned, the “condition of liability” relates to causation. It is not enough, to justify recovery under the act, that an employee suffer an injury of some kind unrelated to his work. As Justice Boyles pointed out in the quoted extract from Daniel v. Murray Corporation of America, supra, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the work. If there is, the remedy is exclusive even though some of the common-law elements of damage for an injury (i. e., pain and suffering, disfigurement) may go without recompense. If there is no causal con*422nection, the act does not apply and the injured person may seek his remedy elsewhere.
We turn, then, to causation. Did the injury arise out of and in the course of the employment? We said not, in Daniel v. Murray Corporation of America, supra, because (p 6):
(1) “The accident occurred after plaintiff’s work for his employer was ended for the day.”
Here the employee worked from 4:15 p.m. to 12:45 a.m. On this particular night he “checked out” about 1 o’clock. His work had ended for the day.
(2) “He was on his way home after leaving the place of his work.”
. Here the employee had gone to the parking lot where his car was parked. “I (then) didn’t know a thing until I woke up in the hospital.”
(3) “(He) had no further work or duties to perform for his employer on the day he was injured.”
Here, as noted above, the employee had “left the office, * * * punched out” and gone to his car.
He had no further duties to perform.
Thus under the rule of the Daniel Case, supra, the conditions of liability do not exist. The employee’s right, therefore, to maintain his common-law negligence action is clear. Citations could be multiplied but the legal principle involved is not complex and lengthy discussion is unwarranted.
The order of the trial court should be affirmed and case remanded. Costs to appellee.
Butzel, J., did not sit.