Ex parte Louisville & N.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 12 October 1922
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 515.
• Citation: 208 Ala. 216,94 So. 289
• Parties: EX PARTE LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO. v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO. HOUSE
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

94 So. 289

208 Ala. 216

EX PARTE LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO.

HOUSE v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO.

6 Div. 515.

Supreme Court of Alabama

October 12, 1922

Certiorari to Circuit Court, Jefferson County; Dan A. Greene, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Velma House and minor child, for the death of the husband and father respectively, opposed by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, employer. From a judgment of the Circuit Court granting an award, the employer brings certiorari. Writ denied, and judgment affirmed.

Tillman Bradley & Baldwin and A. Key Foster, all of Birmingham, for petitioner.

George P. Bondurant, of Birmingham, opposed.

McCLELLAN J.

There is but one material question argued by counsel, viz. whether the injury received by this employee, resulting in his death arose out of and in the course of his employment, within the purview of sections 1 and 36, subd. 2 (j), p. 238, of the act, noted in the statement ante. This review will be confined to the single matter now in controversy. There is a bill of exceptions incorporated in the transcript.

Since the recitals of the special findings of fact (quoted in all material aspects in the statement of the case) are either too meagre or omissive to fully inform this court in respect of the entire circumstances having relation to the point in contest, the bill of exceptions will be considered along with the special finding of facts. This course consists with the pertinent pronouncement in Ex parte Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. (Ala. Sup.) 92 So. 458-461, a decision not out of harmony with related procedural declarations made in Woodward Iron Co. v. Bradford, 206 Ala. 447, 90 So. 803, and in Ex parte Smith Lumber Co., 206 Ala. 485, 90 So. 807. In Ex parte Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co., supra, and another of the cited decisions trial judges were urged to observe the mandate of the Compensation Act in respect of the trial judge's duty in making a statement of the facts and his conclusions thereupon. In this case it was also held that the inquiry whether there was "any evidence" to support the trial judge's conclusion under review was a question of law, reviewable on certiorari; and that "where there is any legal evidence to support the finding, such finding is conclusive. ***" The pertinency of these observations will appear.

Legislative Acts of the nature under consideration are remedial in character, and hence deserve and generally receive a "broad interpretation" and application in concrete cases, consistent with the beneficent purpose such enactments have in view. Panasuk's Case, 217 Mass. 589, 105 N.E. 368; Ex parte Majestic Coal Co. (Ala. Sup.) 93 So. 728. House was a blacksmith whose place of entire actual service was inside the building. He had, when injured, completed this actual service; had "punched the clock" denoting the termination of his actual service; while on the employer's premises, in the act of leaving for his home, some 50 feet from the entrance to the building in which he had "punched the clock," he tripped over the employer's railway and fell, later dying from the injury thus received. Further in the special finding the trial judge concluded that House started (on a different route from that provided for employees to enter and to leave the premises) toward the place inside the shopyard where a train, operated by the employer, was scheduled to stop for the purpose of switching off coal; and, also, that it was "the custom of a few of the employees to ride this train" to the neighboring cities of Birmingham and Pratt City. The special finding is otherwise silent with respect to "custom," as well as with respect to whether House was in the course of observing or availing of the "custom." Referring to the bill of exceptions, it appears that there was evidence and inferences therefrom, including the answers of the employer (defendant) to interrogatories propounded to it, designed to show that, notwithstanding another cherted way was provided for employees to enter and to leave the premises, it was customary for those intending to take the train mentioned "to use the route along which Mr. House was going when he was injured"; that "the route he used was the regular route of those men who caught that train"; that "the employees of the company could ride that train without paying fare and some of them used it regularly"; and that the employer knew of the practice. There is no evidence of objection to this known practice on the part of unnamed and unnumbered employees.

The testimony further went to show that when House was injured within a very few minutes after he "punched the clock" and within a few minutes of the time the Praco train was scheduled to arrive, he "was going across the tracks," on the employer's premises, "to catch the Praco train." The evidence indicated supplies the mentioned deficiencies in the special findings of fact. Considering both the special finding and the evidence noted, it cannot be affirmed that the conclusion of the trial judge, that House's...