Mckeever Drilling Co. v. Egbert

• Decision Date: 27 December 1934
• Docket Number: Case Number: 25379
• Parties: MCKEEVER DRILLING CO. et al. v. EGBERT et al.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

1934 OK 763

40 P.2d 32

170 Okla. 259

MCKEEVER DRILLING CO. et al. v. EGBERT et al.

Case Number: 25379

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided: December 27, 1934

Syllabus

¶0 1. Master and Servant--Workmen's Compensation--Injuries to Workman Falling Against Machinery While Suffering From Sunstroke Held to Have "Arisen Out of and in Course of Employment."

Where a claimant employed in a hazardous occupation suffers a sunstroke, and while suffering from said sunstroke falls and strikes his head against certain machinery around which he is working, and, as a result of striking his head against such machinery, suffers permanent total disability, held, that such injuries to his head and the resulting disabilities arose out of and in the course of the employment, as contemplated by the Workmen's Compensation Act.

2. Same--Review of Awards--Conclusiveness of Findings of Fact.

The decision of the Industrial Commission is final as to all questions of fact relating to administering relief under the act, and where there is any competent evidence reasonably tending to support the same, the award of the Industrial Commission will not be disturbed on review by this court.

3. Same--Alleged Errors not Reviewed Where not Incorporated in Transcript.

This court will not make an independent investigation of alleged errors of the State Industrial Commission where the alleged errors are not incorporated in the transcript.

4. Same--Industrial Commission's Findings of Fact Concerning Jurisdictional Question not Conclusive on Supreme Court.

This court in reviewing an award of the State Industrial Commission will not accept as conclusive the findings of fact of the State Industrial Commission concerning a jurisdictional question, but on review will weigh the evidence relating thereto and make its own independent findings of fact with relation thereto.

Original action in the Supreme Court by the McKeever Drilling Company et al. to review an award of the State Industrial Commission in favor of B. M. Egbert. Award affirmed.

Pierce, Follens & Rucker, for petitioners.

Wm. J. B. Myers and Robert D. Crowe, for respondents.

BAYLESS, J.

¶1 Maryland Casualty Company, the insurance carrier, and McKeever Drilling Company, the employer, hereinafter referred to collectively as petitioners, bring this original proceeding to review an award of the State Industrial Commission in favor of B. M. Egbert, an employee, who is now incompetent, and by reason thereof is represented by Mrs. Jessie Egbert, his legal guardian, hereinafter called claimant.

¶2 These parties were before this court in case No. 23480, McKeever Drilling Co. et al. v. Egbert et al., involving a review of a previous award, which award was vacated, and the proceedings remanded to the State Industrial Commission for further hearing upon another phase. See our opinion in 167 Okla. 149, 28 P.2d 579.

¶3 The first assignment of error argued by petitioners is:

"The finding that the claimant became overheated and fell, striking his head against the engine, does not establish that the accident arose out of the employment, but, on the contrary, in view of the prior decision of this court in this cause, to the effect that the overheating or sunstroke involved in this case does not arise out of the employment, its result, the fall, does not arise out of the employment."

¶4 The previous award was granted upon the finding of the Commission that the employee suffered an accidental personal injury, arising out of and in the course of the employment, in the nature of a heat stroke or sunstroke. We vacated this award upon the ground that the finding upon which the award was based was not supported by facts sufficient to bring it within the rule announced as applying to heat stroke or sunstroke cases. See our former opinion. But because it was clear from the record that the employee also fell and struck his head against an engine and inflicted upon his head a wound, to which some of the medical expert witnesses referred, we recommended further hearings to determine whether employee's condition and present disability could be attributed to that cause.

¶5 The effect of the argument made by petitioners is this: If the heat stroke did not arise out of the employment, then, if the record now shows that employee suffered from overheating (without the meaning of the Compensation Act) and as a result fell, that this could not be said to arise out of the employment. In other words, petitioners argue that the heat stroke was the first step in the line of causation and the fall resulted from an incident not associated with the employment. They cite authorities in support of this contention, including a case decided by this court (Marion Machine Foundry & Supply Co. v. Redd, 115 Okla. 30, 241 P. 175), wherein it was held that an employee who was injured as the result of a fall caused by an attack of epilepsy did not receive an injury arising out of the employment.

¶6 This rule has its exceptions, and in the case of Marion, etc., Co. v. Redd, supra, we noticed authorities which qualified this rule, under proper circumstances; such a circumstance as is presented where the employee, for some reason not arising out of the employment, falls, but in connection with the fall receives an injury which he would not have received but for a situation peculiar to the employment. Perhaps the earliest case in which an award was made for injuries received from a fall, induced by the idiopathic condition of the employee, is that of Wicks v. Dowell (1905) 2 K. B. 225.

¶7 In that case the employee was required, to perform his duties, to stand upon a stage or scaffold above the open hatchway of a vessel, and to direct his attention into the hold of the ship. He was seized with an attack of epilepsy and fell from the scaffold through the open hatchway into the hold of the vessel and was killed. In allowing recovery the court said:

"A man is picked up at the bottom of the hold of a ship suffering from injuries. What is the cause of his condition? The proximate cause obviously is that he has fallen from a height. But it is suggested then, if the occurrence is analyzed, it will be seen that the accident was caused by the idiopathic disease from which the man was suffering, and that therefore the accident did not arise out of his employment. At that point the authorities come in, to the effect that, although the cause of the fall was a fit, the cause of the injuries was the fall itself, and they are direct authorities that the injury in the present case was caused by an accident.

"Then did the accident arise out of the man's employment? When we get rid of the confusion caused by the fact that the fall was originally caused by the fit and confusion involved in not dissociating the injury and its actual physical cause from the more remote cause--that is to say, from the fit--the difficulty arising from the words out of the employment' is removed. How does it come about in the present case that the accident arose out of the employment? Because by the conditions of his employment the workman was bound to stand on the edge of what I may style a precipice, and if in that position he was seized with a fit he would almost necessarily fall over. If that is so, the accident was caused by his necessary proximity to the precipice, for the fall was brought about by the necessity for his standing in that position. Upon the authorities, I think the case is clear; and accident does not cease to be such because its remote cause was the idiopathic condition of the injured man; we must dissociate that idiopathic condition from the other facts and remember that he was obliged to run the risk by the very nature of his employment, and that the dangerous fall was brought about by the conditions of that employment."

¶8 In our opinion, under the facts in this case, the hazard of receiving an injury such as is claimed herein is peculiarly incident to the presence of the engine in close proximity to employee and his duties. He was where he was required to be and was doing the work he was ordered to do, and doing it in a manner satisfactory to his immediate superior; and by probably the only method by which it could be performed. If he had fallen backwards, or in any other direction save the one in which he did fall, he, perhaps, would have fallen upon the bare floor of the building (assuming it was large enough to fall in and that it was bare of other machinery than the engine), or upon the earth outside the building, neither of which would have presented a condition or hazard peculiar to claimant or to his situation in relation to his employment. Persons seized with epilepsy, vertigo, sunstroke, or other sudden and overpowering attacks usually fall where they are, and it is the presence of machinery, or height, or some other condition peculiar to the employment which increases the hazard of injury, but for the presence of which condition peculiar to the employment the person so seized would suffer no greater hazard of additional injury than one not so situated. The hazard of an injury from falling against the engine was one incident to the proximity of the engine to claimant's work, and the injury actually received arose out of the employment. Workmen's Compensation Law, Schneider (2d Ed.) vol. 1, sec. 327, pp. 1099-1102, and supplement thereto under same heading and section number; and cases cited thereunder.

¶9 The second assignment of error reads:

"The evidence does not justify the conclusion that the claimant's condition is due to striking his head on the engine and not due to the sunstroke."

¶10 We will not discuss this proposition separately, for what we have to say in response to a part of petitioner's third assignment of error fully covers this one.

¶11 The third assignment of error reads:

"That proceedings whereby property of your petitioners is sought to be taken away from them and given to another in the arbitrary and capricious manner as is disclosed in this cause

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