Jacquemin v. Turner & Seymour Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 12 March 1918
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: JACQUEMIN et al. v. TURNER & SEYMOUR MFG. CO.

103 A. 115

92 Conn. 382

JACQUEMIN et al.

v. TURNER & SEYMOUR MFG. CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 12, 1918.

Appeal from Superior Court, Litchfield County; William M. Maltbie, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act (Pub. Acts 1913, c. 138) by A. Jacquemin and others against the Turner & Seymour Manufacturing Company for the death of the claimants' son. From a judgment on appeal sustaining the findings and award of the compensation commissioner in favor of the claimants, defendant appeals. Error.

The commissioner found the following facts:

The Turner & Seymour Manufacturing Company is engaged in making iron castings. The casters, when they have poured the molten metal into the molds, leave for the day. The company did not desire to have too many casters around the cupola where the molten metal is drawn out, and did not desire the casters to get through their work too early. As one means of accomplishing these two results the company supplied a limited number of ladels. As a result of this condition each caster desired to get a ladel as soon as possible so as to pour his molds and get away. On April 10, 1917, O'Shaugnessy, a caster, located quite a distance from Jacquemin, another caster, received permission from a caster to use a ladel which had been in use by him. O'Shaugnessy and his helper were pouring from this ladel when Jacquemin and his helper started to pick up another ladel which stood in front of Jacquemin's floor and had been placed there by Jacquemin. O'Shaugnessy ordered him to let it alone or he would get in trouble. Angry words passed between the men, and O'Shaugnessy, leaving his own ladel partly filled, started for Jacquemin. who advanced to meet him. They scuffled and fell to the floor, first one and then the other was on top. O'Shaugnessy got Jacquemin in a position where he was likely to spoil the mold. Jacquemin Oiled this to the attention of O'Shaugnessy and he let Jacquemin up, and immediately Jacquemin started for him again. Thereupon O'Shaugnessy struck Jacquemin in the region of the heart, and the blow resulted in his death. No personal animosity existed between the men, and neither was quarrelsome. The controversy arose over the possession of a tool which each wanted to use in order that he might get through his work and get away.

A. Storrs Campbell, of Hartford, for appellant. Walter Holcomb, of Torrington, for appellees.

WHEELER, J. The argument upon the appeal was confined to the single point, Did the injury "arise out of" the employment of Jacquemin? In Larke v. Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., 90 Conn. 303, 309, 97 Atl. 320, L. R. A. 1916E, 584, we held that an injury "arises out of" an employment when it occurs in the course of the employment and is a natural and necessary incident or consequence of it, though not foreseen or expected, and that such an injury may arise either directly from the employment or as incident to it, or to the conditions and exposure surrounding it.

If one employe assaults another employe solely to gratify his feeling of anger or hatred, the injury results from the voluntary act of the assailant, and cannot be said to arise either directly out of the employment or as an incident of it. But when the employe is assaulted while he is defending his employer, or his employer's property, or his employer's interests, or when the assault was incidental to some duty of his employment, the injuries he suffers in consequence of the assault will, as a rule, arise out of the employment. He will then be serving his employer's ends and not his own.

Many cases have arisen where watchmen, gamekeepers or other employes have suffered injury through assault while protecting their employers' interests, or while engaged in fulfilling the duty arising out of their employment. Examples of these are: Ohio Building Vault Co. v. Industrial Board, 277 Ill. 96, 115 N. E. 149; Shatter Estate Co. v. Accident Com. of Cal. (Cal.) 166 Pac. 24. Examples of cases of assault originating solely through the anger or vindictiveness of an employe are: Griffin v. Roberson & Son, 176 App. Div. 6, 162 N. Y. Supp. 313; Union Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. Davis (Ind. App.) 115 N. E. 676. Between these classes of cases is a class of cases which seems to be an exception; in reality these cases concern...