Chrysler v. Lines

• Decision Date: 10 December 1940
• Docket Number: No. 45.,45.
• Parties: CHRYSLER et al. v. BLUE ARROW TRANSPORT LINES et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

295 Mich. 606

295 N.W. 331

CHRYSLER et al.

v.BLUE ARROW TRANSPORT LINES et al.

No. 45.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 10, 1940.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Fannie Chrysler, widow, and Harriett Wilson and others, children of George Chrysler, deceased, claimants, opposed by the Blue Arrow Transport Lines, employer, and the St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Company, insurance carrier. From an award of the Department of Labor and Industry for claimants, the employer and insurance carrier appeal.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Department of Labor and Industry; Fred W. Kaess, Deputy Commissioner.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Clifford A. Mitts, Jr., of Grand Rapids, for appellants.

William K. Clute, of Grand Rapids, for appellees.

BUTZEL, Justice.

Defendant operated a number of trucks between Grand Rapids and Chicago. Plaintiff's decedent, George Chrysler, met his death on Sunday night, August 28, 1939, while riding on a truck of his employer, the defendant carrier company. Chrysler's duties were to drive a loaded truck from Grand Rapids, his home, to Chicago, unload the truck there, have it reloaded with goods destined for grand Rapids, and then drive the truck on its return trip. It appears that any of defendant's drivers who arrived in Chicago on Saturday too late for the unloading and reloading had the choice of remaining in Chicago over Sunday at defendant's expense, or of returning home for the week-end on another of defendant's trucks if one were returning to Grand Rapids. Decedent arrived in Chicago on Saturday, August 26, too late for the reloading of his return cargo, and he chose to return to Grand Rapids that night on one of the trucks. He spent Sunday with hid family in Grand Rapids and started back for Chicago on a company truck. He rode in the cab with the driver. All we know of the mishap is that the driver heard the door of the cab ‘click’ open, ‘felt a bump,’ and then he noticed that his passenger was no longer beside him; the body, badly crushed, was found on the road.

The first question presented is whether there is room for the finding of the Department of Labor and Industry that deceased met his death from injury ‘arising out of and in the course of his employment’. 2 Comp.Laws 1929, § 8417, Stat.Ann. § 17.151. Defendant urges application of the rule that travel to and from the place where the employee's duties are to be performed is unrelated to the employment. See Furino v. City of Lansing, 293 Mich. 211, 291 N.W. 637;Simpson v. Lee & Cady, 294 Mich. 460,293 N.W. 178. But in Konopka v. Jackson County Road Comm., 270 Mich. 174, 258 N.W. 429, 431, 97 A.L.R. 552, it was said that where the contract of employment contemplates conveyance of the employee to or from his place of work, accident arising out of such transportation is compensable. Solution of the problem in the present case is aided by the test suggested in the Konopka case, ‘whether under the contract of employment, construed in the light of all the attendant circumstances, there is either an express or implied undertaking by the employer to provide the transportation.’

In the case before us there was a clear undertaking on the part of the employer to furnish week-end transportation between Grand Rapids and Chicago whenever the last trip of the week did not leave the driver in his home town. While, generally speaking, normal traffic hazards encountered while traveling to and from the place of work are deemed to be risks common to all and are not connected with the employment status, industry must bear the loss from injuries sustained from such common risks when the task subjects the worker to ‘excessive exposure to the common risk.’ See Cudahy Packing Co. v. Parramore, 263 U.S. 418, 44 S.Ct. 153, 155, 68 L.Ed. 366, 30 A.L.R. 532. In...