Baltimore Oar Foundry Co. v. Ruzicka

• Decision Date: 03 April 1918
• Docket Number: No. 33.,33.
• Citation: 104 A. 167
• Parties: BALTIMORE OAR FOUNDRY CO. v. RUZICKA.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

104 A. 167

BALTIMORE OAR FOUNDRY CO.

v. RUZICKA.

No. 33.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 3, 1918.

ployment, although on way out of shop he was not using board walk intended to be used by Employes going to and from work; there being no enforced rule requiring use thereof.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Anne Arunder County; Robert Moss, Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Procedings under Workmen's Compensation Law for death of Frank J. Ruzicka by Sophia Ruzicka, opposed by the Baltimore Car Foundry Company, employer. From a judgment of the circuit court, affirming an award of the State Industrial Accident Commission, petitioner appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before BOYD, C. J., and BRISCOE, THOMAS, URNER, and STOOKBRIDGE, JJ.

Edward Duffy, of Baltimore, for appellant. Edward J. Colgan, Jr., of Baltimore (Frank J. Pintner, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

URNER, J. Upon this appeal from a judgment of the circuit court for Anne Arundel county, affirming an order of the State Industrial Accident Commission, the main question to be decided is whether the death of Frank J. Ruzicka, to whose widow an award was made by the commission under the Workmen's Compensation Law (Code Pub. Civ. Laws, vol. 3, art. 101, as amended by Laws 1916, c. 597, § 1), was the result of his "willful misconduct" within the meaning of that statute, which by its forty-sixth section provides that:

"No employs or dependent of any employe shall be entitled to receive any compensation or benefits under this Act, on account of any injury to or death of an employe caused by self-inflicted injury, the willful misconduct, or where the injury or death resulted solely from the intoxication of the injured employe."

Ruzicka was crushed and killed while attempting to pass between two cars on a track in the car erecting shop of the Baltimore Car Foundry Company, in which he was employed as a maker of decks or platforms for the cars there in course of construction. The accident occurred in the evening as the day's work was closing and Ruzicka was starting to leave the shop on his way to his home. The cars between which he tried to pass were two of a number of finished cars, standing at intervals on the track, and ready to be coupled together and drawn out of the shop by an engine which had been brought to the end of the building for that purpose. A trainman had passed along the track, notifying all the workmen that the cars were about to be coupled and moved. At a distance of about 80 feet from the place where Ruzicka had been working there was a board walk over the track referred to, and others parallel with it, which was intended for the use of the workmen in crossing the tracks in going to and from their work. There does not appear to have been any enforced rule, requiring me employes to use the board walk alone in passing from one side of the building to the other, and they could, if they chose, in going home, cross the tracks at other points. When the trainman, who gave warning as to the the coupling and removal of the cars, passed Ruzicka's place of work, the latter was in the act of putting on his coat. It was about five minutes later that the engine, on signal from the trainman, began the movement by which the cars were coupled. An employe who saw the accident testified that he told Ruzicka, as he was about to go between the cars, that he ought not to do so, because they were ready to be moved, but Ruzicka said: "That is all right, I will go through before they start." If he had passed on promptly, he would have crossed in safety, as the cars were not moved during the next five minutes, but as he reached the track he was engaged in conversation by another workman for about the period just mentioned, and then, as he was passing between the couplers, which were three or four feet apart, the movement of the cars was begun, and he was crushed to death.

It is, of course, perfectly clear that the fatal accident we have described was the result of Ruzicka's own negligence. But we agree with the court below and the State Industrial Accident Commission in the opinion that the highly imprudent act which caused the unfortunate man's death is not properly to be characterized as willful misconduct. It lacked the element of intentional impropriety which those words imply. It was a thoughtless and heedless act, but not a willful breach of a positive rule of conduct or duty.

In Bradbury's Workmen's Compensation Law (3d Ed.) p. 531, where numerous decisions on the subject are collected and discussed, it is said:

"No general rule of law can be established defining accurately what constitutes willful...