Daniel v. Murray Corp. of Am.

Decision Date10 October 1949
Docket NumberNo. 27.,27.
PartiesDANIEL v. MURRAY CORPORATION OF AMERICA.
CourtMichigan Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Mike Daniel brought a proceeding against the Murray Corporation of America to recover workmen's compensation.

The Workmen's Compensation Commission made an award in favor of plaintiff, and defendant brought an appeal in the nature of certiorari.

The Supreme Court, Boyles, J., reversed the award, and held that the injuries did not arise out of and in course of the employment.

Bushnell and Carr, JJ., dissented.

Before the Entire Bench.

Buell A. Doelle, Detroit, for appellant.

Charfoos, Gussin & Weinstein, detroit (Irving Kroll, Detroit, of counsel), for appellee.

BOYLES, Justice.

Plaintiff's injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment and for that reason the award should be set aside. The accident occurred after plaintiff's work for his employer was ended for the day. He was on his way home after leaving the place of his work and had no further work or duties to perform for his employer on the day he was injured. This case is analogous to the rule laid down by this Court in Pearce v. Michigan Home and Training School, 231 Mich. 536, 204 N.W. 699, and many other decisions of this Court denying compensation on the ground that there was no causal connection between the injury and the employment. This Court has consistently held that an injury to an employee while merely on his way to or from work, without any causal connection between his injury and his work, and without any duty to perform at that time for the employer, does not arise out of and in the course of the employment. A few of such cases are as follows:

Lipinski v. Sutton Sales Co., 220 Mich. 647, 190 N.W. 705;Stocker v. Southfield Co., 244 Mich. 13, 221 N.W. 175;Dent v. Ford Motor Co., 275 Mich. 39, 265 N.W. 518;Shane v. Alexander, 277 Mich. 85, 268 N.W. 821;Furino v. City of Lansing, 293 Mich. 211, 291 N.W. 637;Simpson v. Lee and Cady, 294 Mich. 460, 293 N.W. 718;Rucker v. Michigan Smelting & Refining Co., 300 Mich. 668, 2 N.W.2d 808;Meehan v. Marion Manor Apartments, 305 Mich. 262, 9 N.W.2d 534;Rector v. Ragnar-Benson, Inc., 313 Mich. 277, 21 N.W.2d 129;Murphy v. Board of Education of School District of City of Flint, 314 Mich. 226, 22 N.W.2d 280;Haggar v. Tanis, 320 Mich. 295, 30 N.W.2d 876;Trumble v. Michigan State Police, 325 Mich. 237, 38 N.W.2d 308.

In the above cases, based on the same question on which decision depends in the instant case, this Court has held that the injury did not arise out of and in the course of the employment.

In Favorite v. Kalamazoo State Hospital, 238 Mich. 566, 214 N.W. 229, relied upon by the commission in awarding compensation in the case at bar, the employee, a nurse who was off duty but at the time subject to call for work by the employer, fell and was injured while going from the building where she worked, to the nurses' home on the hospital grounds. She was required to live at said home, and was subject to emergency call for work at any time. She was still within the ambit of her employment when injured. The difference between that situation and the case at bar is obvious. In the case now before us plaintiff's work was ended for the day, and he was on his way home from work without further duties for his employer when injured by a fall that had no possible causal connection with his employment. Under our decisions, the mere fact that he fell and was injured while in a parking lot maintained on the employer's premises for the use of the employee is not sufficient to establish a causal connection between the injury and his employment.

I agree with Mr. Justice Bushnell that in the Pearce case, 1935, supra, this Court followed the reasoning of In re, mcNicol, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N.E. 697, L.R.A.1916A, 306, decided in 1913. In 1941 Mr. Justice Bushnell writing for the Court in Appelford v. Kimmel, 297 Mich. 8, 296 N.W. 861, also quoted from the McNicol case and recognized its rule as the law of this State. Since the McNicol case was decided by the Massachusetts supreme court, the statute law of that State was changed in 1927, and in 1945 as an apparent consequence of such change that court in deciding the Rogers' Case, 318 Mass. 308, 61 N.E.2d 341, 159 A.L.R. 1394, liberalized its holding in the McNicol case in accordance with the statute. The Rogers' case, relied upon by Mr. Justice Bushnell as the authority for a new rule to be adopted in this State, is not controlling here. Unlike Massachusetts, the statute law of this State has not been changed in that respect.

For that reason this Court does not adopt the test used by the Massachusetts supreme court in the Rogers' case, supra, namely, that the right to compensation is to be measured by whether the injury was sustained while on the premises of the employer furnished by the employer for the use of its employees. In that case the employee was injured while on such parking lot preparatory to going to work. The Massachusetts statute, see 1948 Supp. to Vol. 4, Ann.Laws of Massachusetts, ch. 152, § 26, allows compensation not only where an employee receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment but also allows compensation for a personal injury ‘arising out of an ordinary risk of the street’ while engaged ‘in the business affairs or undertakings of his employer’; and it expressly provides for compensation while using a motor vehicle in the performance of work ‘in connection with’ the business affairs of his employer. In the Rogers' case the Massachusetts supreme court held that an employee was entitled to compensation who had received a personal injury on a parking lot owned and provided by the employer for the sue of its employees and while using a motor vehicle in going to or from work; that he was engaged in performance of work in connection with the business affairs or undertakings of his employer. Under the statute law of that State, the test followed by the Massachusetts supreme court is whether the employee at the time of his injury was performing some act ‘pertaining’ to, or ‘incidental’ to his employment. Nagle's Case, 310 Mass. 193, 37 N.E.2d 474;Kubera's Case, 320 Mass. 419, 69 N.E.2d 673. There is no such provision in the Michigan statute and the Rogers' case, supra, is not a precedent to be followed in this State under our statute law. In fact, our decisions are to the contrary.

The liberal provisions of the Massachusetts statute above referred to were added to the Massachusetts workmen's compensation law in 1927, Mass.Stats.1927, ch. 309, § 3, as amended by Stats.1930 ch. 205. Prior to that time the Massachusetts supreme court adhered to the rule of the McNicol case, supra, still followed by this Court. In the McNicol case, decided September 12, 1913, that court said:

‘In order that there may be recovery the injury must both arise out of and also be received in the course of the employment. Neither alone is enough.

‘It is not easy nor necessary to the determination of the case at bar to give a conprehensive definition of these words which shall accurately include all cases embraced within the act and with precision exclude those outside its terms. It is sufficient to say that an injury is received ‘in the course of’ the employment when it comes while the workman is doing the duty which he is employed to perform. 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 fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and which comes from a hazard to whih the workmen 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.'

The test thus applied in Massachusetts is still followed in this State. The McNicol case, supra, was quoted and relied upon by this Court in 1925 in Pearce v. Michigan Home and Training School, supra. The Court said [231 Mich. 536, 204 N.W. 700]: Defendants insist that the death of Mrs. Burke did not arise out of or in the course of her employment. Other points are also raised, but we need not consider them, as it is clear upon this record that her unfortunate death did not occur in the course of her employment. She had finished her work for the week, had left the premises of her employer, and was at least a quarter of a mile away; she was in the performance of no duty to her employer, but upon a mission entirely of her own; she was mistress of her own time, and could go and come as she pleased. We have followed and quoted the rule laid down by the supreme court of Massachusetts in McNicol's Case, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N.E. 697, L.R.A.1916A, 306.’

In Haggar v. Tanis, supra, this Court set aside an award of compensation to an employee whose duties were to care for the furnaces located in three separate buildings, all of which were located on the east side of South Burdick street in Kalamazoo. While the employee's working hours were from 6 a. m. to 9 or 10 p. m., he always went to a restaurant for his meals. During the hours of his employment he was injured on Burdick street while crossing from the west to the east side after...

To continue reading

Request your trial
41 cases
  • Park v. Appeal Bd. of Mich. Employment Sec. Commission, s. 43
    • United States
    • Michigan Supreme Court
    • April 1, 1958
    ...Ford Motor Co., 313 Mich. 487, 21 N.W.2d 825 and Dyer v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 350 Mich. 92, 85 N.W.2d 152.* Daniel v. Murray Corporation of America, 326 Mich. 1, 39 N.W.2d 229; Hickman v. City of Detroit, 326 Mich. 547, 40 N.W.2d 722; Pilgrim v. Menthen, 327 Mich. 714, 42 N.W.2d 793.6 Our ......
  • Le Vasseur v. Allen Elec. Co.
    • United States
    • Michigan Supreme Court
    • November 27, 1953
    ...by employees while en route to or from work do not arise out of and in the course of their employment. Daniel v. Murray Corporation of America, 326 Mich. 1, 6, 39 N.W.2d 229, 230, and cases there cited. An apparent exception is noted in the case of the special mission, a brain child of judi......
  • Mack v. Reo Motors, Inc., 35
    • United States
    • Michigan Supreme Court
    • April 2, 1956
    ...313 Mich. 277, 21 N.W.2d 129; Luteran v. Ford Motor Co., supra; Haggar v. Tanis, 320 Mich. 295, 30 N.W.2d 876; Daniel v. Murray Corporation of America, 326 Mich. 1, 39 N.W.2d 229. To the above list there should also be added the more recent cases decided under circumstances quite analogous ......
  • Simerka v. Pridemore, 2
    • United States
    • Michigan Supreme Court
    • March 4, 1968
    ...so-called parking lot cases. They correspond generally but not precedentially with this Simerka Case. The six are Daniel v. Murray Corp. of America, 326 Mich. 1, 39 N.W.2d 229; Gonter v. L. A. Young Spring & Wire Corp., 327 Mich. 586, 42 N.W.2d 749; Freiborg v. Chrysler Corporation, 350 Mic......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT