Court Opinion

ID: 9687433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:27:50.311196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:27.182720
License: Public Domain

Peterson, Justice
(dissenting).
I join the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Otis in their dissenting opinions, to which I would append an additional observation.
It would seem that the Industrial Commission was influenced more by a feeling that the result was dictated by two prior decisions of this court than by its own judgment as to the rightness of the result. Commissioner James Pomush, writing the main opinion, relied almost exclusively upon this court’s decisions in Kaletha v. Hall Merc. Co. 157 Minn. 290, 196 N. W. 261, and Krause v. Swartwood, 174 Minn. 147,
*392218 N. W. 555, 57 A. L. R. 611, but at the same time recognized that this case “points up a troublesome and rather undecided area of the law.”1 ***5The concurring comment of Commissioner A. E. Ramberg pointedly acknowledged that his judgment was based upon “the almost inevitable conclusion that the legal trend [is] to find compensable any injury occurring during any reasonable act occurring while in an assigned territory” even though it is his expressed judgment “that noth*393ing in the employment was the proximate cause of the salesman’s death.”2
It is my view that neither Kaletha nor Krause control decision in this case. Although the cases have some similarity, they are not the same. Commissioner Pomush recognizes that “[t]here certainly is some difference” between this case and those, and the majority, although writing that Krause is “hardly distinguishable,” does acknowledge that there are no other cases which are “identical.” Kaletha is so distinguishable on its facts as hardly to require comment,3 and it is noted that the employee himself does not cite it as a controlling case.4
The Krause case, too, can be reconciled on its own facts, admitted in that decision to be unusual. Although Commissioner Pomush wrote that “the stating of the difference in a legal differentiating theory is not easily done,” it is important to do so. If we do not do so, we either write out of the statute the essential factor that an accident must “arise out of” the employment or we set traveling salesmen apart for vastly more favorable treatment than is accorded other employees. This manifestly was not the legislature’s intent. In this case the employee, while taking his food and drink at a restaurant of his choice, exposed himself to no unusual hazard and suffered an injury which, in the words of Commis-
*394sioner Ramberg, “most likely was the result of a life-long eating habit,” that habit, rather than his employment, being the proximate cause of his unfortunate death. In Krause the employee, in sharp contrast, was expressly ordered to go to a certain restaurant to take lunch rather than going home, for the sole convenience of her employer so that she might receive calls from expectant mothers transferred there from the doctor’s office during his absence. The risk she incurred resulted solely from obeying the order of her employer rather than from any act of her own. The court recognized that “[h]er luncheon that day was taken under unusual circumstances at the direction of her employer” and decided that it “arose from a ‘risk connected with the employment’ ” because “[h]er injury was a consequence of that very thing.” 174 Minn. 149, 150, 218 N. W. 556. The result in Krause, unlike the instant case, can be justified on grounds of peculiar exposure to external hazard different and greater than the risk to which she would have been exposed had she been pursuing her ordinary personal affairs.5

 “The case points up a troublesome and rather undecided area of the law. The referee in supporting his holding, cited the case of Kaletha v. Hall Mercantile Co., 157 Minn. 290, 196 N. W. 261, 2 Minn. W.C.D. 100. Kaletha was working during the Christmas period as a Santa Claus at a department store. He was dressed in the traditional Santa Claus suit. While taking a break from his Santa stint, he went into a room in the rear part of the store and undertook to light a cigarette. His false bearded face caught fire and he suffered serious bums. The Commission denied him compensation. The Supreme Court reversed the Commission and awarded compensation.
“In Krause v. E. A. Swartwood, et al., 174 Minn. 147, 218 N. W. 55, 5 Minn. W.C.D. 83, the employe was a secretary to Dr. Swartwood. He asked her to lunch in a nearby restaurant instead of going home to lunch, as she usually did. He wanted her to get his phone calls during this period and she had his calls transferred to the cafe. The price of the lunch was advanced by the doctor. Coffee at the cafe was served in a new urn, and she became poisoned by some white substance in her cup of coffee. The Commission denied compensation. The Supreme Court reversed the Commission and awarded compensation.
“The leading contemporary writers, Larson, and Schneider, infer compensability for most events occurring to traveling salesmen.
“In the instant case the employe did not get poisoned by his food, nor burn himself with a cigarette and flammable beard. He cut his meat in too large a piece. There certainly is some difference. And we recognize that factor — but the stating of the difference in a legal differentiating theory is not easily done — if at all. And in view of the past decisions, the remediality of the act, and liberality of the law in regard to salesmen, we place the employe’s choking on his piece of meat in the same relationship to his employment as the events in the Kaletha and Krause cases, supra.” (Italics supplied.)

 “A careful reading of traveling men cases leads to the almost inevitable conclusion that the legal trend [is] to find compensable any injury occurring during any reasonable act occurring while in an assigned territory. One reaches this conclusion even though it would appear under the facts of this case, that nothing in the employment was the proximate cause of the salesman’s death, but rather that it most likely was the result of a life-long eating habit.”

 See footnote 1.

 The only difficulty with Kaletha is the unnecessary verbiage which blurred the important distinction between accidents occurring “in the course of,” as distinguished from “arising out of,” the employment and its unrestricted dictum equating the procurement of food and refreshment with the simple act of smoking during duty hours. 157 Minn. 294, 196 N. W. 262. If the dictum is at all applicable we must take with it its proviso that the act must be done “in a reasonable and prudent manner,” which would rule out its application to decedent’s act of drinking three martinis and cutting off an oversized piece of meat to ingest.

 See, Nelson v. City of St. Paul, 249 Minn. 53, 55, 81 N. W. (2d) 272, 275 (school teacher injured by ball batted by school children at play on school premises). The exposure in Nelson and Krause was peculiarly due to the place of employment. The exposure in Kaletha was due to the peculiar garment required of the employee. Neither condition fits the situation of the employee in the instant case.