Court Opinion

ID: 9532666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:23:45.467509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:48.393131
License: Public Domain

Alexander, J.
(dissenting).
No one would begrudge to the dependents of a deceased employee the right to a liberal construction of our Workmen’s Compensation Law, with a view to granting every protection to those who have by such law been accorded a measure of security and compensation which had been too long’ denied. Yet, the law itself must be protected against the warping influences which would, by distorting its plain language, amend it by judicial fiat.
I concur in the views of Justice Koberds that death from a wilful assault by a third person is compensable only when it is committed because of the employment of the deceased. A causal, and not an incidental, connection is required. “Because” does not mean “while”. The circumstance that an employee is injured while employed is taken care of in the provision that the injury must arise out of and in the course of the employment. *622Yet, as to a wilful act of a third person, it must arise “while so employed and working on the job”, not only, but also “because of his employment.” There is no redundancy here; the two concepts are entirely distinct, and the use of both expressions points up their different meanings.
It would seem that realism had been abandoned, when we reject or doubt the fact that the homicide ivas caused by the resentment of a vengeful and outraged husband. To make some other theory acceptable, it has been argued that a wife’s testimony to her own unfaithfulness is not worthy of belief. It seems to be overlooked that the basis of her incredibility is thus made her accepted status as an adulteress, which is the very fact that is being rejected as coming from a witness unworthy of belief. By like reason, no confession of guilt should be given weight since a person who would steal would lie.
Certainly no presumptions of rightful conduct have any place, for if the wife is to be presumed to have been loyal to her husband, the result is a conclusion of guilt of perjury. Such presumption further results in a conclusion that the husband is guilty of a deliberate and unjustified murder. Yet, he also would be equally entitled to protection behind the shield of presumed lawful conduct.
This case furnishes no occasion to try the issue of the husband’s guilt, nor indeed the guilt of Watts. As intimated by Justice Roberds, it is enough that Garrett believed him to have despoiled his home. No one should be unrealistic enough to disregard all the testimony in order to attain a conclusion that Garrett was merely testing his markmanship upon the most available human target.
In this connection, we have overridden the view definitely expressed bj^ us in construing this law that: “Uncontradicted or undisputed evidence should ordinarily be taken as true by the triers of the facts. More precisely, evidence which is not contradicted by positive testimony or circumstances, and is not inherently improb*623bable, incredible, or unreasonable, cannot be arbitrarily or capriciously, discredited, disregarded, or rejected, even though the witness is a party or interested; and unless shown to be untrustworthy, is to be taken as conclusive, and binding on the triers of fact.” Lucedale Veneer Company v. Rogers, Miss., 53 So. (2d) 69, 75.
It is immaterial, as a mere incident, that Watts was killed while in actual possession of clothing to be cleaned, or that he was at the established rendezvous. There is no need to corroborate the fact that he was engaged in collecting laundry. We have seen fit to doubt only the fact of the rendezvous. In principle, the situation is the same whether he was killed in the home which had been unlawfully invaded or whether he had been waylaid while upon his appointed rounds. Also immaterial is the fact that he was killed by Garrett or an outsider. The important inquiry is: was he killed because he was so employed? Concede the absence of any misconduct on the part of Watts — as the controlling opinion assumes— this does not bring into view, as the only alternative, that he was killed because he was a laundryman. Had he been assaulted or killed as a result of some labor dispute during a controversy between striking employees, an illustration of causal connection would become evident.
Without prolonging futile dissent, it is worthy of repeated underscoring that injuries to an employee are never compensable unless suffered while he is in the course of his employment. Barry v. Sanders Company, Miss., 52 So. (2d) 493. Yet, in cases of accident it must arise out of and in the course of his employment. But in those cases where there is a wilful act of a third person, the injury or death must occur not only “while so employed and working on the job” but “because of his employment”. Such instances here are not within a foreseeable zone of danger incident to the work. I am not prepared to accept the view that the probability of an employee’s detour from his established course into *624the bedroom, of an unfaithful spouse is so great and so generally accepted that an employer must assume the risk of resentment by an outraged husband on the theory that such deviation is usual, normal and foreseeable. It would seem to be more reasonable to impose liability upon an employer in cases where the employee cliviates from his course to rob a bank and who is killed by a police officer, in a zone of danger which was of his own creation. Here, Watts was not killed because of his employment but because of his deviation. I take occasion to repeat that it matters not whether Watts was in fact guilty or the deviation existed in fact. That is why he was killed.
Even if it be conceded that Watts was at the home because of his employment, it does not follow that he was killed because of this employment. Such cases as Primos v. Gulfport Laundry and Cleaning Company, 157 Miss. 770, 128 So. 507 and Singer Sewing Machine Company v. Stockton, 171 Miss. 209, 157 So. 366, ought to be readily distinguishable. In both cases the fact that injury was caused by a servant while in the course of his employment was sufficient to impose liability' respondeat superior. In the instant case this doctrine is not involved. Watts injured no one while so employed; he was the person injured. There was no interweaving of personal and business purposes, as existed in Richberger v. American Express Company, 73 Miss. 161, 18 So. 922, 31 L. R. A. 390; Barmore Vicksburg, S. & P. R. Co., 85 Miss. 426, 38 So. 210, 70 L. R. A. 627, or in Lundell v. Walker, 204 Ark. 871, 165 S. W. (2d) 600, cited in the controlling opinion. There was no dispute between Garrett and Watts over business of the laundry. The homicide was committed while Watts retained the status of an employee, yet, as in Barry v. Sanders Company, supra, not because of the employment.
The controlling opinion accepts the finding of the hearing examiner that “there is nothing other than conjecture to show that Garrett suspected Watts or *625anyone else as the guilty party or that the shooting- actually arose out of an affair between the two. It is thereupon concluded that there was no' testimony as to motive. Such finding may be justified only if we strike from the record all the testimony of Mrs. Garrett except such as is favorable to the appellee, and all other circumstantial evidence, including Garrett’s bitter triumphant cry “Well, I caught y’all”, and reject all deduction which a jury would be privileged, and likely, to make as to why Watts was killed. Reasonable deduction should not so readily be cast aside by calling it conjecture.
I readily subscribe to the oft expressed view that this law must be given a liberal interpretation in the interest of injured employees. However, this principle applies only to doubtful or ambiguous provisions. Here, our Court has given to the expression “liberal interpretation” a liberal interpretation.
McGehee, O'. J.
(separate opinion).
In this case my conclusion as to whether the judgment appealed from should be affirmed or reversed does not affect the ultimate result, since there were sufficient votes for an affirmance cast in the conference prior to the absence (on account of illness) of Mr. Justice Hall. Although I am not in accord with some of the findings of fact made by the Workmen’s Compensation Commission, which were affirmed by the circuit court, and do not think that the Court should go as far as some of the decisions cited in the controlling opinion have gone on the question here involved, I am not prepared to say' that the conclusion reached in this case is contrary to many of the decisions cited from such other jurisdiction, giving an exceedingly liberal interpretation to Workmen Compensation Acts.
Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from stating that I am greatly impressed with much of the reasoning- contained in the dissenting opinions of Justices Alexander and Roberds in this case.
*626However, I do think the fact that the laundryman had picked up the suit of clothes of his slayer to be carried to the laundry is material at least to the extent of showing that he was about the duties of his employment on the occasion that he came to his death. I think that this fact enabled the slayer to identify him as the laundryman, but I am inclined to the view that we may be going too far in holding that the laundryman was killed because of his employment. The slayer intended to kill the laundryman, but it seems to me that he intended to do so because of the admittedly illicit relationship between the wife of the slayer and the laundryman, rather than because of the latter’s employment by the laundry, or because of the performance of any of his work or in connection with any of his duties under such employment. I doubt that we may correctly classify as an industrial hazard an injury to an employee that he receives by reason of becoming too intimate with the wife of a customer of the employer. The danger zone here appears to have been created by the misbehavior of the employee, which an employer ■would not normally be required to anticipate or insure against.
But as hereinbefore indicated, I dislike to dissent from a controlling opinion without having studied the decisions upon which such opinion is based as thoroughly as the author thereof has evidently done in the instant case; and since my vote would not change the result, I do not feel justified in delaying the decision any longer for the purpose of a further consideration of the decisions cited from other jurisdictions which tend to support the judgment appealed from. Otherwise, I would feel constrained to do' so. At any rate, and for the foregoing reasons, I do not dissent.
The final opinion was as follows:
Kyle, J.
This case was submitted on October 1, 1951, and an opinion was rendered by the Court, affirming the judg*627ment of the lower court on November 26, 1951. After the filing of that opinion the appellants filed a suggestion of error, in which the appellants challenged the correctness of the opinion of the Court on three main grounds: (1) That the Court erred in holding that the provisions of Section 2(2) of the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation Act, Ch. 354, Laws 1948, do not require that in a case of injury or death caused by the willful act of a third person, such act must have been directed against the employee because of his employment in order for compensation to be allowed, and (2) that the Court erred in holding that the death of Charles Watts arose out of his employment, within the meaning of the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation Act, and (3) that the Court erred in holding that Charles Watts’ employment was a substantial contributing cause of his death. After the briefs filed in support of the above mentioned suggestion of error had been considered by the Court, a memorandum request was made by the Court for reply briefs from the attorneys for the appellees. Reply briefs were filed on May 1, 1952, and the case has again been considered by the Court in banc with all of the Judges participating, and a majority of the Judges are of the opinion that the suggestion of error should be sustained, and that the original opinion rendered by the Court on November 26, 1951, should be withdrawn and the judgment entered by the Court on that date affirming the judgment of the lower court set aside, and the judgment of the lower court affirming the order of the Compensation Commission allowing the claim should be reversed and judgment entered here for the appellants.
The facts disclosed by the record, as summarized in the original opinion, are substantially as follows:
Appellees, Katherine L. Watts and Ronny Watts, are the wife and minor son of Charles Watts, who was shot and killed by a, customer of the appellant, Brookhaven Steam Laundry. The other appellant is the insurance carrier, Utica Mutual Insurance Company. Appellees *628were granted an award of compensation under the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation Act Miss. Laws 1948, Chap. 354, amended by the Laws of 1950, Chap. 412 (only the 1948 Act is applicable here). The order of the hearing examiner was affirmed by the Workmen’s Compensation Commission and by the Circuit Court of Copiah County. The question is whether there is sufficient evidence to support the finding of the hearing examiner that the death of Charles Watts, resulting from this assault upon him, arose out of his employment and was “because of his employment” within the terms of the statute.
Charles Watts, the deceased, was employed by the Brookhaven Steam Laundry as a route man. His duties were to pick up and deliver laundry and dry-cleaning for the employer. He worked on a commission basis, and was encouraged to obtain additional customers within the territory assigned to him. Crystal Springs was designated by his employer as one of the towns in his territory. The employer also designated Tuesdays and Fridays of each week as the days on which Watts would call on customers of the laundry in Crystal Springs. The truck which he used for his job and all of the expenses of its operation were furnished by the employer. Watts had been working for the laundry for about two years prior to his death. The laundry had on its books a regular customer in Crystal Springs by the name of Henry Garrett.
There were only three witnesses to- the shooting who knew anything of its precedent circumstances. They were Henry Garrett, who did not testify and who was not offered by either side; Charles Watts, the deceased; and Mrs. Henry Garrett. Mrs. Garrett testified that she first met Charles Watts sometime in September, 1948. The Garretts were living in a house on Lee Avenue in Crystal Springs. Lee Avenue runs east and west and the house is on the north side of the street facing south. It had a small porch on the front. The living room door, *629with a screen door on it, faced south, and to the right as one goes up the front steps is a bedroom door, which entrance at the time of the shooting also had a screen door. The bedroom door faced west. The two doors were within a few feet of each other, and each screen opened toward the other door.
Mr. Garrett worked in Jackson and left his home about five o’clock A. M., returning around 4:30' P. M. Mrs. Garrett, who worked in a shirt factory in Crystal Springs, was temporarily laid off from work because of a fire in September, 1948. Before that she had been leaving their laundry and dry cleaning with the next door neighbor for appellant laundry to pick up. She testified that, after she was temporarily out of a job, Watts called at their house for the laundry, and that after several meetings she and Watts began to have a love affair and regular sexual intercourse; that Watts would come to her house on Tuesdays and Fridays, the regular days for his work in Crystal Springs, for 30 to 45 minutes during the noon lunch-hour, and that after she went back to work, she would come home for lunch for the purpose of meeting him; that the Garretts regularly traded with appellant laundry, and that Watts oftentimes would pick up and deliver laundry or dry cleaning on those occasions; and that on other occasions, he would visit with her for personal purposes without picking up or delivering any clothing. She said that she and Watts had an arrangement by which clothing to be cleaned would be placed on a chair on the porch as a signal to Watts that he could come in the house. Apparently in must instances the clothing was also put out for him to pick up and have cleaned and pressed.
Watts had at least one other customer in the immediate neighborhood, the Jones, who lived next door to the east of the Garrett house. O'n most occasions, when Watts would call he would leave his laundry truck in front of the Garrett house, and at other times partly between the Garretts’ and the Jones’ houses. On the day of the *630shooting of Watts, April 19, 1949, Mrs. Garrett returned from work to her house around 12:10 P. M. She placed a suit of her husband on the chair on the porch, and she said that this was a signal that Watts could stop and come in the house. She also .stated that her husband had previously ‘ ‘ told me to have it cleaned and I put the suit out”. She “meant for him to carry them away with him. ’ ’
Watts arrived at the house later than usual, at about 12:30 P. M., went up on the porch and talked to Mrs. Garrett for about fifteen minutes. She told him not to come in because she was late and had to get back to work. During this period Watts was standing on the porch with the screen door to the living room held open, the wooden door being open also. Mrs. Garrett was standing just inside the living room door. She did not remember when Watts picked up the clothing which ivas to be cleaned, but she said that he had them in his hand for some time while they were talking. She did not know that Garrett, the husband, was in the house. She thought he had gone to- work that morning. She and Watts were talking in a normal tone, and she thought her husband could have heard their conversation. Garrett suddenly opened the wooden door to the bedroom. She said that she and Watts had been talking about future meetings between them. When Garrett appeared Watts had the suit of clothes of her husband in his hand. Garrett had a pistol in his hand, which was apparent to both Mrs. Garrett and Watts when he opened the door. She said that Garrett said, “Well, I caught y’all,” and that he told Watts to get away from the house and stay away. She then testified as follows: “Q. What did Mr. Watts do, if anything? A. When Henry spoke we both whirled out of the door and Charles grabbed the door that went into the bedroom — the screen door- — and he pulled it open and threw the clothes down. Henry stepped back in the room and asked him to- stop and step backwards. When I seen what Charles was going to do, I grabbed *631for him,and Charles said‘Pella, I’ll * # *’ and he never did finish the sentence. Henry shot him. And when I grabbed him that finger there — the bullet hit the nail on it. Q. The finger of your left hand? A. Yes, sir. ’’
Watts threw the clothing just on the inside of the bedroom door. After Watts fell Mrs. Garrett sat on the edge of the porch with her feet on the first step and held his head in her lap until the ambulance arrived. One of his feet was in the door of the bedroom with the screen door against it. He died shortly after the shooting.
C. B. Ferguson, City’' Marshal of Crystal Springs, testified that he arrived 5-10 minutes after the shooting and, speaking of Mrs. Garrett, Ferguson said: “Just a few minutes after I had gotten there and the neighbors began to gang around she said ‘ I hope all you neighbors are satisfied. All this talk you been doing that you don’t know anything about has caused an innocent man to get shot.’ ”
Mrs. Garrett denied making this statement, but stated that she told the neighbors who had gathered around that she knew the}’ had been talking and she hoped that now they were satisfied.
The examiner found in effect that Garrett did not know Watts personally, and that Garrett had no actual knowledge of the affair and did not suspect Watts individually. Concerning this Mrs. Garrett testified: “Q. He didn’t know Watts, did he? A. I don’t know whether he did or not. Q. He didn’t know who the man was talking to you — correct? A. I don’t know what he knew. ”
After Garrett had opened the bedroom door, Mrs. Garrett manifestly thought that it was apparent that her husband was going to shoot Watts. Speaking of Watts, she said: “A. I was right there with him. I was kind of in hopes to keep him back after I seen what was going to happen. Q. Your husband was armed with a pistol? A. I saw the pistol when he jerked open the door.”
.The District Attorney and some police officers, offered by appellees, testified as to an oral and a written state*632ment made by Garrett after the shooting. This was excluded by the hearing examiner, and since appellees took no cross-appeal thereon, we do not consider those statements or the question of their admissibility. It was shown that Garrett had not been indicted by two succeeding grand juries. The hearing examiner found that the testimony of H. B. Goolsby, who said he actually saw the shooting, “sheds no light upon the details or circumstances surrounding same”, and that the testimony of Miss. Edwards and of Jones and Wilson, neighbors of the Garretts, was of little weight. Neither Jones nor Wilson, who lived on opposite sides of the Garrett home, had ever seen Watts enter the Garrett house. Miss Edwards said she had.
The hearing examiner found that Mrs. Garrett was an admitted adulteress and that “whether the controversy * * * grew out of domestic matters is a matter only Mr. Garrett can clarify in as much as Mr. Watts is dead”; that there is a presumption of morality which should be recognized until a preponderance of evidence shows otherwise; that “only by the testimony of suspecting neighbors, whose evidence was largely their opinions, and the admission of Mrs. Garrett, who has little to lose and everything to gain by justifying her husband’s act as reason for the shooting, has a reason for the shooting been offered.” The examiner found that there was nothing unusual in parking' the delivery truck near the Garrett home as it was also shown that Watts collected laundry from others in the neighbzorhood in addition to the Garrett family; that assuming that an affair did exist between Watts and Mrs. Garrett, the record did not show that Garrett had actual knowledge of the affair or that Garrett suspected Watts as the transgressor; that Watts was on the porch on a regular day and had the clothes for the laundry in his hand; that Mrs. Garrett did not think her husband even knew Watts; that assuming Garrett went to the door to' warn Watts or any other man away from the house, “such a presumption, *633if true, would have led to the shooting of any other party present regardless of his innocence.” The examiner thought that even though some personal motive may have made Watts’ business trips more interesting, Watts was still at the time in the process of picking up laundry when shot; that Watts would not have met with the fatal accident if he had not appeared at the Garrett home on the laundry’s business that day. Hence, the examiner found that “there is nothing other than conjecture to show that Garrett suspected Watts or anyone else as the guilty party, or that the shooting actually arose out of an affair between the two. Until conclusively shown that the alleged immoral acts of Watts committed prior to his death, or that the alleged plans for an immoral meeting was overheard and caused the shooting, his dependents should not be deprived of their right to receive compensation.”
In holding that the claimants are not entitled to recover in this case, we do not lose sight of the fact that  the Workmen’s Compensation Act, Chapter 354, Laws of 1948, should be given a liberal interpretation in order to effect its salutary purposes. Deemer Lumber Co. v. Hamilton, 211 Miss. 673, 52 So. (2d) 634. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that it is the duty of the court to construe the Act as it is written. In Section 2(2) of the Act the word “injury” is defined as follows: “ ‘Injury’ means accidental injury or accidental death arising out of and in the course of employment, and includes injuries to artificial members; and also includes an injury caused by the wilful act of a. third person directed against an employee because of his employment, while so employed and working on the job. ’ ’
“While the interpretation of the phrase ‘arising out of the employment’, as used in workmen’s compensation acts to define the injuries compensable thereunder, has given rise to many questions of considerable difficulty to which the decisions are not harmonious, there is general agreement upon the proposition that  an *634injury arises out of an employment when but only when there is a causal connection between such injury and the conditions under which the work is required to be performed, it is not sufficient that the employee is at the place of his employment at the time of the accident and doing his usual work.” 58 Am. Jur., Workmen’s Compensation, p. 718, Par. 211.
In discussing* the meaning of the words “Arising out of and in the course of employment” Schneider, often quoted by the courts in compensation cases, says: “As has already been indicated, it has been held quite uniformly that an injury arises out of the employment when there is a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury. * * * The fact that one is working at the time he is injured, and would not have suffered injury had he not been employed, does not show a causal connection between the employment and the injury, nor will a showing that the employment brought the party to the place where injured and that he would not have met with the accident elsewhere show a proximate causal relation between the employment and the injury.” “The risk must be reasonably incidental to' the employment * * *. There must be some connection between the injury and the employment other than the mere fact that the employment brought the injured party to the place of injury.” Schneider, Vol. 6, pages 7, 32 and 33.
Under the Mississippi statute, if the injury or death has been caused by the willful act of a third person, it must be shown that such willful act was directed against the employee “because of his employment, while so employed and working on the job. ’ ’
It is undoubtedly true that Watts’ employment brought him to' the Garrett home the day he was killed. But proof of this fact is not enough to establish legal liability against his employer under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Before the injury can be held to be compensable, it must be shown that the injury arose out of Watts ’ *635employment, and that Garrett shot Watts because of his employment. In other words  there must be shown some causal connection between the injury and the employment other than the mere fact that the employment brought Watts to the place where he was injured, and Watts’ employment must have been connected with his injury in some more direct manner than the mere furnishing of an opportunity to Garrett to commit the assault upon him.
There is no direct testimony in the record to show that Watts’ employment was in any manner a contributing cause to his injury. He did not become involved in a quarrel with Garrett over the receipt or delivery of laundry, or the collection of a laundry bill, or because of any dissatisfaction with the service rendered by the Broolchaven Steam Laundry, or by Watts as its employee. Garrett and Watts had had no sharp words concerning the quality of service that Watts had rendered in the handling of the laundry for Garrett and his family.  So far as this record shows Garrett killed Watts because Garrett believed that Watts was having improper relations with his wife. The fact that Watts was an employee of the Brookhaven Steam Laundry was a contributing cause of Watts’ being at the Garrett home that day, but it was in no sense'a contributing cause of the willful shooting of Watts by Garrett.
In 58 Am. Jur., Workmen’s Compensation, p. 765, Par. 265, it is said that the general rule is that an injury inflicted upon a workman by the willful or criminal assault of a third person may be regarded as an accidental injury within the meaning of that term as used in a Workmen’s Compensation Act. “It is also established that such an injury is to be regarded as having arisen out of the employment when the nature of the employment is such as naturally to invite an assault, or when the employee is exposed to an assault by the character of his work, as when he is protecting* or in charg’e of his employer’s property, and the assault naturally results be*636cause of the employment, and not because of something unconnected with it, so that it is a hazard or special risk of the work”, But,  “when the assault is unconnected with the employment, or is for reasons personal to the assailant and the one assaulted, or is not because the relation of employer and employee exists, and the employment is not the cause, though it may be the occasion of the wrongful act, and may give a convenient opportunity for its execution, it is ordinarily held that the injury does not arise out of the employment. ’ ’ Dallas Mfg. Co. v. Kennemer, 243 Ala. 42, 8 So. (2d) 519; Allburn Coal Corp. v. Wilson, 222 Ky. 740, 2 S. W. (2d) 365; State, ex rel. Common School Dist. No. 1 in Itasca County v. District Ot., 140 Minn. 470, 168 N. W. 555, 15 A. L. R. 579; Service Mut. Ins. Co. of Texas v. Vaughn, Tex. Civ. App., 130 S. W. (2d) 392. Other more recent cases in which the last mentioned rule has been recognized and applied are, January-Wood Co. v. Schumacher, 1929, 231 Ky. 705, 22 S. W. (2d) 117; Bluegrass Pastureland Dairies v. Meeker, 1937, 268 Ky. 722, 105 S. W. (2d) 611; Service Mutual Ins. Co. of Texas v. Vaughn, 1939, Tex. Civ. App., 130 S. W. (2d) 392; Industrial Commission v. Strome, 1941, 107 Colo. 54, 108 P. (2d) 865; Perez v. Fred Harvey, Inc., 1950, 54 N. M. 339, 224 P. (2d) 524; Harden v. Thomasville Furniture Co., 1930, 199 N. C. 733, 155 S. E. 728; Elrod v. Union Bleachery, 1944, 204 S. C. 481, 30 S. E. (2d) 73; Bridges v. Elite, Inc., 1948, 212 S. C. 514, 48 S. E. (2d) 497; Spring Canyon Coal Co., v. Industrial Commission of Utah, 58 Utah 608, 201 P. 173; Ramos v. Taxi Transit Co., 1949, 276 App. Div. 101, 92 N. Y. S. (2d) 744.
In the case of January-Wood Co. v. Schumacher, supra, the Court held that under the Kentucky Workmen’s Compensation Act the fact that a night watchman’s duty required his presence in such a place as gave one bearing personal animosity toward him as the husband of the former’s paramour an opportunity to murder him with less probability of apprehension than if he did so else*637where, did not constitute such causal relation as to bring snch result within the term ‘ ‘ arising out of his employment”. [231 Ky. 705, 22 S. W. (2d) 120] The Court said in its opinion that the compensation act did not afford compensation for injuries or misfortunes which were merely contemporaneous or coincident with the employment, or collateral to it. The Court said: “In the instant case the personal animosity of Eddings was the direct cause of the employee’s death. He did not kill Schumacher because he was the company’s night watchman on duty, but because he was the husband of his paramour. Does the fact that his duty put him in such a place as gave his murderer an opportunity to carry out his nefarious design with less probability of apprehension than if he did so elsewhere constitute snch causal relation as to bring the result within the term ‘ arising out of his employment’? We hardly think so, on both reason and authority. ’ ’
In the case of Service Mutual Ins. Co. of Texas v. Vaughn, supra [130 S. W. (2d) 393], the Court held that a night watchman’s murder by a son-in-law, because of the feeling that the son-in-law had against the night watchman caused by the refusal of the wife of the son-in-law to live with the son-in-law, was not compensable under the Texas statute, which provided that the term “injury sustained in the course of employment” shall not include ‘ ‘ an injury caused by an act of a third person intended to injure the employee because of reasons personal to him and not directed against him as an employee, or because of his employment.”
In the Bluegrass Pastureland Dairies v. Meeker, supra, the Court held that the murder of a milk deliverer by a former customer on the porch of the former customer’s home, under the belief that intimacy had arisen between the milk deliverer and the customer’s wife, was not compensable because the death of the milk deliverer did not arise out of the employment, notwithstanding evidence, which was contradicted, that the milk distributor’s offi*638cers, with knowledge of the former customer’s suspicion, directed the milk deliverer to go to the former customer’s home to return an overpayment on a milk bill. In that case the court said [268 Ky. 722, 105 S. W. (2d) 616]: “The proper solution of the question must not be influenced by the fact that the employment furnished the occasion for the infliction of the injury, since the occasion for the infliction is quite distinct from the injury' — the occasion furnishing only an opportunity for the wholly independent and disconnected cause to operate. Here, as in the January-Wood Company case, and as in the Scholtzhauer case, the cause of injury to and death of the servant was something wholly independent of, and by no means incident to the employment of the servant; nor did it result from or grow out of the performance of any duty that he owed to or was discharging for the master. Whether Poulter was correctly informed about the alleged intimacy between the deceased and his wife, or whether he had been given false information concerning that matter and entertained an erroneous impression relating thereto, can make no difference in this case, since the fact is that he, according to the undisputed proof, was then laboring under the impression that his domestic peace and happiness had been invaded bjr Meeker, the deceased servant. Such belief had engendered in his breast hostility toward the servant, and the killing resulted solely from that fact, and from no fact incidental to, issuing from, or growing out of the servant’s employment; the latter serving only to make an occasion for Poulter’s wreaking vengeance and inflicting’ injuries complained of.”
In the case of Ramos v. Taxi Transit Co., supra, the Court held that where a taxicab driver was killed in the course of his employment, but the undisputed proof showed that he was killed by a personal enemy for purposes of revenge, benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation law could not be awarded, since the killing did not arise out of the employment. In that case the court said *639[276 App. Div. 101, 92 N. Y. S. (2d) 750]: “The marked trend of liberalization in workmen’s compensation cases has not obliterated the dual test that it be shown both that the injury arose ‘ out of’ as well as ‘in the course of’ employment, and the latest cases are as careful to require both conditions to exist as the earliest ones. Cf. Matter of Industrial Commissioner (Siguin) v. McCarthy, supra, 295 N. Y. at pages 443, 446, 447, 68 N. E. (2d) at pages [434], 435, 436.
“The employment brought the deceased face to face with his enemy, and there is no difficulty in saying that this murder arose ‘in the course of’ employment; but it cannot be said, and the board had no evidence upon which to erect a finding, that the murder arose ‘out of’ the employment. All the evidence in the case demonstrates that the deceased was murdered for a personal cause having no relation to employment. ’ ’
In the case of Ex parte Coleman, 211 Ala. 248, 100 So. 114, 115 the Court said that from the fact alone of a wilful assault upon a workman, it cannot be presumed that it arose out of his employment. That conclusion must be drawn, if at all, from the circumstances of the case, or from the testimony of the witnesses, tending to show the causal relation of the employment to the injury; and “the rational mind must be able to trace the resultant personal injury to a proximate cause set in motion by the employment and not by some other agency. ’ ’
 The burden of proof- was on the appellees to show by competent evidence that there was a causal connection between -the willful act of Garrett in killing Watts and Watts’ employment by the Brookhaven Steam Laundry. The circumstances of the killing, as testified to by the witnesses, did not indicate that Garrett shot Watts because of Watts’ employment; and if Mrs. Garrett’s testimony were rejected in its entirety there would be no proof in the record to sustain appellees’ contention that the killing occurred because of Watts’ employment. The position and locality rule stated in Hartford Acoi*640dent & Indemnity Co. v. Cardillo, 72 App. D. C. 52, 112 F. (2d) 11, which is referred to in the appellees’ brief, cannot take the place of the proof of causal connection which is required by the Mississippi statute, when the injury has been caused by the willful act of a third person. Watts’ duty to pick up- the laundry for his employer may have been a concurrent cause, or the sole cause, of his visit to the Garrett home on the day of the killing, but it was not a concurrent cause of the injury inflicted upon him by Garrett when Garrett shot him.
We think that the proof in this case shows clearly that Watts’ death was caused by the willful act of a third person intended to injure him because of reasons personal to him, and not because of his employment by the Brook-haven Steam Laundry. There was no substantial proof in the record to support the findings of the Commission that Watts’ death arose out of his employment or that Garrett killed Watts because of his employment.
For the reasons stated above the suggestion of error is sustained, the former opinion rendered in this cause on November 26, 1951, is withdrawn, and the judgment entered herein affirming the judgment of the lower court is set aside, and the judgment of the circuit court affirming the award made by the Commission and the order of the Commission awarding compensation to the claimants are reversed and judgment entered here in favor of the appellants.
Suggestion of error sustained, the judgment of the lower court reversed and judgment rendered for the appellants.
McGeh.ee, C. J. and Roberds, Alexander and Holmes, JJ., concur.