Brown v. Bristol Last Block Co.

• Decision Date: 20 January 1920
• Docket Number: No. 105.,105.
• Citation: 108 A. 922
• Parties: BROWN et al. v. BRISTOL LAST BLOCK CO. et al.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

108 A. 922

BROWN et al.

v. BRISTOL LAST BLOCK CO. et al.

No. 105.

Supreme Court of Vermont. Addison.

Jan. 20, 1920.

Appeal from Commissioner of Industries; Robert W. Simonds, Commissioner of Industries.

Proceedings by Ella M. Brown and others, under the Workmen's Compensation Act, to obtain compensation for the death' of Joseph Brown. Opposed by the Bristol Last Rlock Company, the employer, and others. There was an award of compensation, and the employer and others appeal. Award affirmed.

Argued before WATSON, C. J., and POWERS, TAYLOR, MILES, and SLACK, JJ.

Lawrence, Lawrence & Stafford, of Rutland, and Ainsworth, Carlisle, Sullivan & Archibald, of Albany, N. Y., for appellants.

Jasper G. Page, of Bristol, and Allen R. Sturtevant, of Middlebury, for appellees.

MILES, J. This case comes here on appeal from the finding of facts and award of the Commissioner of Industries. No question is made in the brief of the defendants but that Joseph Brown, the husband of Ella M. Brown, the plaintiff, was employed by the defendant Bristol Last Block Company at the time of his injury which resulted in his death, and that his employment included his team of two horses, and that the injury was the result of an accident.

The statute under which this action is brought is as follows:

"If a workman receives personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of such employment, his employer or the insurance carrier shall pay compensation in the amounts and to the person or persons hereinafter specified." G. L. 5768.

To recover under this statute it was necessary for the plaintiff to show, not only that the injury was the result of an accident, but that the accident arose out of and in the course of Brown's employment. Robinson v. State, 93 Conn. 49, 104 Atl. 491. The burden is upon the plaintiff to make out all these conditions. It is not enough that the injury arose in the course of the employment. It must also have arisen out of the employment.

It is not easy to give a definition of the phrase, "accident arising out of and in the course of such employment," that will apply to every case arising under the employer's liability act. In re McNicol, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N. E. 697, L. R. A. 1916A, 306. It is enough now to say that an injury arises in the course of the employment when it arises within the period of the employment, at a place where the employs may reasonably be, and while he is reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment; and an injury arises out of the employment when it occurs in the course of it, and as a proximate result of it. Larke v. Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., 90 Conn. 303, 67 Atl. 320, L. R. A. 1916E, 584; In re McNicol, supra; Jacquemin v. Turner et al. (Conn.) 103 Atl. 115; Rees v. Thomas, I. Q. B. 1015; Coronado Beach Co. v. Pillsbury, 172 Cal. 682, 158 Pac. 212, L. R. A. 1916F, 1164; State v. District Court, 129 Minn. 176, 151 N. W. 912. When an injury is a natural and necessary incident or consequence of the employment, though not foreseen or expected, it arises out of it. Larke v. Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., supra. A risk is incidental to the employment when it belongs to, or is connected with, what a workman has to do in fulfilling his contract of service. Bryant v. Fissell, 84 N. J. Law, 72, 86 Atl. 458.

No question is raised in the case at bar but that Brown was in the employ of the Bristol Last Block Company on the day of the accident, and that the accident happened about the noon hour; that Brown had eaten his dinner; that for some unknown cause the horses ran away; that Brown tried to stop them; and that in trying to do so he was run over by them and killed. These facts, we think, bring this case within the doctrine stated in the cases cited above. The accident happened while Brown was doing the duty which he was employed to perform, and at a place where he had a right to be in the performance of that duty. The accident, we think, was received in the course of his employment.

It is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, that there was a causal connection between the conditions under which the work was required to be performed and the resulting injury. The agency which produced the injury was the instrumentality with which the workman's labors were performed and without which he would not have been injured. He may have been negligent in the use of that agency; but that does not defeat recovery. G. L. 5766. We think the facts, about which there...