Jones v. City of Imboden

• Decision Date: 01 July 1992
• Docket Number: No. CA,CA
• Citation: 832 S.W.2d 866,39 Ark.App. 19
• Parties: Jimmy JONES, Appellant, v. CITY OF IMBODEN, Appellee. 91-351.
• Court: Arkansas Court of Appeals

Page 866

832 S.W.2d 866

39 Ark.App. 19

Jimmy JONES, Appellant, v. CITY OF IMBODEN, Appellee.

No. CA 91-351.

Court of Appeals of Arkansas Division I.

July 1, 1992.

Dick Jarboe, Walnut Ridge, for appellant.

J. Chris Bradley, No. Little Rock, for appellee.

JENNINGS, Judge.

Jimmy Jones was employed by the City of Imboden, Arkansas, as city marshal from 1965 until the first week of July 1989. Mr. Bob Taylor also lived in Imboden and Jones had known Taylor and his family for many years.

On several occasions during 1988 and 1989, Mr. Taylor created disturbances and Jones, as city marshal, had to physically restrain him and take him to a mental hospital. Taylor threatened to kill Jones on each occasion.

On the evening of August 11, 1989, some thirty days after Jones had resigned as city marshal, Taylor appeared outside his bedroom window again threatening to kill him. Jones called the sheriff and after deputies arrived Jones and Taylor got into a scuffle and Jones suffered a ruptured disc.

Mr. Jones filed a claim for workers' compensation against the City of Imboden and the administrative law judge awarded benefits. On appeal, the full Commission reversed. The Commission held that although there was a causal connection between the injury and the employment, the requirement that the injury occur "in the course of employment" was not met. See Ark.Code Ann. § 11-9-401 (1987).

We have said many times that "arising out of the employment" refers to the origin or cause of the accident while the phrase "in the course of the employment" refers to the time, place, and circumstances under which the injury occurred. Franklin Collier Farms v. Bullard, 33 Ark.App. 33, 800 S.W.2d 438 (1990); Moore v. Darling Store Fixtures, 22 Ark.App. 21, 732 S.W.2d 496 (1987); Gerber Products v. McDonald, 15 Ark.App. 226, 691 S.W.2d 879 (1985); Owens v. National Health Laboratories, Inc., 8 Ark.App. 92, 648 S.W.2d 829 (1983). In City of El Dorado v. Sartor, 21 Ark.App. 143, 729 S.W.2d 430 (1987), we said:

With respect to course of employment, the test advanced by Professor Larson requires that the injury occur within the time and space boundaries of the employment, while the employee is carrying out the employer's purpose, or advancing the employer's interests directly or indirectly. 1 A. Larson Workmen's Compensation Law §§ 14.00, 20.00 (1985).

One case relied upon by the appellant is Graybeal v. Board of Supervisors of Montgomery County, 216 Va. 77, 216 S.E.2d 52 (1975). Graybeal was a prosecuting attorney and in that capacity prosecuted Frank Dewease for murder. Dewease was convicted and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. Dewease vowed revenge and five years later Graybeal, while still employed as prosecuting attorney, arrived home late in the evening. He noticed a can on top of the family car and when he picked it up, it exploded, causing severe injuries.

Significantly, that court's prior pronouncements on the "in the course of" requirement parallel those of our courts. The Virginia Supreme Court said:

The "course of" requirement, on the other hand, refers to continuity of time, space, and circumstances, only incidentally related to causation. This requirement must be satisfied by a showing of an unbroken course beginning with work and ending with injury under such circumstances that the beginning and the end are connected parts of a single work-related incident.

Considering, then, that in the context of the present case "arising" means "originating," we believe the claimant's nighttime injury from the exploding bomb placed on the top of his family car no less arose in the course of his employment than if he had been shot by his revenge-seeking assailant in the courtroom immediately following the murder trial, or if he had been injured by a bomb triggered to explode in his office upon his return from the courtroom. The difference is in degree only and not in substance. In the realities of the present case, the course from prosecution to desire-for-revenge to injury was unbroken, constituting a single work-connected incident.

This is essentially the same concept written of by Chief Justice Cardozo in Matter of Field v. Charmette Knitted Fabric Co., 245 N.Y. 139, 156 N.E. 642 (1927): "Continuity of cause has been so combined with contiguity in time and space that the quarrel from origin to ending must be taken to be one."

More closely in point is Thornton v. Chamberlain Manuf. Corp., 62 N.J. 235, 300 A.2d 146 (1973). The claimant there was a production foreman who had, during his employment, reprimanded an employee named Sozio for his failure to wear safety glasses. Sozio had told the claimant, "I'll take care of your eyes later." Nine days after the claimant terminated his employment, he saw Sozio in a bar. Sozio attacked him and Thornton's injuries included the loss of vision in one eye.

Chief Justice Weintraub, speaking for the court, said:

Thus an accident may fairly be said to "arise" in the course of the employment if it had its origin there in the sense that it was the end-product of a force or cause set in motion in the course of employment. That construction is reasonable and advances the basic purpose of the statute that an enterprise shall absorb the injuries reasonably related to it. Here the injuries were caused in every realistic sense by petitioner's exposure at...