Le Blanc v. National Food Stores of La., Inc.
| Decision Date | 01 February 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 4948,4948 |
| Citation | 118 So.2d 500 |
| Parties | Anna Lee LE BLANC, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NATIONAL FOOD STORES OF LOUISIANA, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Cavanaugh Hickman Brame & Holt, Lake Charles, for appellant.
Nathan A. Cormie, Lake Charles, for appellee.
Defendants, an employer and its compensation insurer, appeal from an award to the plaintiff employee of workmen's compensation benefits for total and permanent disability. The substantial question of this appeal concerns whether the employment in which the plaintiff was injured was hazardous so as to be within the coverage of the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Act, LSA-R.S. 23:1021 et seq.
The evidence shows that the plaintiff was employed as an assistant manager at the defendant employer's retail grocery store. On March 31, 1956, while putting a detail tape in the under-machinery of an electrical cash register, she was shocked in such a way that she was thrown backward into a steel bin and received a disabling injury to her back. She was paid compensation for almost two years, when compensation payments were terminated based upon the opinion of one of the examining specialists that there were no longer any residual symptoms. Without detailed discussion, we shall state that the preponderance of the evidence supports the trial court's finding that the plaintiff is still totally and permanently disabled from performing her duties, which required extensive standing and walking, by reason of a rupture or a recurrent bulging of a disc in the area of the fifth lumbar interspace of her back, which condition is residual from the accident.
Although the retail grocery business is not by itself hazardous, the plaintiff argues that her own employment was hazardous and included within the coverage of the compensation act because, as a substantial and integral part of her work, she was regularly charged with duties in the operation of the particular type of large cash registers used by the defendant employer requiring her exposure to wires charged with electrical current, during which exposure she did receive an electrical shock which caused her present disability. The plaintiff argues that such integral feature of plaintiff's employment is hazardous within the contemplation of the compensation act, and that her injury sustained as a result of shock from electrically charged apparatus is compensable, since the legislature has specifically denoted as hazardous employments those which include '* * * The construction, installation, operation, alteration, removal or repair of wires, cables, switchboards or apparatus charged with electric current. * * *', LSA-R.S. 23:1035.
The evidence shows that the plaintiff, as a regular part of her duties, was required to take out the 'detail slips' in the five large cash registers used in the operation of the defendant's supermarket. To do so, she was required to put her hands into the lower part of the machine, where were situated the machine's motor, a condenser, and wires leading to the motor. The wires from the condenser to the motor were 'exposed' so that a person touching one of them would receive an electrical shock. (See Tr. 227--228; 229; 233--234.)
The plaintiff received her injuries as a result of receiving an electrical shock either from these exposed wires or else from a short circuit in the machine. She stated that the shock was of sufficient force to knock her back against a metal counter. The defendant argues that instead she jumped upon receiving a slight shock, since the normal exposure to electricity in the wires would cause a shock or bump of insufficient force to kill or cause serious injury.
Under these virtually undisputed facts, the question whether the employment in which plaintiff was injured was hazardous so as to be within the coverage of the compensation act.
Plaintiff was required as a regular and integral part of her employment to change the detail slips upon these large cash registers. As a result of these regular duties she was required to work with 'apparatus charged with electrical current', which the legislature has specifically classified as being of a hazardous nature. Her employment was thus hazardous so as to be within the coverage of the compensation act. Talbot v. Trinity Universal Ins. Co., La.App. 1 Cir., 99 So.2d 811, certiorari denied. 'It is now well settled that an employee is covered Where he is regularly exposed to or is frequently brought in contact with...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Mercer v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.
...Fontenot v. Fontenot, 234 La. 480, 100 So.2d 477, 480. See also: Collins v. Spielman, 200 La. 586, 8 So.2d 608; LeBlanc v. National Food Stores, La.App. 3 Cir., 118 So.2d 500, certiorari denied; Talbot v. Trinity Universal Ins. Co. La.App. 1 Cir., 99 So.2d 811, certiorari In denying coverag......
-
Fontenot v. J. Weingarten, Inc.
.... 3 Cir. 1960); Talbot v. Trinity Universal Insurance Company, 99 So .2d 811 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1957); Le Blanc v. National Food Stores of Louisiana, Inc., 118 So.2d 500 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1960); Pinchera v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, 206 So.2d 793 (La.App. 2 Cir. Although the main bus......
-
Effler v. Edwards
...accident occurred when he attempted to get off the trailer after the truck came to a stop. In the case of LeBlanc v. National Food Stores of Louisiana, Inc., La.App., 118 So.2d 500, although the retail grocery business is not of itself hazardous, the plaintiff recovered because her employme......
-
Pinchera v. Great Atlantic & Pac. Tea Co.
...hazardous. Boggs v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, 125 So.2d 419 (La.App., 3d Cir. 1960); Le Blanc v. National Food Stores of Louisiana, Inc., 118 So.2d 500 (La.App., 1st Cir. 1960); Talbot v. Trinity Universal Insurance Company, 99 So.2d 811 (La.App., 1st Cir. 1957--writ Though defe......