Durrett v. Woods

• Decision Date: 26 November 1923
• Docket Number: 23970
• Citation: 155 La. 533,99 So. 430
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: DURRETT v. WOODS

99 So. 430

155 La. 533

DURRETT v. WOODS

No. 23970

Supreme Court of Louisiana

November 26, 1923

Rehearing Denied by Division A March 3, 1924

Appeal from First Judicial District Court, Parish of Caddo; T. F Bell, Judge.

Action by J. E. Durrett against W. F. Woods. Judgment for defendant and plaintiff appeals.

Reversed and rendered.

J. M. Grimmet and J. S. Atkinson, both of Shreveport, for appellant.

Dickson & Denny and B. F. Roberts, all of Shreveport, for appellee.

THOMPSON, J. O'NIELL, C. J., and ROGERS and BRUNOT, JJ.

OPINION

THOMPSON, J.

This is a suit by an injured employee for compensation under Act No. 20 of 1914, as amended by Act No. 243 of 1916 and Act No. 38 of 1918.

The plaintiff was employed by the defendant as a teamster, doing hauling in the oil fields of Caddo parish, and while so employed he got his left leg broken just below the knee.

The defendant admits the contract of employment, and admits that the plaintiff was receiving wages at the rate of $ 4.50 per day. or $ 31.50 per week of seven days. It is also admitted that the plaintiff's leg was broken as alleged, and while the plaintiff was performing services arising out of and incidental to his employment in the course of his employer's trade and business.

The defense is that the business in which defendant was engaged and for which plaintiff was employed was not hazardous, and did not come within any of the trades, occupations, and businesses designated and defined in the compensation statute. In the alternative it is alleged that, if any compensation is due at all, it cannot be for a period longer than eight weeks, that being the maximum time for such a break of the leg thoroughly to unite and heal; that any delay beyond that period was caused by the diseased condition of plaintiff's blood. The district judge was of the opinion that the business in which the defendant was engaged and for which plaintiff was employed was not included in the statute, and he rejected the plaintiff's claim for that reason.

The statute provides compensation for injuries received by:

"Every person performing services arising out of and incidental to his employment in the course of his employer's trade, business or occupation in the following hazardous trades, businesses and occupations." Act No. 20 of 1914, § 1.

Then follows a list of the trades, businesses, and occupations which are defined as hazardous and which are specifically brought within the terms of the statute. The list may be divided into six groups, and is preceded by the statement:

"The operation, construction, repair, removal, maintenance and demolition of," etc. Id.

The first group includes oil, gas, sulphur, salt, and other wells, lumber yards, building material yards, derricks, bridges, etc. The second group includes logging and lumbering. The third, fourth, and fifth have no application. The sixth group includes the installation, repair, erection, removal, or operation of boilers, engines, and other forms of machinery.

The petition in this case alleges, the evidence established, the defendant admits, and the trial judge concedes in his written opinion that the business, trade, and occupation of the defendant before, at the time of, and during the term of plaintiff's employment and injury was the hauling, removing or removal, transferring, and transporting by mule teams and wagons in the different oil fields, including that of Caddo, logs, timbers, boilers, engines, pumps, pipes, and all other forms of machinery and material, supplies, and appliances necessary for the construction, operation, repair, maintenance, demolition, and removal of oil and gas wells and oil and gas well derricks.

The defendant had nothing to do with drilling of an oil or gas well, nor with the construction, erection, maintenance, repair, operation, or demolition of oil and gas wells, nor with the placing or laying of pipe, nor with the erection of the derricks; but his business did include the hauling of logs, timber, and lumber, and drill rigs, and the placing of same on the ground, and the hauling of machinery and appliances to be used in connection with the erection and operation of oil and gas wells; and that was his exclusive business in the oil fields. It goes without saying that no oil or gas well could be constructed and operated without the logs and timbers for the derrick and without the machinery and other appliances. Therefore the furnishing of same and the placing of same upon the location for the well was to all intent and purpose the initiation, the beginning, and a part of the construction and erection and putting in operation of an oil well within the meaning of the statute.

But, conceding that we are wrong in this construction, then certainly the hauling of the logs, timber, and lumber for the derrick was "logging and lumbering" in the sense in which these terms are used in the statute. It has been held that a mere laborer employed as a part of a logging outfit engaged in cutting down trees and sawing them into logs comes within the terms of the statute. Bell v. Hanson Lumber Co., 151 La. 824, 92 So. 350; Dick v. Gravel Logging Co., 152 La. 993, 994, 95 So. 99.

It would be a very narrow and strained construction of the statute, to say that a workman who moved the derrick timber and who was injured while unloading such timber was not engaged in a hazardous business, while the workman who immediately proceeded to erect the derrick with the timber was embraced within the terms of the statute.

The occupation and business of the defendant was likewise within the sixth group of hazardous occupations as we have arranged them. He was engaged in the removal of the boilers, furnaces engines, pipe, and all other fixtures and appliances used in the construction, operation, etc., of oil and gas wells. The removal involved and included the hauling of such machinery to the place of a new well as well as from such place to another place when an old well was demolished or dismantled. Here, again, we think the defendant's counsel...