Douglas v. Spartan Mills, Startex Division
| Decision Date | 20 January 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 18296,18296 |
| Citation | 140 S.E.2d 173,245 S.C. 265 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | David DOUGLAS, Respondent, v. SPARTAN MILLS, STARTEX DIVISION, and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Appellants. |
Butler & Chapman, Spartanburg, for appellants.
Matthew Poliakoff, Kenneth M. Powell, Spartanburg, for respondent.
This is a Workmen's Compensation case in which the sole issue is stated by appellants in the following language:
'Did the claimant-respondent sustain an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment when he ran into a bridge abutment, due to a faulty mechanism on his personal automobile, while traveling to an Industrial Commission hearing on his disputed claim for additional benefits because of a prior injury?'
The appellants' statement of the issue is not challenged by the respondent.
The hearing Commissioner, a majority of the full Commission (with two members dissenting), and the circuit court concluded that respondent had sustained an injury by accident, which 'arose out of and in the course of his employment', and was entitled to compensation.
The facts are not in dispute and the question of whether or not the accident here is compensable is purely a question of law. Jordan v. Dixie Chevrolet, 218 S.C. 73, 61 S.E.2d 654. The undisputed facts are as follows:
The claimant lives at Lyman, about eleven miles from the Spartanburg County Court House, and has been employed for several years by the employer as a doffer at its mill at Startex, which is about eight miles from the Spartanburg County Court House and about three miles from Lyman. In September, 1960, claimant sustained a compensable injury and was paid temporary total disability benefits, and thereafter returned to work. He contended that he was entitled to additional compensation for permanent partial disability and disfigurement, and filed a claim therefor, which claim was disputed by the employer. The Industrial Commission set this claim for a hearing at Spartanburg Court House on September 20, 1961, at 11 A.M., claimant having been duly notified of the hearing. He, however, misread this notice, thought the hearing was set for a later date, and reported for work that morning. At about 10 o'clock A.M., the secretary of claimant's attorney called the personnel manager of the mill and asked him to notify the claimant of his Workmen's Compensation hearing at 11 o'clock. In response to this request, the personnel manager notified claimant's supervisor, who, in turn, notified the claimant. As claimant was leaving the mill for the hearing he asked his supervisor if he might return to his work that day, and was advised by the supervisor that if he returned by 12:30 P.M. he could go back on his job, otherwise he should not return until the next day as the supervisor would have to put a second hand in his place by that hour in order to get the work completed.
Claimant then left the mill, went to his home in Lyman, changed his clothes and, while traveling from his home to the court house in Spartanburg, was involved in an automobile accident which occurred when something went wrong with the steering gear in his automobile and he ran into a bridge abutment. His claim for compensation is based on the injuries sustained in this accident.
Neither the hearing Commissioner, the majority of the full Commission, nor the circuit court cited any authority or set forth any reasoning by which the conclusion was reached that the accident here is a compensable one, arising out of and in the course of claimant's employment.
On appeal, no case factually in point is cited by either the claimant or the employer, from this or any other jurisdiction, and research on our part has disclosed no such case. Hence, the case before us is apparently one of completely novel impression.
In oral argument, counsel for the claimant conceded that had claimant gone directly to Spartanburg to the hearing on the morning thereof, instead of going to work, the accident would not have been compensation It is, however, argued that since he did go to work and was, at the request of the secretary of his attorney, notified or reminded of the hearing by his superiors and let off from work for the purpose of attending the hearing, with the privilege of returning to work that day if he could get back by 12:30, such facts change the picture and make the accident a compensable one. No case in point is cited in support of this argument.
There are numerous decisions interpreting the words 'arising out of' and 'in the course of employment'. While such decisions deal with factual situations totally different from the present one, they are helpful in laying down certain general rules and definitions of these phrases, which are key phrases in determining whether or not a particular accident is...
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