Highway Oil Co. v. State ex rel. Bricker
| Decision Date | 06 November 1935 |
| Docket Number | 25306. |
| Citation | 130 Ohio St. 175,198 N.E. 276 |
| Parties | HIGHWAY OIL CO. v. STATE ex rel. BRICKER, Atty. Gen. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Error to Court of Appeals, Cuyahoga.
Action by the State, on the relation of one Bricker, Attorney General, against the Highway Oil Company, employer, to collect an award made by the Industrial Commission to Robert J. Hurst, employee, under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Judgment for defendant was reversed by the Court of Appeals and the case remanded, and defendant brings error on allowance of motion to certify.-[Editorial Statement.]
Reversed.
This action had its origin in the court of common pleas of Cuyahoga. It was brought under authority of section 1465-74 General Code, by the Attorney General of Ohio in the name of the state against the Highway Oil Company, an Ohio corporation, to collect an award made by the Industrial Commission to Robert J. Hurst, who sustained an accidental injury while in the employ of the above-named company, which being subject to the Workmen's Compensation Act, had failed to comply therewith.
Submission of the case to the trial court was upon an agreed statement of facts, resulting in a finding and judgment for the Highway Oil Company. On error proceedings to the Court of Appeals that court reversed the judgment below as contrary to law, and remanded the case for further proceedings; one judge dissenting.
Allowance of the motion to certify the record brings the case before this court for review.
In substance, the agreed statement of facts sets out that on January 17, 1931, Robert J. Hurst was employed by the Highway Oil Company as attendant at a retail gasoline service station operated by it in Mentor, Ohio, where gasoline and other petroleum products were sold. At that time he was expressly instructed by the station supervisor of the company, his immediate superior, to conceal any large sums of money on hand about the service station, retaining in the cash register or about his person only enough money with which to make change. He was further expressly instructed that in case of holdup or robbery no resistance was to be made, as the company was insured against loss from such cause. A written memorandum was also issued by the company, containing a similar statement.
Hurst's hours of duty were from 7 o'clock, a. m., to 7 o'clock, p. m. From 7 o'clock, p. m., until 7 o'clock, a. m., the station was in charge of James McCullough, an employee on the same plane as Hurst; the only difference being in the hours of work. Neither was under obligation to obey orders or requests of the other. While at times suspicious characters frequented the service station, no robberies or holdups had occurred during the whole time it was operated by the company.
About two weeks before Hurst's injury, McCullough suggested he would like to have a ‘ gun’ at the station, in case of holdup. Hurst stated that he had one at home and would bring it to McCullough. Thereafter, he did send the gun (whether a revolver or pistol does not appear) with ammunition. It was hung on a nail under a desk in the station. No persons other than Hurst and McCullough knew of its presence or location.
On February 21, 1931, at about 6:30 o'clock, p. m., Hurst was seated at the desk, making out his daily report. In crossing his legs he knocked the gun from the nail on which it hung. Striking the floor caused its discharge; the bullet entering Hurst's right leg at about the calf and taking an upward course toward the knee. Infection set in, necessitating the amputation of the leg.
To entitle employee to compensation award, causal connection between employment and injury must be established. Gen.Code, § 1465-37 et seq.
Syllabus by the Court .
1. To entitle an employee to an award of compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act (Gen. Code § 1465-37 et seq.), it must appear that his injury was accidental and occurred not only in the course of, but resulted from, or arose out of, the employment. A causal connection between the employment and the injury must be established. Industrial Commission v. Bankes, 127 Ohio St. 517, 189 N.E. 437, approved and followed.
2. There is no causal connection between an employment and an accidental injury, and such injury does not result from or arise out of the employment, where an employee in the course of his employment as an attendant at a gasoline service station is injured by the accidental discharge of a firearm which he caused to be brought to the station at the request of a fellow employee for self-protection, without the knowledge or acquiescence of the employer.
Wheeler & Adrion, of Cleveland, for plaintiff in error.
John W. Bricker, Atty. Gen., Donald W. Hornbeck, of Cleveland, and Wilbur L. Shull, of Columbus, for defendant in error.
In conformity with modern sociological concepts, the people of Ohio by constitutional amendment (section 35, article II, Constitution of Ohio) authorized the passage of laws ‘ establishing a state fund to be created by compulsory contribution thereto by employers, and administered by the state’ ‘ for the purpose of providing compensation to workmen and their dependents, for death, injuries or occupational disease, occasioned in the course of such workmen's employment.’
Obedient to this implied mandate, the General Assembly promptly enacted the legislation known as the Ohio Workmen's Compensation Act. Among its provisions is section 1465-68, General Code, which states that every employee (within defined classifications) who is injured, and the dependents of such as are killed in the course of employment, shall be compensated out of the state insurance fund for loss sustained on account of such injury or death; self-inflicted injuries excepted.
Where an employer subject to the Workmen's Compensation Act does not contribute to the state insurance fund, but is a self-insurer or a noncomplying employer, other provisions of the act prescribe the manner of determining compensation and enforcing its payment. Sections 1465-69, 1465-72, 1465-74, General Code.
This court has often interpreted the phrase ‘ in the course of employment’ as used in the Constitution and statutes, and has consistently held that it refers only to an injury which is the result of, or arises out of, the employment. No injury having its cause outside of and disconnected with the employment is contemplated, even though the employee at the time may be engaged in the work of his employer in the usual way. And it is essential for a claimant to establish that the employment had a causal connection with the injury, either through its activities, its conditions, or its environment. Fassig v. State ex rel. Turner, Atty. Gen., 95 Ohio St. 232, 116 N.E. 104; Industrial Commission v. Weigandt, 102 Ohio St. 1, 130 N.E. 38, 40; Grabler Mfg. Co. v. Wrobel, 125 Ohio St. 265, 181 N.E. 97; Industrial Commission v. Lewis, 125 Ohio St. 296, 181 N.E. 136; Industrial Commission v. Bankes, 127 Ohio St. 517, 189 N.E. 437; Industrial Commission v. Gintert, 128 Ohio St. 129, 190 N.E. 400, 92 A.L.R. 1032.
A statement which has met with much favor in many courts of different jurisdictions and has been frequently quoted is found in McNicol's Case, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N.E. 697 L.R.A. 1916A, 306. There Chief Justice Rugg of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts says that: ‘ An injury is received ‘ in the course of’ the employment when it comes while the workman is doing the duty which he is employed to perform. It arises ‘ out of’ the employment, when there is apparent to the rational mind upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury. Under this test, if the injury can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work and to have been contemplated by a reasonable person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment, then it arises ‘ out of’ the employment. But it excludes an injury which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and which comes from a hazard to...
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