Court Opinion

ID: 9778984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:30:59.991595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:18.143015
License: Public Domain

ON Petition to Rehear
Tomlinson, Justice.
This petition calls attention to the great importance of the results of this case to the widoiv and child of the deceased workman. When the majority decision in this case was rendered, those of the Court constituting that majority were keenly aware, and accordingly as regretful, of the importance of the results of this case to these persons. However, under the wording of our statute, as construed by all our decisions, we felt compelled to reach the conclusion stated. The matter is fully discussed in the majority opinion. Further discussion could amount to nothing more than a repetition of that already said.
The petition refers as authority for its insistence for a reversal of our former opinion the cases of Central Surety & Insurance Corporation v. Court, 162 Tenn. 477, 36 S. W. (2d) 907, and Employers’ Liability Assurance Corp. v. Warren, 172 Tenn. 403, 112 S. W. (2d) 837. Both of those cases were held compensable because the injury arose from a foreseeable risk directly incident to the employment itself; thus considered a part of the contract of employment between employer and employee under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, Code, Sec. 6851 et seq. The thought of being killed by a storm while traveling from the place of employment to sleeping quarters cannot, in the opinion of the majority, be said by any logical course of reasoning to have been a foreseeable risk incident to the employment of deceased.
*156Petitioner strongly relies on the Indiana cases of E. I. Du Pont De Nemours Co. v. Lilly, Ind. App., 75 N. E. (2d) 796, and In re Harraden, 66 Ind. App. 298, 118 N. E. 142. Both cases do say that the injuries in each fell within the Workmen’s Compensation Act because the injured employee was at his place of employment doing what he was supposed to do at the time he was injured by some unforeseeable and disconnected act. Our decisions simply hold to the contrary, as expressly observed in our former opinion. Counsel could hardly expect this Court to desert its own decisions in order to embrace the decisions of another jurisdiction holding to the contrary. Hence, from that point of view, the petition should be addressed, in so far as future cases are concerned, to our legislature.
In the opinion of those members of this Court who joined in the majority decision heretofore announced, this petition to rehear must be, and accordingly is, denied.