Court Opinion

ID: 9711766
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:38:36.544715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.346934
License: Public Domain

Frank T. Gallagher, Justice
(dissenting).
While I agree with the principle enunciated in the majority opinion that an injury, received by an employee in an altercation with another resulting from a work-connected dispute or accusation, may arise out of and in the course of the employee’s employment notwithstanding the fact that the injured employee was the aggressor, I cannot agree with the results reached in the instant case. It seems to me that under the facts and circumstances here we are going entirely too far to say in effect that whenever an employee makes an accusation against a fellow employee, as in the instant case, compensation can be collected if a fight develops between the employees the first time they meet again on the premises whenever that time may be. To do so would tend to encourage the nursing of grudges or animosities which, if permitted to be brooded over, usually generate additional hatreds and ill feelings.
I could go along with the majority if the altercation here resulted spontaneously or within a few hours after the provoking incident. However, the accusations were made early in the morning of December 21, and the trouble did not occur until the afternoon of *316December 23. In the. meantime, the message of the accusations had been transmitted from decedent’s brother to decedent’s wife and from her to decedent and the latter called the sales manager later that morning and threatened to punch his accuser. The sales manager apparently tried to “smooth it out” by telling him to “forget it” as nothing was meant by the remarks. Again the next day decedent told his brother that he was after his accuser, and finally in the afternoon of the third day he met Stokes for the first time after the accusation and the trouble started almost immediately.
In my opinion, entirely too much time elapsed between the time when the accusations were made and the resulting altercations for us to say that it was spontaneous or even within a reasonable time and therefore that decedent’s death arose out of or in the course of his employment. It seems to me that to do so will be to open the floodgates in connection with employee disputes and accusations which will permit the carrying on of grudges for two days, a week, or a month, with possible serious consequences resulting whenever the conflicting parties first meet on the premises. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.