Lawson v. Village of Hazelwood

• Decision Date: 17 April 1962
• Docket Number: No. 30885,30885
• Citation: 356 S.W.2d 539
• Parties: Anna M. LAWSON, (Plaintiff) Appellant, v. The VILLAGE OF HAZELWOOD and Lynn Haven Bowling Corporation, Inc., (Defendants) Respondents.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 539

356 S.W.2d 539

Anna M. LAWSON, (Plaintiff) Appellant, v. The VILLAGE OF HAZELWOOD and Lynn Haven Bowling Corporation Inc., (Defendants) Respondents.

No. 30885.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

April 17, 1962.

Motion to quash and set aside opinion and for Rehearing or

to Transfer to Supreme Court Denied May 15, 1962.

Edward J. Delworth and Wyne & Delworth, Clayton, for appellant.

Richard M. Stout, Francis R. Stout, and Kent E. Karohl, St. Louis, for Village of Hazelwood.

William I. Rutherford and Lashly, Lashly & Miller, St. Louis, for Lynn Haven Bowling Corporation.

HARRY A. HALL, Special Judge.

This is an action against the Village of Hazelwood and the Lynn Haven Bowling Corporation, Inc., for $10,000.00 in damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff when she fell over a stake placed by the Bowling Corporation on an unimproved portion of the Village's right of way for Lynn Haven Lane, a public street in the village.

The trial court sustained the Village's motion to dismiss plaintiff's petition for failure to state a cause of action against it and sustained the Bowling Corporation's motion for summary judgment upon the ground that plaintiff's injuries were sustained in the course of her employment with the Bowling Corporation and that her exclusive remedy was under the Missouri Workmen's Compensation statutes. Plaintiff duly appealed both rulings to this court.

The undisputed facts developed in the summary judgment proceedings are as follows: The Bowling Corporation operated a bowling alley in a large building centered on the north side of Lynn Haven Lane, with large parking areas on both the east and west sides of the building for the use of its patrons. The street right of way is 50 feet wide with a 32-foot paved section in the center, leaving some nine feet of unimproved easement along its north side adjacent to the bowling alley property. A 6-foot sidewalk extended along the street pavement on the right of way easement from the west parking area to a point west of the center of the building, where it made a right angle turn north into the west front door of the building. A similar walk led from the east parking lot to the east front door of the building. The two sidewalks were not connected with each other, and the area between them (which extended from the paved portion of the street north across the unimproved right of way to the building) was a sodded area, around which the Bowling Corporation had placed a wire on wooden stakes about 12 inches high, next to the sidewalk, to protect the grass on both the Bowling Corporation's property and the unimproved portion of the street right of way.

Plaintiff, who was employed by the Bowling Corporation in the snack bar, got off work about midnight and went out the west door and walked south on the sidewalk toward the street, intending to continue south across the street. She tripped over one of the stakes which had been placed beside the walk on the unimproved right of way adjacent to the paved portion of the street, receiving the injuries complained of.

It is conceded that plaintiff, as an employee of the Bowling Corporation, comes within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act, section 287.120 RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S., for accidental injury arising out of and in the course of her employment.

Our courts have not endeavored to give an all-embracing definition of the statutory phrase 'arising out of and in the course of his employment', but determine each case upon its own particular facts and circumstances. However, there must be some causal connection between the required working conditions and the resulting injury. An injury arises 'in the course of his employment' where it occurs while an employee is reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment or doing something necessarily incidental thereto, and at a place where he may reasonably be. Lunn v. Columbian Steel Tank Co., 364 Mo. 1241, 275 S.W.2d 298; Murphy v. Wells-Lamont-Smith Corp., Mo.App., 155 S.W.2d 284. As stated by this court in Ries v. De Board Plumbing Co., Mo.App., 186 S.W.2d 488, 1. c. 489:

'As a general rule, an injury arises our of the employment when there exists between the injury and such employment a causal connection of greater or less tenacity; in other words, when the employment is in some way responsible for the injury. It is on this principle of industrial responsibility that the compensation acts find their theoretical and constitutional basis.'

Generally, an employee who has finished his work and is injured after he has left his employer's premises in not covered by the Compensation Act, unless there are special circumstances creating a causal connection between his employment and his injury, or where the place of injury is so close to the employer's premises that it might be reasonably considered as a part thereof. Murphy v. Wells-Lamont-Smith Corp., supra; Lunn v. Columbian Steel Tank Co., supra; Bountiful Brick Co. v. Giles, 276 U.S. 154, 48 S.Ct. 221, 72 L.Ed. 507, 66 A.L.R. 1402.

We believe there was such a causal connection between plaintiff's employment and her injuries as to bring her claim within the Workmen's Compensation Act.

The sidewalk plaintiff used began at the west door of the building and ended at the west parking lot. While it did extend along the street for a distance on the right of way, it did not connect with a similar walk extending from the east parking lot to the building's east door. The area between the walks, including the 9-foot right of way adjoining the street pavement, had been appropriated by the Bowling Corporation, which had sodded the area and enclosed it with the stakes and wire for the purpose of preventing people from walking over it. Defendant also had placed flood lights in the area to light up its building. As constructed, the walks were primarily for the use of the Bowling Corporation, its patrons and employees, rather than the general public. In staking off the sodded area the defendant treated it as its own property, and to all outward appearances it was a part of the defendant's premises. The hazard, if any, resulting from the stakes placed along the walk by the defendant, whether on its own property or on the unimproved right of way, was exactly the same, and it would be most incongruous for plaintiff's injuries to be held compensable under the Compensation Act if she fell over a particular stake and noncompensable under the Act if by chance she fell over a similar stake a few feet distant.

The Compensation Act embraces all injuries received as a necessary incident to employment, and our courts, in effectuating the purposes of the Act, have agreed that injuries received while leaving the employer's premises after the work is done comes within the coverage where it occurs on the employer's premises, or in an area over which the employer has assumed control. See Murphy v. Wells-Lamont-Smith Corp., supra, where an employee while going to work was struck on the public sidewalk adjacent to the employer's plant by a truck backing over the sidewalk towards the company's shipping yard, the court saying, 155 S.W.2d 1. c. 287:

'When the employee reached that part of the sidewalk used for a drivein and drive-out by the employer for its own benefit, she was there by virtue of her employment. The use of some mode of ingress and egress to and from her place of work was incidental to her work. It was reasonably necessary for her to use that sidewalk to get to the women's entrance to enter the factory only a short distance away and immediately adjacent to the sidewalk. She was not there for her own pleasure nor upon any independent business of her own, as were members of the general public, if any, who may have been there at the time, but was there actually on the employer's premises as a necessary prelude to engaging in the work she was employed to do.'

In Ott v. Consolidated Underwriters, Mo.App., 311 S.W.2d 52, plaintiff, who had just been employed, was injured as she was leaving the employer's premises a few hours before she was to assume her regular duties. In holding that she was covered by the Compensation Act, the court said, 1. c. 56:

'It is well established by judicial decision that an employee who is within the coverage of the Workmen's Compensation Act ordinarily remains under the coverage of that act while leaving the premises of his employer. Under such circumstances the act of leaving the employer's premises after the work is done is considered a risk connected with the employment and is incidental to the employment. Murphy v. Wells-Lamont-Smith Corp., supra; Metting v. Lehr Construction Co., supra; Gardner v. Stout, 342 Mo. 1206, 119 S.W.2d 790.' [Metting v. Lehr Construction Co., 225 Mo.App. 1152, 32 S.W.2d 121.]

This rule was applied in the Lunn case where the employee had been requested to help save the employer's property from an impending flood. Lunn left the employer's plant as...