Cent. Illinois Pub. Serv. Co. v. Indus. Comm'n

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: STONE
• Citation: Cent. Illinois Pub. Serv. Co. v. Indus. Comm'n, 291 Ill. 256, 126 N.E. 144 (Ill. 1920)
• Decision Date: 18 February 1920
• Docket Number: No. 13096.,13096.
• Parties: CENTRAL ILLINOIS PUBLIC SERVICE CO. v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

291 Ill. 256

126 N.E. 144

CENTRAL ILLINOIS PUBLIC SERVICE CO.

v.INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

No. 13096.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 18, 1920.

Error to Circuit Court, Coles County; John H. Marshall, Judge.

Proceedings for workmen's compensation by Josephine Kilgore, opposed by the Central Illinois Public Service Company. An award of compensation by the Industrial Commission was set aside by the circuit court, and the Industrial Commission and the applicant bring error.

Reversed and remanded, with directions.

T. N. Cofer and C. M. Heinlein, both of Charleston, for plaintiff in error.

Vause & Kiger, of Mattoon, for defendant in error.

STONE, J.

The only question presented by the record in this case is whether or not the accident resulting in the death of George Kilgore arose out of his employment. The facts are admitted, and all other matters conceded. The IndustrialCommission awarded compensation, and the circuit court of Coles county set the same aside.

On May 26, 1917, Kilgore was in the employment of the defendant in error as chief engineer in its electric generating station and ice plant in the City of Charleston, Coles county, Ill., and on that date a destructive tornado or cyclone swept over that city and blew down a portion of defendant in error's building. Kilgore, who was employed in the building, was killed. The defendant in error was engaged at the time of the accident in the business of furnishing electricity, ice, etc., for commercial and domestic uses. Its plant was consolidated in one building. The electric plant was in the north part of the building, and the ice engine room immediately adjoined the electric plant on the south. The engine room where deceased was employed was equipped with an engine operated by steam through a pipe from the main boiler room. The feed pipe from the boiler extended along the ceiling of the engine room for some distance, and thence down to the engine. Along the south line of this room on the floor was the ammonia tank, which was surrounded with brick walls. A series of ordinary ammonia coils were connected with the large tank, and located along the south wall of the room of the ice plant. These coils were carried overhead and connected with two compressors, located just above the engine. The machinery was so connected that when the steam engine was in operation it forced the ammonia through the compression tanks and coils. Just east of the engine room was the equipment for making ice. The west wall of the building was about 100 feet in length, parallel with and about a foot from the sidewalk on Fourth street. This wall was built of brick, was about 20 feet in height and 18 inches thick. Near the north end of the wall was a double door about 6 feet in width, which led from the main engine room to the street. The plant was lighted by electric lights. On the day of the accident a tornado of unusual severity swept across the north side of the city of Charleston, destroying nearly all of the buildings in its course, covering a space about three or four blocks in width. Thirty-six people were killed, about 50 people injured, and a large amount of property lost as a result of this storm. The buildings of the defendant in error in which deceased was working at the time of his death were in the path of the tornado, and it blew in about 20 feet of the west wall of the plant to within about 3 feet of the ground, tearing off the roof and demolishing a large smokestack. It also broke the coils attached to the ammonia tank and the steam pipes connecting the boiler and the ice engine at the point of connection with the ice engine. The deceased was found at a point just inside of the engine room, between the north window and the ice engine, about three feet east of the west wall and 5 or 6 feet from the ice engine, in a standing posture, with bricks all around him, his face to the south and his body covered so that a part of his head and left arm were all that were exposed. When found, Kilgore was conscious, but unable to speak. While they were releasing him from the débris of brick, mortar, etc., the ammonia fumes were so strong that the rescuing party could work but a moment or two at a time. Kilgore was bruised, and his body was severely scalded by escaping steam; his face and back and one side of his body extending along the right side of the head and shoulder down to the waist line were severely burned, from which injuries so received death resulted.

The determination of the question whether an injury arises out of the employment is one which is frequently attended with much difficulty-not so much in the determination of the rule as in the application of the rule to the case under consideration. This court has in a number of cases quoted with approval the rule laid down in the McNicol Case, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N. E. 697, L. R. A. 1916A, 306. In considering the question whether or not the injury arose out of the employment the Supreme Court of Massachusetts there said:

‘It arises out of the employment, when there is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury. Under this test, if the injury can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work and to have been contemplated by a reasonable person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment, then it arises ‘out of’ the employment, but it excludes an injury which cannot be fairly traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause, and which comes from a hazard to which the workman would have been equally exposed apart from the employment. The causative danger must be peculiar to the work, and not common to the neighborhood. It must be incidental to the character of the business, and not independent of the relation of master and servant. It need not have been foreseen or expected; but, after the event, it must appear to have had its origin in a risk connected with the employment, and to have flowed from that source as a rational consequence.'

In Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co. v. Industrial Com., 288 Ill. 126, 123 N. E. 278, an employé was shot by another employé while engaged in his employment of washing out the boiler of a locomotive. It was there held that the shooting was incidental to and arose out of the employment, and that it could not be said, as a matter of law, that the injury was such as might happen to any one not so engaged, quoting with approval the rule laid down in Bryant v. Fissell, 84 N. J. Law, 72, 86 Atl. 458, that the risk of injury in the employment ‘may be incidental to the employment when it is cither an ordinary risk, directly connected with the employment, or an extraordinary risk, which is only indirectly connected’ therewith. It was also said in Mueller Construction Co. v. Industrial Board, 283 Ill. 148, 118 N. E. 1028, L. R. A. 1918F, 891, Ann. Cas. 1918E, 808:

‘It was not the intention of the Legislature to make the employer an insurer against all accidental injuries which might happen to an employé while in the course of the employment, but only for such injuries arising from or growing out of the risks peculiar to the nature of the work in the scope of the workman's employment or incidental to such employment, and accidents in which it is possible to trace the injury to some risk or hazard to which the employé is exposed in a special degree by reason of such employment. Risks to which all persons similarly situated are equally exposed and not traceable in some special degree to the particular employment are excluded.’

In Pekin Cooperage Co. v. Industrial Com., 285 Ill. 31, 120 N. E. 530, this court said:

‘There must be some causal relation between the employment and the injury. It is not necessary that the injury be one which ought to have been foreseen or expected, but it must be one which after the event may be seen to have had its origin in the nature of the employment.’

There appear to have been no cases, previously considered by this court, where the injury was caused by a cyclone, and the defendant in error contends that the injury did not arise out of the employment, for the reason that the deceased was not at the time of his injury subjected to any more or different risk than that to which the public in that immediate vicinity were subjected by reason of the cyclone in question. While the English cases on the subject of injuries from the elements seem not to be in entire harmony, yet an...