Connelly v. Samaritan Hosp.

• Decision Date: 26 April 1932
• Citation: 181 N.E. 76,259 N.Y. 137
• Parties: CONNELLY v. SAMARITAN HOSPITAL et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

259 N.Y. 137

181 N.E. 76

CONNELLY

v.SAMARITAN HOSPITAL et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 26, 1932.

Proceeding for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Catherine Connelly, claimant, opposed by the Samaritan Hospital, employer, and the Fidelity & Casualty Company of New York, insurance carrier. From an award of the Appellate Division (233 App. Div. 464, 254 N. Y. S. 73), reversing an award of the State Industrial Board and dismissing the claim, the board appeals.

Reversed, and award confirmed.

CRANE, J., dissenting.Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third department.

John J. Bennett, Jr., Atty. Gen. (Joseph A. McLaughlin, of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.

H. F. Dimond and Sydney Weitzer, both of New York City, for respondents.

LEHMAN, J.

The claimant, while working in a laundry, fell and in falling struck a table which was part of the equipment of the laundry. She sustained injuries to her teeth, roof of the mouth, and chest which disabled her for some weeks. An award in her favor was reversed by the Appellate Division.

The injuries occurred in the course of the claimant's employment. The fall was, we must assume on this record, due to a cardiac condition. The problem presented is whether the injuries suffered are ‘accidental injuries' which arose not only ‘in the course’ of the employment, but also ‘out of’ the employment. An injury can arise ‘out of’ an employment only when it is related to the employment. ‘The injury must be received: (1) While the workman is doing the duty he is employed to perform; and also (2) as a natural incident of the work. It must be one of the risks connected with the employment, flowing therefrom as a natural consequence and directly connected with the work.’ Matter of Heitz v. Ruppert, 218 N. Y. 148, 152,112 N. E. 750, 751, L. R. A. 1917A, 344, per POUND, J.

In most cases, accidental injuries received ‘in the course’ of an employment arise from risks related to the employment. Not always. A purely fortuitous coincidence of time and place is not enough. There must be causal relation. An accidental injury is, from its nature, the unintended result of a combination of circumstances. Chance may dictate the coincidence in time or space of conditions which in combination produce catastrophe, but of course the result of the particular combination of conditions is dictated by the laws of nature, not of chance. Where conditions of the employment, including the location of the place of work, constitute a factor which in combination with other conditions produces accidental injury, the risk of such an injury is incident to the employment. That is true, though risk of similar injury is no greater in that employment than otherwise. Thus a fall may be due to a misstep in the course of the employment. All men are subject, during their waking hours, to the risk of a fall through a misstep or other mischance, alike when at home or at work. A clerk in a countinghouse is no more subject to such a mischance than the public in general. None the less, when a clerk sustains injuries from a fall, through mischance, while working in a countinghouse, the employmentis one of the factors which produces the fortuitous combination of circumstances which resulted in the accidental injury. So we held in Matter of Pasternack v. Federation of Jewish Charities, 240 N. Y. 621, 148 N. E. 731. We have applied the same principle in a host of other cases. The Workmen's Compensation Law (Consol. Laws, c. 67) provides compensation for accidental injuries from any risk incident to the employment, whether that risk be great or small, usual or extraordinary, and every risk is incident to the employment where the employment is a factor in the combination of circumstances out of which the accidental injury arose. The distinction is between the fortuitous exposure of a workman in the course of his employment to a general risk not related to the employment, and the exposure of the employee to a risk that, because of the employment, the combination of circumstances which resulted in the accidental injury right arise. Often the distinction is difficult to apply, where causal relation, if it exists, is slight-especially so where but for the employment the workman might not have come within the zone of danger caused by conditions otherwise not related to the employment.

‘A physical seizure unrelated to the employment is not such an accident as is compensable. Matter of Hansen v. Turner Const. Co., 224 N. Y. 331, 120 N. E. 693. It is the fall and the injury resulting from it that constitutes an accident within the purview of the statute. The cause may be disregarded and the inquiry limited to an investigation to disclose whether the fall, having occurred, bore with it such consequences as would not have occurred except for the employment.’ Matter of Mausert v. Albany Builders' Supply Co., 250 N. Y. 21, 25, 164 N. E. 729, 730. Thus where the primary cause of the accident must be eliminated because it has no relation to the employment, the inquiry proceeds to possible co-operating causes which produced the injury. The test is the same. If, except for the employment, the fall, though due to a cause not related to the employment, would not have carried the cousequences it did, then causal connection is established between injury and employment, and the accidental injury arose out of the employment. The employment has subjected the workman to a special danger which in fact resulted in injury.

In Matter of Mausert v. Albany Builders' Supply Co., supra, the proof of causal connection between employment and injuries was clear. The injuries were suffered on the street; the injured employee fell from the seat of a wagon on which he was placed in the course of his employment as a driver. His position there subjected him to a hazard of injuries in care of a fall, different from the hazard of a fall under other conditions. In Matter of Andrews v. L. & S. Amusement Corporation, 253 N. Y. 97, 170 N. E. 506, the injuries were also sustained through a fall on a public street, but there the injured employee at the time he fell was standing on the sidewalk and...