Madin v. Industrial Acc. Commission

• Decision Date: 03 February 1956
• Citation: 46 Cal.2d 90,292 P.2d 892
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: Marco J. MADIN and Pacific Automobile Insurance Company, a corporation, Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION of the State of California, James R. Richardson and Lethia Richardson, Respondents. L. A. 23872.

Page 892

292 P.2d 892

46 Cal.2d 90

Marco J. MADIN and Pacific Automobile Insurance Company, a corporation, Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION of the State of California, James R. Richardson and Lethia Richardson, Respondents.

L. A. 23872.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Feb. 3, 1956.

Higgs, Fletcher & Mack, San Diego, for petitioners.

Everett A. Corten, Daniel C. Murphy and Edward A. Sarkisian, San Francisco, for respondents.

CARTER, Justice.

Petitioners Madin and his insurance carrier seek the annulment of an award of workmen's compensation to James Richardson and Lethia Richardson, his wife.

At the time hereinafter mentioned, Madin owned certain premises with fourteen rental units and the Richardsons were living in one of these rental units. Madin employed the Richardsons to act as caretakers and managers of the property and collect the rent. They were on duty 24 hours a day and were available to meet any problems that arose during those hours. For this they received 10% of the rentals and a discount on the rent of the unit occupied by them; Richardson was also to receive $1.50 per hour for any day labor performed by him.

About two o'clock in the morning on July 7, 1952, while the Richardsons were in bed, a bulldozer, which was being used on property in the neighborhood, ran wild after being started without authority by some boys and rammed into the unit occupied by the Richardsons, pushing them while in their beds through the walls of the unit and causing the injuries for which compensation was awarded. The facts in regard to the action of the bulldozer are fully set forth in Richardson v. Ham, 44 Cal.2d 772, 285 P.2d 269, which involved an action by Richardson and others for the alleged negligence of Ham Brothers, the owners of the bulldozer, in permitting the bulldozer to remain on the property where it was being used without safeguards against its being started. Madin had no control over the bulldozer or interest in the work being done by it; nor did he have any connection with the boys who started it on its destructive course.

Petitioners concede that the injuries occurred in the course of employment but say they did not arise out of the employment, and contend that section 4453 of the Labor Code, infra, and its interpretation and application to Mrs. Richardson are unconstitutional.

Certain principles recently stated by this court are applicable to the facts of this case: 'Though an injury to be compensable must arise out of the employment, that is, occur by reason of a condition or incident of employment, the injury need not be of a kind anticipated by the employer nor peculiar to the employment in the sense that it would not have occurred elsewhere. Pacific Emp. Ins. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 26 Cal.2d 286, 158 P.2d 9, 159 A.L.R. 313; Pacific Emp. Ins. Co. v. Industrial Acc Comm., 19 Cal.2d 622, 122 P.2d 570, 141 A.L.R. 798. If we look for a causal connection between the employment and the injury, such connection need not be the sole cause; it is sufficient if it is a contributory cause. Colonial Ins. Co. v. Indistrial Acc. Comm., 29 Cal.2d 79, 172 P.2d 884. Where a person is required to be on the streets in the course of his employment and falls to the street, the resulting injury arises out of the employment. State Compensation Insurance Fund v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 194 Cal. 28, 227 P. 168. And finally '* * * reasonable doubts as to whether an injury is compensable are to be resolved in favor of the employee.' Truck Insurance Exchange v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 27 Cal.2d 813, 816, 167 P.2d 705, 706; Lumbermen's Mutual Casualty Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 29 Cal.2d 492, 175 P.2d 823; Industrial Indemnity Exchange v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 26 Cal.2d 130, 156 P.2d 926.' Employers Mutual Liability Ins. Co. of Wisconsin v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 41 Cal.2d 676, 679, 263 P.2d 4, 6.

Consonant with those principles it has been held in various situations that injuries occurring in the course of employment also arise out of the employment and hence were compensable although the factor which put in motion the force causing the injury was something over which the employer had no control and with which he had no connection. In Kimbol v. Industrial Acc. Commission, 173 Cal. 351, 160 P. 150, L.R.A. 1917B, 595, the employee was injured when the ceiling of the room in which he was working fell because of an overloading of the floor above; the employer had no control over the upper floor, the overloading being done by a third person with whom he had no connection. Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 86 Cal.App.2d 726, 195 P.2d 919, involved an injury from a falling window on the employer's premises which fell because of an explosion on nearby premises with which the employer had nothing to do. The injury occurred in Enterprise Dairy Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 202 Cal. 247, 259 P. 1099, when an earthquake caused a wall on premises adjoining those of the employer to fall through the roof of the employer's premises and broke milk bottles which the employee was handling in the course of his employment. In Industrial Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 95 Cal.App.2d 804, 214 P.2d 41, the employee, a bartender, was killed by a shot fired by a customer's wife at the customer during an altercation between them in the bar. In Paulsen v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 6 Cal.App.2d 570, 45 P.2d 285, the employee, a sheep herder, lost his eye from the explosion of a dynamite cap in his camp fire, the cap apparently having been left by a road crew with which his employer had no connection, where he built his fire.

There are cases apparently to the contrary, see Associated Indemnity Corp. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 43 Cal.App.2d 292, 110 P.2d 676, criticized in Industrial Indem. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., supra, 95 Cal.App.2d 804, 214 P.2d 41; Storm v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 191 Cal. 4, 214 P. 874, but they fail to give the liberal construction required of workmen's compensation laws and are not in accord with the authorities above cited. The statement in Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 39 Cal.2d 512, 247 P.2d 697, that there must be some connection between the injury and employment, other than that the employment brought the injured party to the place of injury, is not of importance here because the court was there speaking of course of employment and held that the employee was at the time engaged in a personal recreational activity of his own off his employer's premises and 'unrelated to the employment.'

The commission's award here may be supported by taking the narrow view that a portion of the employer's premises injured the Richardsons the falling walls and glass from the impact of the bulldozer. See Enterprise Dairy Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., supra, 202 Cal. 247, 259 P. 1099. It is also supported on the broader view expressed in the Kimbol case, supra, where the court said that the injury was '* * * due wholly to the unauthorized use by another of the floor above for storage purposes, and the consequent subjection of that floor to a greater burden than that for which it was designed; but because of this unauthorized use of the floor above for storage purposes those below were, in fact, in danger of injury from a collapse of the floor, and in that sense the place in which Douglas was required to do all his work was an unsafe place. The danger was one peculiar to that very place an incident of the particular premises used as they were being used and it is not unreasonable to say that Douglas was specially exposed to that danger by reason of his employment. Solely by reason of and in pursuance of such employment he was required to remain in this unsafe place exposed to this danger of a collapse of the ceiling of the room in which he was constantly at work. The risk was normally one incident to working in that place, one due solely to its unsafe condition.' Kimbol v. Industrial Acc. Commission, 173 Cal. 351, 354, 160 P. 150, 151, L.R.A.1917B, 595. Thus here the employer's premises became unsafe because of the uncontrolled bulldozer. Where the injury occurs on the employer's premises, while the employee is in the course of the employment, the injury arises out of the employment unless the connection is so remote from the employment that it is not an incident of it. In Industrial Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., supra, 95 Cal.App.2d 804, 807, 214 P.2d 41, 43, after calling attention to the requirement for liberal construction of workmen's compensation laws, Mr. Justice Bray stated: 'One of the departures was in 'street risk' cases, of which Frigidaire Corp. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 103 Cal.App. 27, 283 P. 974, is an example. * * *

'Then there are the 'horseplay' or 'skylarking' cases. At first in California recovery was not permitted an employee who was injured through horseplay or skylarking of his fellow employees. * * * But in Pacific Employers Insurance Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 26 Cal.2d 286, 158 P.2d 9, 159 A.L.R. 313, this rule was changed and the holding in Coronado Beach Co. v. Pillsbury, supra, (172 Cal. 682, 158 P.2d 212, L.R.A.1916F, 1164), and the other cases expressly overruled. * * *

'Then we have cases where the courts have hald that because the thing that injured the employee was an instrumentality of the employer, the injury is compensable even though the force which actually was responsible for the injury...