Alexander v. Insurance Co. of State of Pa., 308

• Decision Date: 19 June 1961
• Docket Number: No. 308,308
• Citation: Alexander v. Insurance Co. of State of Pa., 131 So.2d 558 (La. App. 1961)
• Parties: Roosevelt ALEXANDER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. INSURANCE COMPANY OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana

Page 558

131 So.2d 558

Roosevelt ALEXANDER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.INSURANCE COMPANY OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 308.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

June 19, 1961.

Domengeaux, Roy & Wright by Bob F. Wright, Lafayette, for plaintiff-appellant.

Mouton, Champagne & Colomb, by Welton P. Mouton, Lafayette, for defendant-appellee.

Before TATE, SAVOY, and HOOD, JJ.

TATE, Judge.

This is a workmen's compensation suit.Made defendant is the employer's compensation insurer.The District Court rendered judgment in the plaintiff employee's favor.

The plaintiff appeals, urging that the trial court's award of compensation was insufficient and also that the trial court incorrectly denied penalties and attorney's fees for the arbitrary nonpayment of compensation.The defendant answers the appeal, urging that the judgment should be reversed and the plaintiff's suit dismissed, chiefly because allegedly the plaintiff employee had deviated from the course and scope of his employment at the time of his alleged injury.

It is stipulated that the plaintiff was involved in an accident on January 15, 1959 while driving his employer's truck, when it ran into a ditch and overturned, and that the correct weekly rate of workmen's compensation due, if an award is made, is $27.30 per week.

The plaintiff was employed as a truck driver.On the afternoon of the accident, he drove from his employer's place of business in Breaux Bridge to deliver some shells near Cecilia, eight miles away.On his way back to Breaux Bridge to finish the work-day, he turned on a side road which looped past the plaintiff's home before rejoining the main road, in order to pick up some boots, since it had commenced raining during the work-day and the plaintiff's low shoes had become muddy and his feet cold and wet at work during the day.

The accident occurred approximately a half mile from the main road, and the total detour would have been approximately two and one-half miles, had the plaintiff successfully completed it.The employer testified that no route was specified, although he expected his employees to use the shortest route.

The trial court correctly held that the plaintiff's accident is compensable because the deviation upon which it was sustained was not for purely personal reasons, but also for purposes incidental to the employment, being to pick up his boots in order to work better during the remainder of the day.

An employee protected by the Louisiana statute is entitled to receive workmen's compensation if disabled 'by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment.'LSA-R.S. 23:1031.As stated in Kern v. Southport Mill, 174 La. 432, 141 So. 19, 21, a leading case on the subject: For purposes of the workmen's compensation act, 'an accident occurs In the course of an employment when it takes place during the time of such employment' and it Arises out of the employment when it is 'the result of some risk to which the employee is subjected in the course of his employment to which he would not have been subjected had he not been so employed'.In a later leading case, Edwards v. Louisiana Forestry Commission, 221 La. 818, 60 So.2d 449, our Supreme Court held an employee's disability compensable as arising out of and in the course of his employment, even though when incurred in departing from the post of duty in order to rescue a child attacked by a large dog, because the rescue attempt 'was reasonably within the scope of those things contemplated by his employment.'60 So.2d 454.

Thus, in St. Alexandre v. Texas Co., La.App. Orleans, 28 So.2d 385, certiorari denied, compensation was awarded to an employee injured while getting a soft drink away from the bulk plant where he worked and while visiting temporarily in the main office of his employer.Likewise, in Rigsby v. John W. Clark Lbr. Co., La.App., 28 So.2d 346, certiorari denied, a bookkeeper received compensation, although injured when voluntarily and in excess of his assigned duties attending to a broken telephone wire dangling on the approaches to his employer's premises.

'An employee is within the course of his employment where he is doing the work that he was engaged to do or an act or service naturally related or incidental thereto, Or those reasonable things expressly or impliedly authorized by his contract of employment,'99 C.J.S.Workmen's Compensation§ 216, p. 711.(Italics ours.)'Acts necessary to the life, comfort or convenience of an employee while at work, although personal to him and not technically acts of service, are incidental to the service, and an injury occurring while in the performance of such acts is compensable as 'arising out of', and 'in the course of', the employment.'99 C.J.S.Workmen's Compensation§ 220, pp. 722--723.Where an employee detours from the main route, 'The fact that the injury was suffered when the employee was somewhat off the most direct route does not establish that it was not suffered in the course of his employment, particularly where the employee had freedom of choice as to route.'99 C.J.S.Workmen's Compensation§ 222.

The situation in the instant case is similar to that in Western Pacific R. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Commission, 1924, 193 Cal. 413, 224 P. 754, where a bicycle messenger was injured while riding from his home, to which he had detoured four blocks out of the way in order to pick up his slicker to...