Greischar v. St. Mary's College
| Decision Date | 21 December 1928 |
| Docket Number | 26,968 |
| Citation | 222 N.W. 525,176 Minn. 100 |
| Parties | ELIZABETH GREISCHAR v. ST. MARY'S COLLEGE AND ANOTHER |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Certiorari to review an order of the industrial commission denying compensation to Elizabeth Greischar for the death of her husband while in the employ of the respondent college. Affirmed.
Person working on a farm connected with a college is a farm laborer and not protected by compensation act.
The evidence justified finding a person a farm laborer who was employed to milk the cows and take care of the barns on a dairy farm conducted principally for supplying the dairy products and vegetables consumed by the students at the college owned and conducted by the employer. Being a farm laborer when he received an accidental injury in the course of his employment, he was not protected by the workmen's compensation act.
Workmen's Compensation Acts -- C.J. § 35, p. 41 n. 8.
H W. Volk and J. W. Schmitt, for relator.
L. N. Foster and S. C. Harholdt, for respondent college and Travelers Insurance Company, its insurer.
The industrial commission denied relator compensation for her husband's death caused by accidental injury received in the service of his employer, and the decision is here on certiorari for review.
The commission found that the employe when accidentally injured was engaged as a farm laborer and not covered by the workmen's compensation act. Was this finding justified? That is the only question presented. The facts, practically undisputed, are these:
The bishop of the diocese of Winona owns and conducts St. Mary's College, a boarding school for boys and young men, located half a mile west of the westerly city limits of Winona, this state. The citizens of the city donated a farm of some over 100 acres as a site for the college. Some ten acres thereof are set off for a campus upon which are erected the college buildings, among which are dormitories, a dining hall, and a power house. The students number about 200. There are 15 instructors. With few exceptions the students room and board on the campus, it being the design of the college authorities to give "all students proper living accommodations under proper supervision." The 90 acres of the farm not set off for the campus are used for a dairy farm. Thereon are the usual farm buildings such as a dwelling house, barn, silo, hog house, sheds and outbuildings. A herd of 25 high-bred milk cows, four work horses, hogs, sheep and chickens are kept on the farm. The milk and cream not consumed at the table for the students or needed at St. Theresa's School for girls, maintained by the diocese at another place in the city, are sold to the creamery and the butter needed for the dining hall is bought from the proceeds. Young animals not required to keep up the herd are sold. Most of the products of the farm and of the animals kept thereon are consumed by the students or by the animals so kept. What is not so consumed is sold and brings about $1,000 a year.
Frank Greischar, relator's husband, was employed to milk the cows and attend to the barn work on this farm. He reported for work on the 11th of December, 1924, and was assigned sleeping quarters in the upper story of the power-house on the campus. This room was reached by an outside stairway. The next morning as he left his room about five o'clock to do the milking he slipped on the stairway and received a fatal injury. No doubt his death resulted from an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. But if the finding, that his employment was then that of a farm laborer, is sustained, relator's claim was rightly denied, for the workmen's compensation act excludes farm laborers from its benefits.
That the part of the employer's property not used for the college buildings and campus was wholly used as a dairy farm must...
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