Court Opinion

ID: 9858844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:57:49.185208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:57:03.618908
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice
(dissenting).
The pertinent language of the Workman’s Compensation Act provides:
The provisions of this Chapter shall also apply to every person performing services arising out of and incidental to his employment in the course of his employer’s trade, business, or occupation in the following hazardous trades, businesses and occtipations:
* * sK * • * ' *
The construction, installation, ■ operáation; alteration, removal or repairs of wires, cables, switchboards or' apparatus *239charged with electrical current. (Emphasis'added.)
In my view the Act applies to “hazardous occupations” which for the purpose of this case are defined as “operation of apparatus charged with electrical current.” When these terms are read together in a comr monsensical light the conclusion must be reached that the occupation to be hazardous must involve “hazardous apparatus charged with electrical current.” This record does not support a finding that the electrically motivated cash register and counter are hazardous in fact. This being so, they are not properly to be considered hazardous under the Act.
There is every reason to believe that apparatus charged with electrical current as contemplated in 1914 when the Act was passed by the Legislature, which may then have been universally hazardous, had not attained the degree of refinement and sometimes perfection which has been attained in the manufacture of much of today’s electrical apparatus; including this cash register and .counter.
The Act’s charge that courts accord a liberal interpretation to its provisions in favor of the claimant does not, in my opinion, require that relief be granted in this case. Even a mandate for a liberal attitude does not require the courts to depart entirely from logic, reason or common sense.
I respectfully dissent.