Lennon Co. v. Ridge

• Decision Date: 06 January 1967
• Citation: 412 S.W.2d 638,219 Tenn. 623,23 McCanless 623
• Parties: , 219 Tenn. 623 The LENNON COMPANY, Inc., Plaintiff in Error, v. Charles RIDGE, Defendant in Error.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 638

412 S.W.2d 638

23 McCanless 623, 219 Tenn. 623

The LENNON COMPANY, Inc., Plaintiff in Error, v. Charles RIDGE, Defendant in Error.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Jan. 6, 1967.

Paul Campbell, Jr., Campbell & Campbell, Chattanooga, for plaintiff in error.

Arvin H. Reingold, Chattanooga, for defendant in error.

OPINION

WILLIAM J. HARBISON, Special Justice.

In this case, the Court is asked, for the first time insofar as we are aware, to pass upon the question of the extent to which the well recognized 'rescue' doctrine, familiar in the fielf of tort law, has application in the field of workmen's compensation insurance.

It is necessary at the outset to define precisely the case that it before the Court. There is no dispute as to the facts. Claimant below, Charles A. Ridge, was employed as a job foreman for The Lennon Company, Inc., which was engaged in sheet metal work. The Lennon Company, Inc. was performing a contract on premises of the Combustion Engineering Company, and at the time of the incident which is the subject of the suit, claimant was standing upon a flat car directing the unloading of some equipment.

At the same time, and on the same date, January 28, 1964, Sam Raider Company, Inc., a plumbing contractor, was performing other work on the same premises. Its work was let by separate contract, however, and there was no relationship, contractual or otherwise, between The Lennon Company, Inc. and Sam Raider Company, Inc. insofar as the record discloses, except that employees ployees of the two companies worked in proximity to each other.

An employee of Sam Raider Company, Inc., was killed when the walls of a ditch in which he was working collapsed upon him. Claimant, hearing the disturbance, got down off the flat car where he was working, which was some sixty feet from where the Raider employee was injured, and ran to the scene of the injury. Claimant himself sustained injuries in the course of undertaking to assist or rescue the Raider employee. It is for these injuries that claimant has sued The Lennon Company, Inc., his employer. Claimant also sued Sam Raider Company, Inc., in the trial court claiming that in addition to being entitled to workmen's compensation benefits from his own employer, he was also entitled to them from the Sam Raider Company, Inc. The trial judge found the issues against the claimant on that point, however, and held that he was not an employee of Sam Raider Company, Inc. No motion for a new trial was filed by claimant and no appeal taken regarding this holding. The question of liability of Sam Raider Company, Inc. is, therefore not before us. The trial judge allowed compensation benefits against The Lennon Company, Inc., and it has appealed.

From the foregoing statement of facts, it is clear that the question before the Court is a somewhat narrow one. The rescue involved here was an attempt to assist a person who was not a fellow employee of the claimant, nor was there any property of the employer involved in the rescue. So far as the record before us discloses, there was no pecuniary or other interest of The Lennon Company, Inc., involved, and The Lennon Company, Inc., was in no way legally responsible for the dangerous condition which resulted in the rescue effort by claimant.

The question before the Court, then, is whether or not an employer is liable for workmen's compensation benefits to an employee who is injured in an attempt to rescue a stranger, under circumstances in which the employer has no pecuniary or proprietary interest in the rescue as such and no responsibility for creating the danger out of which the rescue attempt arose. We are not called upon to decide whether the act of the injured employee was or was not laudable in character, whether it was or was not foreseeable in the sense that the word 'foreseeable' is used in the law of torst in negligence cases, or to decide questions of 'proximate cause' as used in the field of tort law. The question is simply whether or not the injury to the employee can fairly be said to have arisen out of and to have occurred in the course of his employment with his employer. Questions of foreseeability and proximate cause may be of assistance only insofar as they shed light upon the incidents of the contract of employment and upon the question of whether or not the injury was work-related within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Law of Tennessee.

The 'rescue' doctrine is familiar in negligence cases. A wrongdoer who negligently imperils the person or property of another is held to foresee the coming of the rescuer, and injuries sustained by the rescuer are said to be within the scope of the risk created by the original wrongdoer's negligence, and are said to be within the chain of proximate causation, unless they are so reckless or unusual as to be beyond the scope of reasonable foreseeability.

Probably the classic formulation of the rescue doctrine is found in the language of Justice Benjamin Cardozo, while a member of the New York Court of Appeals:

Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief. The law does not ignore these reactions of the mind in tracing conduct to its consequences. It recognizes them as normal. It places their effects within the range of the natural and probable. The wrong that imperials life is a wrong to the imperiled victim; it is a wrong also to his rescuer. Wagner v. International Railway Co., 232 N.Y. 176, 133 N.E. 437, 19 A.L.R. 1 (1921).

This rule has been applied in Tennessee, as in most states. The Tennessee Court of Appeals stated it as follows:

When one person is exposed to danger through the negligence of another, the latter will be liable in damages to a third person who is injured in a reasonable effort to rescue the person who is exposed to the peril. Williams v. Town of Morristown, 32 Tenn.App. 274, 292, 222 S.W.2d 607 (1949).

The Tennessee courts, like those of many states, have recognized that there are some limits to the rescue doctrine, and if the conduct of the rescuer is so rash or foolhardy as to be beyond the realm of reasonable foreseeability, then liability may not follow. Chattanooga Light & Power Co. v. Hodges, 109 Tenn. 331, 70 S.W. 616, 60 L.R.A. 459 (1902).

In the field of workmen's compensation insurance, of course, different concepts are involved. Liability is imposed upon the employer without regard to the fault of either party, except in cases where the employee may be guilty of willful misconduct, intentional self-inflicted injury, intoxication, or willful failure or refusal to use a safety appliance or to perform a duty required by law. T.C.A. § 50--910. No such questions are presented in the record before the Court.

The Tennessee Workmen's Compensation Law, which is the exclusive remedy of an employee, 'on account of personal injury or death by accident' (T.C.A. § 50--908), contains the following definition:

'Injury' and 'personal injury' shall mean any injury be accident arising out of and in the course of employment * * *. T.C.A. § 50--902(d).

There has been no previous decision in this State, insofar as we are aware, on the question of whether an employer and his workmen's compensation insurer would be liable to an employee injured in rescuing a third person under circumstances such as those outlined above. The question has arisen in a number of other states, most of which have statues similar to the Tennessee Workmen's Compensation Law, and there is a substantial split of authority among other jurisdictions on this question.

One of the leading cases allowing workmen's compensation benefits in a situation which was factually quite similar to that involved here, was Waters v. William J. Taylor Co., 218 N.Y. 248, 112 N.E. 727, L.R.A. 1917A, 347 (1916). There an employee of a contractor was injured while undertaking to rescue an employee of another contractor who was caught in a cave-in. The person who was the subject of the rescue effort was seriously injured and later died. The New York Court of Appeals made the following statement, which has been frequently quoted by courts allowing workmen's compensation benefits in such situations:

There is no question that Water's attempt to rescue his fellow workman immediately led to his own injuries, and therefore the only debatable phase of the inquiry must be whether his general employment included and required or authorized the attempt to rescue from a sudden peril which threatened the life of a fellow laborer working only a few feet away on the same general undertaking, although for a different employer. It seems to us that this act should be regarded as an incident to and within the fair scope of his employment as the latter should be measured for the purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Act. (Consol.Laws, c. 67). It occurred while he was at work on the undertaking for which he had been hired, and therefore during the course of his employment. It was his employment which brought him where he was, and in a general sense caused him to be confronted with the condition and emergency which he sought to meet. His act was prompted by the relationship existing between himself and a fellow workman, caused by their employment on a common undertaking. It must have been within the reasonable anticipation of his employer that his employe § would do just as Waters did if the occasion arose, for it is quite inconceivable that any employer should except or direct his employe § to stand still while the life of a fellow workman, working a few feet away, was imperiled by such an accident as occurred here, and it seems to us that the accident arose out of his employment.

See also Babington v. Yellow Taxi Corp., 250 N.Y. 14, 164 N.E. 726, 61 A.L.R. 1354 (1928).

To the same effect, upon almost identical facts as in the Waters case was the decision of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in the case of Denton v. Young, 203 Okl. 688, 226 P.2d 406 (1950). The Oklahoma Court relied...