Hicks v. Swift & Company
| Decision Date | 10 November 1917 |
| Docket Number | 21,318 |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
| Parties | OLIVER HICKS, by His Next Friend, MINERVA HICKS, Appellee, v. SWIFT & COMPANY, Appellant |
Decided July, 1917.
Appeal from Wyandotte district court, division No. 3; WILLIAM H MCCAMISH, judge.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. COMPENSATION ACT--Injuries Received Outside the State. The question whether the workmen's compensation act applies to injuries received outside of the state suggested but not decided.
2. SAME--Injuries Occurring "on, in or about" a Packing House--Application of Statute. The workmen's compensation act, being by its terms limited to injuries occurring "on, in or about" a factory or other designated establishment, does not authorize a recovery against the owner of a packing house on account of injuries received by a truck driver while engaged in delivering meat to customers.
Oliver Q. Claflin, of Kansas City, and Russell Field, of Kansas City, Mo., for the appellant.
W. W. McCanles, Charles E. Thompson, and H. F. Gorsuch, all of Kansas City, for the appellee.
Oliver Hicks, while in the employ of Swift & Company, received an injury on account of which he recovered a judgment under the workmen's compensation act, and the defendant appeals. It was the duty of the plaintiff under his employment to drive a truck for the delivery of meat from the packing house of the defendant, in Kansas City, Kan., to its customers in that city and in Kansas City, Mo. He was injured by a box of meat falling on him while he was attempting to make a delivery at 1005 East Twelfth street, in Kansas City, Mo., several miles from the packing house. The defendant maintains that no recovery can be had under the compensation act (1) because the injury was not received in Kansas, and (2) because it was not received "on, in or about" the packing house or factory.
1. Whether a compensation statute applies to injuries received outside the state of its enactment depends in part upon the view taken as to its extraterritorial force, concerning which there is some conflict of opinion (Notes, L. R. A. 1916A, 443, and 1917D, 83; 1 Bradbury's Workmen's Compensation Law, 2d ed., 56), and in part, of course, upon the particular provisions of the act in question. The operation of our statute is not in so many words limited to this state. It contains, however, some incidental expressions implying an assumption that the injuries to which it relates would occur in Kansas. Releases, agreements, and awards under it are required to be filed in the "county in which the accident occurred" (Gen. Stat. 1915, § 5922), and provisions relating to defenses are made applicable to an action "for a personal injury sustained within this state." (Gen. Stat. 1915, §§ 5940, 5941.) But the view taken with respect to the other phase of the case makes it unnecessary to determine whether the fact that the injury was received in Missouri would bar a recovery under the Kansas statute.
2. The scope of the statute upon which the action is based is limited by this language, which has been substantially preserved in the present act (Laws 1917, ch. 226):
"This act shall apply only to employment in the course of the employer's trade or business on, in or about a railway, factory, mine or quarry, electric, building or engineering work, laundry, natural gas plant, county and municipal work, and all employments wherein a process requiring the use of any dangerous explosive or inflammable materials is carried on, which is conducted for the purpose of business, trade or gain; each of which employments is hereby determined to be especially dangerous, in which from the nature, conditions or means of prosecution of the work therein, extraordinary risk to the life and limb of the workman engaged therein are inherent, necessary, or substantially unavoidable, and as to each of which employments it is deemed necessary to establish a new system of compensation to workmen." . . . (Gen. Stat. 1915, § 5900.)
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Swift v. Kelso Feed Co., Inc.
...of the railway company, which lay between the two mines.' (Emphasis supplied.) 101 Kan. at pages 214, 215, 165 P. at page 660. In the Hicks case, supra, the plaintiff was likewise employed by the principal, Swift and Company. The principal delivered meat to his customers by truck. It was pl......
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Simpson v. Kansas City
...litigation arose over the words "on, in or about." See Bevard v. Skidmore-Patterson Coal Co., 101 Kan. 207, 165 P. 657; Hicks v. Swift & Co., 101 Kan. 760, 168 P. 905; Alvarodo v. Flower Bros. Rock Crusher Co., 109 192, 197 P. 1091; Tierney v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 114 Kan. 706, ......
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Wise v. The Central Dairy Company
...injury was received. The word "about" in the stature is one of locality. ( Bevard v. Coal Co., 101 Kan. 207, 165 P. 657; Hicks v. Swift & Co., 101 Kan. 760, 168 P. 905; Hoops v. Utilities Co., 116 Kan. 598, 227 P. This was near the factory; the particular place for this work to be done was ......
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Bryant v. The Meyer Coal
...and Hoops v. Utilities Co., 116 Kan. 598, 227 P. 332, are cited by appellant as indicating a tendency to get away from the rule applied in Hicks Swift & Co., and Bevard v. Coal Co., supra. Hardly so. The Tierney case and Hoops case were decided on the point that the injuries in each case ar......