Comeau v. Maine Coastal Services

• Decision Date: 17 August 1982
• Parties: Robert E. COMEAU v. MAINE COASTAL SERVICES and The Travelers Insurance Company.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 362

449 A.2d 362

Robert E. COMEAU v. MAINE COASTAL SERVICES and The Travelers Insurance Company.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued Jan. 5, 1982.

Decided Aug. 17, 1982.

Campbell & Schmidt, Remington O. Schmidt (orally), Portland, for plaintiff.

Hewes Culley, Feehan & Beals, Thomas J. Quinn (orally), Portland, for defendants.

Before McKUSICK, C. J., and GODFREY, ROBERTS, CARTER, VIOLETTE and WATHEN, JJ.

ROBERTS, Justice.

In an unusual case on its facts, Robert Comeau appeals from a pro forma decree of the Superior Court affirming the decision of the Workers' Compensation Commission. The Commission denied Comeau's Petition for Award of Compensation on the ground that the injury did not arise out of or in the course of the employment. Comeau was injured when he intervened in an assault upon Marge Warren, a non-employee, that occurred outside of his motel room in St. Albans, Vermont. Because Comeau has not demonstrated an erroneous application of the concept of work-connection, we affirm the denial of compensation.

I. Facts

The parties do not dispute the historical facts. In March of 1979, Comeau went to St. Albans, Vermont, to perform services on behalf of his employer, Maine Coastal Services (Coastal). The job involved the relining of two tanks with epoxy for the Hood Milk Company (Hood). Two other individuals also went to St. Albans to work on this project, Robert Libby, a Coastal employee and Joseph Garvey, an employee of the epoxy manufacturer. Since both Libby and Garvey were under the supervision of Comeau during the course of this project, we treat them as co-workers for the purposes of this appeal. The work on the Hood project began on March 10, 1979. The project took several days to complete and the three men worked between sixteen and eighteen hours a day. During this period, they stayed in three separate rooms at the Cadillac Motel in St. Albans.

The project was essentially completed by the evening of March 24. In accord with the custom at Coastal upon the completion of a job, Comeau took his fellow workers, Lawrence Burger, who was the chief engineer of Hood, and Burger's wife out to dinner that night. Part of the reason for the dinner was to court additional business from Hood. The entire dinner bill was paid for by Coastal.

At the Colonial Restaurant, the dinner party was waited on by Marge Warren who later became the victim of the assault. Comeau, who previously did not know Ms. Warren, was not formally introduced to her "except to the extent of her stating or someone stating her name." Following an uneventful dinner that was completed at approximately 11:00 p. m., and a brief stop at the Cadillac Motel, the entire dinner party went to the Outpost, a local discotheque.

The dinner party stayed at the Outpost until shortly after midnight. While there, they were joined by a number of other Hood employees as well as by their dinner waitress, Marge Warren. Comeau did not speak to Warren and spent most of the evening talking with Burger, in part about business. Garvey, however, sat next to Warren at the end of the table opposite from Comeau. The expenses at the disco were "Dutch Treat."

When they were leaving the Outpost, Garvey mentioned to Comeau that Warren had been beaten up or thrown around by someone. Comeau inquired whether the police had been called but, in general, tried to disassociate himself from what he viewed as a local problem.

The dinner party returned to the motel accompanied by Warren. Soon thereafter, Burger and his wife left to go home. Comeau inquired of Garvey if everything was all right and then went to bed. Warren went to Garvey's room to use his phone or bathroom. A few minutes later Comeau heard the loud screeching of tires and then Garvey pounding on his door. Garvey was seeking Comeau's assistance because a man, Ken Reitz, was "killing" Warren. Reitz had located Warren in Garvey's room and dragged her into the motel parking lot. Comeau and Garvey approached Reitz in the parking lot and Warren managed to struggle free. As the two men sought to calm Reitz, he pulled out a gun and hit Comeau over the head.

Comeau sought compensation for the injuries stemming from this incident. He filed both a Petition for Award of Compensation and a Petition to Determine the Extent of Permanent Impairment. The parties continued the latter petition pending a decision on the claim for compensation. The Commissioner dismissed ¹ the compensation petition in a decree dated November 5, 1980, on the ground that the injury did not arise out of or in the course of employment. Comeau moved for findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to 39 M.R.S.A. § 99 and the parties submitted proposed findings. The Commissioner then issued a subsequent decision extensively explaining the basis of his decision to deny the employee's Petition for Award of Compensation. ²

II. Principles of Law

The sole issue presented on appeal is whether the injuries sustained by Comeau arose out of and in the course of his employment with Coastal. Both the "arising out of" and the "in the course of" prongs of the coverage formula embodied in 39 M.R.S.A. § 51 are involved in the determination of the compensability of an injury under the Maine Workers' Compensation Act. See Wing v. Cornwall Industries, Me., 418 A.2d 177, 178 (1980); Moreau v. Zayre Corp., Me., 408 A.2d 1289, 1292 (1979); Wolfe v. Shorey, Me., 290 A.2d 892, 893 (1972); see also Mailman's Case, 118 Me. 172, 180, 106 A. 606, 610 (1919).

In traditional parlance, the term "in the course of" employment relates to the time, place and circumstances under which the accident took place. Moreau v. Zayre Corp., Me., 408 A.2d 1289, 1292 (1979); Gilbert v. Maheux, Me., 391 A.2d 1203, 1205 (1978); Sullivan's Case, 128 Me., 353, 357, 147 A. 431, 432 (1929); Fournier's Case, 120 Me. 236, 240, 113 A. 270, 271 (1921). "An accident arises in the course of employment when it occurs within the period of employment at a place where the employee reasonably may be in the performance of his duties and while he is fulfilling those duties or engaged in something incidental thereto." Fournier's Case, 120 Me. at 240, 113 A. at 272. Accord Moreau v. Zayre Corp., 408 A.2d at 1293. As noted by Professor Larson, "[t]he course of employment requirement tests work-connection as to time, place and activity...." ³ 1 A. Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law § 14 at 4-1 (1978) (hereinafter referred to as Larson); see Wing v. Cornwall Industries, 418 A.2d at 179.

The legal criterion of "arising out of" the employment is customarily defined as meaning that "there must be some causal connection between the conditions under which the employee worked and the injury which arose, or that the injury, in some proximate way, had its origin, its source, its cause in the employment." Barrett v. Herbert Engineering, Inc., Me., 371 A.2d 633, 636 (1977). Accord Bruton v. City of Bath, Me., 432 A.2d 390, 392 (1982); Moreau v. Zayre Corp., 408 A.2d at 1292; Ramsdell v. Naples, Me., 393 A.2d 1352, 1354 (1978). The employment need not be the sole or predominant causal factor, Richardson v. Robbins Lumber, Inc., Me., 379 A.2d 380, 382 (1977); Oliver v. Wyandotte Industries Corp., Me., 360 A.2d 144, 147 (1976), and the causative circumstance "need not have been foreseen or expected," Willette's Case, 135 Me. 254, 256, 194 A. 540, 541 (1937) (quoting Re McNicol, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N.E. 697 (1913)); see 1 Larson, supra at § 6.60 (tort concept of foreseeability not an aspect of compensation law requirement of "arising out of" because culpability not at issue); Larson, Range of Compensable Consequences in Workmen's Compensation 21 Hastings L.J. 609, 609-10 (1970).

The statutory phrase "arising out of and in the course of employment" has been described as "deceptively simple and litigiously prolific." Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., 330 U.S. 469, 479, 67 S.Ct. 801, 807, 91 L.Ed. 1028, 1037 (1946). "Reams have been written undertaking to define and apply the simple, expressive requirement of the statute that, in order to be entitled to compensation, an employee must have received 'a personal injury ... arising out of and in the course of his employment.' " Hawkins v. Portland Gas Light Co., 141 Me. 288, 292-93, 43 A.2d 718, 719 (1945). Despite the difficulties of application, the purpose the coverage formula seeks to effectuate is simple and clear: "to compensate employees for injuries suffered while and because they were at work." Bryant v. Masters Machine Co., Me., 444 A.2d 329, 333 (1982) (quoting Canning v. State Department of Transportation, Me., 347 A.2d 605, 608 (1975)). In short, when an injury is "work-related," Richardson v. Robbins Lumber, Inc., 379 A.2d at 382, when it "in a just sense" relates to employment, see Townsend v. Maine Bureau of Public Safety, Me., 404 A.2d 1014, 1019 (1979); Barrett v. Herbert Engineering, Inc., 371 A.2d at 636, compensation is forthcoming. Thus, those losses which can properly be said to be a consequence of industrial activity will be borne by the industry while those losses which are a consequence of life in general will be borne by the individual.

A proper analysis of the question of compensability requires harmonization of both components of the statutory rule and comprehensive analysis of all relevant considerations so as to determine whether a sufficient connection between the employment and the injury exists. While both elements of the rule set forth in section 51 must be considered by the Workers' Compensation Commission, the factors involved in the concept of work-connection are, in many cases, inextricably interrelated.

In Waycott v. Beneficial Corp., Me., 400 A.2d 392 (1979), we observed that denial of compensation under the "public street" rule has found its basis under both the "arising out of" and the "in the course of" elements of section 51. Important to the instant discussion is the conclusion drawn by the Waycott court from...