Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Honea
| Decision Date | 20 September 1944 |
| Docket Number | 30607. |
| Citation | 31 S.E.2d 421,71 Ga.App. 569 |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
| Parties | AETNA CASUALTY & SURETY CO. et al. v. HONEA. |
Haas Lyons & Hurt, of Atlanta, for plaintiffs in error.
Hewlett & Dennis and T. F. Bowden, all of Atlanta, for defendant in error.
Mrs. R H. Honea filed with the State Board of Workmen's Compensation a claim for compensation for an injury sustained by her while she was an employee of J. M. High Company. The Aetna Casualty & Surety Company was the insurance carrier for her employer. The single director found in favor of the claimant and awarded her compensation; and, on appeal, this finding and award was approved by the full board. The superior court affirmed the award and the employer and the insurance carrier excepted.
The sole question for determination is whether or not the accident sustained by the claimant arose out of and in the course of her employment.
Mrs Honea worked in the drapery department of J. M. High Company on the fourth floor of the store building, and her job was to cut and make draperies and to sew on slip covers. She was the only witness and testified, in substance, that she was fixing to go to lunch and got up from her machine and went upstairs and changed her dress and came back down and got her pocketbook and powdered her face and started out through the workroom and her feet became entangled in the upholstery fabric and caused her to fall and injure her hip. The accident occurred September 20, 1943, about five minutes after 12:00 o'clock. She had an appointment downstairs at the beauty parlor on the second floor at 12:30 to get her hair set; the beauty parlor is a department of the store where she works and is located in the same building. They had lunch at any time from 12:00 o'clock until 3:00 o'clock, and she usually went to lunch at 12:00 o'clock, if she was not too busy, but if she was busy, she went later. She had forty-five minutes for lunch. Her job at the store was to cut and make draperies and sew slip covers; that no one else was employed at that work at that time; that her pay was always the same, as she was not paid by the hour. She had closed down her machine and was preparing to go to the beauty parlor and then to lunch about five minutes after 12:00 o'clock. She had her pocketbook on her arm and had already dressed in the ladies' dressing room and taken off her work clothes and put on her street clothes and had told Mr. Tinsley, her superior workman, that she was going to the beauty parlor and was on her way there when she fell, some five feet from the machine where she worked. If a customer should want her while she was in the beauty parlor about something connected with the drapery department they would have called her on the phone in the beauty shop where there was a phone available, but that had never occurred when she was in the beauty parlor. Lunch time was her own time and during her lunch hour she could have gone out of the store or anywhere else, if she had wanted to; that she was on her own time on her lunch hour, and on this particular occasion she was on the way to the beauty parlor to get her hair dressed.
In order for an injury to be compensable under the terms of the Workmen's Compensation Act, it must have been occasioned "by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment." Code, § 114-102. An accident arises in the course of the employment, within the meaning of the act New Amsterdam Casualty Co. v. Sumrell, 30 Ga.App. 682(2a), 118 S.E. 786; Keen v. New Amsterdam Casualty Co., 34 Ga.App. 257, 129 S.E. 174; Bibb Mfg. Co. v. Alford, 51 Ga.App. 237, 179 S.E. 912; Employers' Liability Assur. Corporation v. Woodward, 53 Ga.App. 778, 187 S.E. 142; Lumbermen's Mutual Casualty Co. v. Babb, 67 Ga.App. 161, 164, 19 S.E.2d 550. And in this kind of a case the burden is on the claimant to prove that the injury for which compensation is sought arose out of and in the course of the employment before compensation can be awarded legally to the claimant. While it has been ruled in numerous decisions of the Supreme Court and this court, that findings...
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