Goodman v. National Cas. Co.
| Decision Date | 06 October 1943 |
| Docket Number | 2558. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
| Parties | GOODMAN v. NATIONAL CASUALTY CO. |
Rehearing Denied Nov. 15, 1943.
Elmer L. Stewart, of DeRidder, for appellant.
J.S Pickett, of Many, and Gordon Boswell, of New Orleans, for appellee.
The plaintiff was employed by Post Exchange No. 13 at Camp Polk, the Exchange being one of several operated by the same concern at Camp Polk in selling goods, wares and merchandise, such as toilet articles, notions, cold drinks, candy and beer, as well as other articles purchased and used by the soldiers at the Camp.
Plaintiff was injured in the course of his employment while handling a beer container about half full of ice water. He claims that he fell when he slipped on a step and the beer can struck him in the lower part of his left side causing an incomplete hernia. He sued the compensation carrier of the Post Exchange for compensation for total and permanent disability for a period not exceeding four hundred weeks on the basis of 65 per cent of $15 per week. While several defenses to the suit were set up in the answer of the insurance company, the only defense now urged is that the plaintiff was not injured while engaged in a hazardous occupation so as to bring his claim within the compensation law.
The trial judge dismissed the suit, and the plaintiff has appealed.
Under the sole issue presented in the case, it is necessary to determine first the nature of plaintiff's duties and the kind of work he was doing at the time he was injured. The kind of business carried on by the Post Exchange where plaintiff was working was in the nature of a retail merchandise business, which kind of business is not designated in the compensation law as hazardous. But the Exchange also used motor trucks to haul beer and other commodities from its central warehouse to the various Post Exchanges operated at the Camp, and, of course, this part of its business was hazardous. The defendant concedes that, if plaintiff's duties included loading or unloading beer and other merchandise from these trucks, he would be entitled to compensation, but the defendant contends that plaintiff was only a porter at this Exchange No. 13, his duties being to sweep and mop the floors, clean up the trash on the inside and outside, bring in boxes from the storeroom to the sales room, and keep the beer and other cold drinks on ice.
The record shows that this Exchange is operated in a building with two small rooms, the rear room serving as a kind of storeroom for the cases and boxes containing the merchandise, and the other room is the salesroom where the customers are served. Cans known as G.I. (Government Issue) cans are used for icing the beer and cold drinks. Part of plaintiff's...
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