Ex parte Coleman
| Decision Date | 10 April 1924 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 835. |
| Citation | 211 Ala. 248,100 So. 114 |
| Parties | EX PARTE COLEMAN. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied May 15, 1924.
Petition for certiorari to Circuit Court, Tuscaloosa County; Henry B Foster, Judge.
Petition of Nellie J. Coleman for writ of certiorari to the circuit court of Tuscaloosa county, to review the judgment and finding of said court in a proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Nellie J. Coleman against the Alabama Company. Affirmed.
Dodson & Butts and Brown & Ward, all of Tuscaloosa, for petitioner.
Foster Verner & Rice, of Tuscaloosa, opposed.
The complaint, which is framed under section 28 of the Workmen's Compensation Act (Acts 1919, pp. 206-227) alleges that petitioner's husband was in the employ of the defendant company, and, on February 27, 1921, "while in the discharge of his duties as such employé, which consisted in the operation of a gasoline engine and pump in the mines of said corporation, he was injured and killed by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, the nature and cause of which accident is not known save that the said Henry J. Coleman was found dead at his post of duty, and that his head was bruised and his body burned from ignited gasoline which had flowed from a disconnected feed pipe, which was a part of the machine which he was operating immediately before his death."
This does not require that the evidence be set out, and the answer will be sufficient if it clearly informs the plaintiff of the essential defensive fact of facts relied on, though it be but a conclusion of fact from the evidence. Moreover, when the defense is merely a denial of the facts alleged in the complaint, or of a single fact essential to recovery, there is no occasion, and certainly no necessity, for setting up any facts in the answer other than in the general terms of a negation. It was not intended, we think, that the pleadings under this act should be cast in the technical precision of the common law, or tested by the refined objections of hypercriticism.
Plaintiff was not prejudiced by the state of the pleadings, nor by any ruling of the court thereon. The supplemental plea setting up facts of evidence was not necessary, and it seems that the court properly regarded it as an addition merely to the plea already on file.
The effect of that plea was to deny that the injury arose out of the deceased's employment, imposing upon plaintiff the burden of proof upon that issue, and to admit every other allegation of the complaint.
The essential findings by the trial court were as follows (1) That the plaintiff in this cause is not entitled to recover unless and before she has shown that the death of her intestate was caused to him while an employé of the defendant by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment.
(2) That Henry J. Coleman was maliciously murdered by some one, and that his death was in no sense caused by, or the result of, or incidental to, any of his duties as an employé of this defendant.
(3) That his death did not occur in the course of his employment by the defendant; that it did not grow out of his employment by the defendant; that it was not, and could not be, anticipated by the defendant; that the cause of his death was in no way whatsoever related to his employment by the defendant; that nothing in the nature of the employment of the deceased by the defendant could have given the defendant any cause to expect or anticipate the possible death of the deceased from the agency or agencies which caused his death; that the cause of the death of the deceased was entirely unrelated to and foreign to any incident or incidents of the employment of the deceased by the defendant; and that the deceased did not come to his death by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment by the defendant.
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