Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

from walking on or along railroad tracks," when incurred in going to or from work,78 and not on the employer's premises." But the

ently denied an award upon the ground quoted, which is well supported by former decisions. In the late case of Sheldon v. Needham (1914) 7 B. W. C. C. 471, C. A., a servant sent to mail a letter slipped in the street, upon a banana peel or some other slippery object, breaking her leg. Citing as controlling several cases involving the same principle, the court held that, although claimant was in the performance of the exact thing ordered done, there could be no award, because the accident was not due to any special or extra risk connected with and incidental to her employment, but was of such a nature as to be equally liable to happen under like circumstances to any one in any employment, and whether employed or not. This unfortunate accident resulted from a risk common to all, and which arose out of no special exposure to dangers of the road from travel and traffic upon it; it was not a hazard peculiarly incidental to or connected with deceased's employment, and there is not shown to have a causal relation with it, or to have arisen out of it." Slipping and falling on ice is one of the most common risks to which the public is exposed, and is encountered by people generally, irrespective of

77 Where an employé of a railroad company, doing clerical work in its roundhouse, was injured after he had left his place of employment for his home and had passed out of the gate of the roundhouse yard and had crossed a public street, and was walking along his employer's railroad tracks running diagonally through the next block, these tracks being a short cut to the street car line, his risk after reaching the public street was that of the traveling public in general. Hodgkinson v. Southern Pacific Co., 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 1039.

78 Where on the night preceding a holiday the employer, who was going away on a business trip, requested his department store manager to meet him at the store at 10 o'clock the next morning, and the employé, while hurrying to get there in time, had his wrist fractured at his home while cranking his automobile, which he believed would take him more quickly to the store than the street cars, the case was not an exception to the general rule that in going to and from his place of employment the employé's risks are those of the commonalty. Graham v. Daly Bros., 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 794.

79 Where an employé is given home work, and on returning to her place of employment on the following day with a bundle of work stumbles and falls upon a public sidewalk, not upon the premises of the employer, sustaining serious injury and disability, she is not entitled to compensation. Where employés are going to and returning from their places of employment, and are not injured upon the employer's premises, their risks are those of the commonalty, and do not grow out of the employment. Malott v. Healey, 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 103.

general rule that, while an employé is on his way to or from his place of employment, his risks are of the commonalty, and not of

their employment, and such an accident does not arise out of the employment. Worden v. Commonwealth Power Co., Mich. Wk. Comp. Cases (1916), 14.

A street railway motorman, injured by an automobile while on his way to have his watch tested, which was required by the employer, but whose time while so doing was not paid for, suffered a general risk not due to his employment, and the accident did not arise out of it. De Voe v. New York State Rys., 218 N. Y. 318, 113 N. E. 256, affirming 169 App. Div. 472, 155 N. Y. Supp. 12. Where the employé went with his employer in the morning to another part of the city to get merchandise for the day's sale, and on the way back stopped at a restaurant for breakfast, as was his usual custom, and slipped and fell on the icy sidewalk in front of the restaurant, the risk was one of the commonalty, and the accident did not arise out of the employment. Bartz v. Friedlander, The Bulletin, N. Y., vol. 1, No. 11, p. 11. The accident did not arise out of the employment where a laundry driver, after putting up his team for the night, was riding home on his bicycle and injured by being run into by an automobile (Ogilvie v. Egan, 1 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 79); where a boy, employed in a general retail store and accustomed on going to work each morning to buy vegetables for his employer at a market located on the direct route from his home to the store, was accidentally injured by a collision with a street car, while on his way to work and before reaching the market (Hummer v. Hennings, 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 859); where a deputy marshal, immediately preceding the close of his working hours, drove his motorcycle on his usual route homeward to see his wife, and incidental to his purpose intended to inspect an electric light in disrepair on his route, his regular duties requiring such inspection for the purpose of making report, but before reaching such light was seriously injured in a collision with a horse vehicle (Eastman v. State Compensation Insurance Fund, 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 390); where a farm laborer, starting out on a bicycle to go to his work, was upset by his own dog and fatally injured (Greene v. Shaw [1912] 5 B. W. C. C. 573, C. A.); where a builder's laborer, hurrying across the street during the breakfast hour for a supply of whitening for his master, was knocked down and injured by an electric tram car (Symmonds v. King [1915] 8 B. W. C. C. 189, C. A.); or where a branch manager, who was returning on a bicycle from a necessary visit to another branch shop after closing time, having ridden his bicycle at the suggestion of the manager of the other branch, slipped sideways and was injured (Slade v. Taylor [1915] 8 B. W. C. C. 65, C. A.); where a newspaper reporter, whose duties required the gathering of news in the town in which he lived and in the town two miles away where the newspaper was published, was injured while returning at the close of a day's work to his home on the usual and best bicycle route, on a bicycle furnished by the employer, his leg being crushed by a passing

80

the particular employment in which he is engaged, is not a rule of universal application; it applies more to those cases where the employer maintains a plant or place of employment than where the place of employment is changeable. It is inaccurate to state that under the "risk of commonalty doctrine" the employer is relieved of responsibility if the employé's risk is no greater than the risk of other persons in the community so employed. A clerk cutting his finger while sharpening a pencil in the course of his employment is entitled to compensation if the injury proves serious, notwithstanding the fact that his danger is no greater than that of any person carrying a pocketknife, whether employed or not. This doctrine must therefore be confined to cases where the risk is not naturally incident to the employment.81

A clearer view of the application of this doctrine may be obtained by noticing further concrete cases wherein it has been illustrated. Where a traveling salesman, while conversing in a social way in a hotel at which he was stopping on a business trip, fell, fracturing his leg, and his fall was not attributable to any defect or peculiarity of construction of the hotel or to the fact that he was a guest thereof, the risk was a risk of the commonalty, and not one inherent in or incidental to his employment. Where a traveling salesman was asphyxiated by escaping gas in the hotel while asleep, his death was due to an ordinary hazard of living, and did not arise out of his employment.83 But where the engineer of a fishing boat went to work in the dark of early morning, crossing from the wharf over two other larger vessels to where he had left his boat, moored

82

automobile, his risks were those of the commonalty, the same as any other bicycle rider proceeding along that road, and hence the accident did not arise out of his employment. State Compensation Insurance Fund v. Lemon, 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 507.

80 Slattery v. Ocean Accident & Guarantee Co., 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 522. 81 Ketron v. United Railroads of San Francisco, 1 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 528. 82 Gaskill v. Voorhies Co., 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 1020.

83 Reed v. Booth & Platt Co., 1 Conn. Comp. Dec. 121.

1

alongside another vessel because of stormy weather the preceding night, and found that the boat had been changed in the night to its usual berth alongside a pier nearby, the captain calling out in the dark for him to "come over here," the falling of the engineer into the water while proceeding to return over the two other vessels, as necessity required, was an accident growing out of and incidental to his employment. When he left the public wharf to go to the point where he believed the ship to be, or to return from that point to the ship, his risks were no longer those of the commonalty, but were special risks of his occupation.st

85

§ 118. Risks external to the employment, but special exposure to risk due to the employment

An injury is due to the employment where, though the risk incurred is external to the employment, a special degree of exposure to the risk is caused by the employment. There have been frequent

84 Slattery v. Ocean Accident & Guarantee Co., 2 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 522. 85 Id.

86 As a general rule injuries which are suffered from so-called "acts of God," such as sunstroke, freezing, lightning, etc., do not arise out of the employment of an injured employé, for the reason that such casualties are risks which the whole citizenry takes. Where, however, the risk of the employé for injuries of this sort is clearly greater than that of the average person in the same community, then such special exposure to the danger causes the accident, if it occurs, to arise out of the employment. Fensler v. Associated Supply Co., 1 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 447. Where a person is employed in piling and unpiling bags of cement in a warehouse which has an iron roof and no windows, and while so employed upon a hot day, a thermometer outside registering 105 degrees in the shade, is overcome by heat, such employé was especially exposed by his employment to the danger of sunstroke, and such accidental injury arose out of his employment. Id.

The injury arose out of the employment where a lineman, while engaged in erecting a new line, was forced by a violent rainstorm to seek shelter with others under cars standing on a switch, no other shelter having been provided by his employer, and was injured from these cars being unexpectedly moved (Workmen's Compensation Law, § 10; Moore v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 169 App. Div. 177, 154 N. Y. Supp. 620); also where a teamsman was eating his dinner in his employer's stable, which was his proper place, and was bitten

87

occasions for applying this rule to street accidents. Injuries received on the street by an employé sent on a special mission are

by the stable cat (Rowland v. Wright [1909] 1 B. W. C. C. 192, C. A.). It has been held that injuries received from lightning on a high and unusually exposed scaffold, from a stone thrown by a boy from the top of a bridge at a locomotive passing underneath, and from an attack upon a cashier traveling with a large sum of money, all arose in the course and out of the employment, while the contrary had been held as to injuries resulting from a piece of iron thrown in anger by a boy in the same service, from fright at the incursion of an insect into the room, and from a felonious assault of the employer. In re Employers' Liability Assur. Corporation, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N. E. 697, L. R. A. 1916A, 306-the court referring to Andrew v. Failsworth Industrial Society, [1904] 2 K. B. 32, Challis v. London & Southwestern By.. [1905] 2 K. B. 154, Nisbet v. Rayne & Burn, [1910] 2 K. B. 689; Armitage v. Lancashire & Yorkshire Ry. [1902] 2 K. B. 178; Craske v. Wigan, [1909] 2 K. B. 635; Blake v. Head, 106 L. T. Rep. 822.

87 A person whose employment requires him to walk along a certain portion of the street several times a day, regardless of weather conditions, is pe culiarly exposed by such employment to the danger of street accidents while walking along that portion of the street in question, and is entitled to compensation if he is injured while so doing. Ketron v. United Railroads of San Francisco, 1 Cal. I. A. C. Dec. 528.

Where an employé was compelled to travel about the streets in going from one job to another, and was struck by an automobile while en route between jobs, it was not unreasonable to hold that the danger of being struck by street cars, automobiles, and traffic of every description should be taken a count of, that the very nature of his occupation itself exposed the workman to the unusual risk of an accident of this nature, and that the accident arose out of his employment. Kunze v. Detroit Shade Tree Co. (Mich.) 158 N. W. 851.

In McKay v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 1 Conn. Comp. Dec. 380 where the claimant's husband, an insurance collector and agent, was run down and killed by an automobile when about to board a car for the purpose of keeping an appointment and making a collection, after having just left another house where he collected a bill, he sustained an injury arising out of his employment.

Street accidents due to increased risk arose out of the employment where a canvasser collided with a tram car and was killed, while riding a bicycle on his rounds (Pierce v. Provident Clothing & Supply Co., Ltd. [1911] 4 B. W. C. C. 242, C. A.); where a drayman was killed by a motorcar while cross ing the road to get to his dray (Martin v. Lovibond & Sons, Ltd. [1914] 7 R. W. C. C. 243, C. A.); where a salesman and collector was kicked on the knee

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »