Mt. Olive & Staunton Coal Co. v. Indus. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 23 February 1934
• Docket Number: No. 22205.,22205.
• Parties: MT. OLIVE & STAUNTON COAL CO. v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

355 Ill. 222

189 N.E. 296

MT. OLIVE & STAUNTON COAL CO.

v.INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

No. 22205.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 23, 1934.

Error to Circuit Court, Macoupin County; Victor Hemphill, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by John Sitko, claimant, opposed by the Mt. Olive & Staunton Coal Company, employer. To review a judgment of the circuit court setting aside an award of the Industrial Commission in favor of claimant, claimant brings error.

Judgment reversed, and award of Industrial Commission confirmed.George W. Dowell, of Du Quoin, and Leal W. Reese and David W. Johnston, both of Taylorville, for plaintiff in error.

MacDonald & Morgan, of East St. Louis, for defendant in error.

JONES, Justice.

The circuit court of Macoupin county set aside an award of the Industrial Commission in favor of plaintiff in error, John Sitko, on account of injuries received by him while in the employ of defendant in error the Mt. Olive & Staunton Coal Company. The cause is before us on writ of error.

Sitko was in the employ of the coal company as a sulphur picker. His employment required him to stand alongside a boom and pick sulphur and other impurities from coal as it came out of the mine chutes and was loaded into railroad cars. The mine tipple is located at Williamson, in Macoupin county, adjacent to the main line and switches of the Litchfield & Madison Railway, which supplies transportation for coal mines in the vicinity. Across the tracks from the tipple is a small building or shed in which the sulphur pickers were accustomed to store their lunch pails and daily eat their lunches. On the day of the accident, Sitko and a number of other sulphur pickers ate their lunches in the shed. The mine whistle blew, and they started back to the tipple to resume work. Just as they were returning, a train of forty-eight empty cars was pushed in on the main tracks and up an incline, from which the cars could run by gravity down a switch to the mine. The train stopped and thereby blocked free passage across the tracks to the tipple. Sitko and others employees, in order to get to their place of work, climbed over the coupling apparatus between the cars. When the engine stopped, the momentum of the cars took up the slack between them. This was followed by a rebound on account of the downgrade. On the rebound, Sitko's foot was caught and crushed between the heel of a drawbar and the deadwood of one of the cars. In order to release him, the engine was moved forward, taking out the slack between the cars. Sitko testified that the cars were standing still when he and the others boarded them; that the top boss not only knew they crossed the tracks daily in going to and from the lunch shed, but had seen them do it; that several times previously they had crossed between the cars; that he was instructed about his work by the mine superintendent, but was not told he should not go over the railroad tracks, and there were no warning signs or notices. Trains usually made two trips over the main track with empty cars at about the same hour each day. The conductor of the train testified that the boys got onto the train while the cars were moving from the rebound, that he had frequently seen them go between the cars, and that sometimes they waited until the train made its movements and sometimes they did not. There is no testimony to show whether or not any of the mine officials knew the boys were accustomed to cross between the cars of a train. At the time of the accident, Sitko was 21 years old and had been in the employ of the coal company for about one month.

It is contended that Sitko, in climbing through the train, chose to put himself in a dangerous place where him employment did not necessarily carry him, and thereby incurred a danger of his own choosing altogether outside any reasonable requirement of his employment, and accepted a risk which was not an incident of his employment. The determination of whether or not an injury arises out of the employment is frequently a most difficult problem. It is apparent that each case must depend upon its own facts and cannot be solved by any set rule or formula. Dietzen Co. v. Industrial Board, 279 Ill. 11, 116 N. E. 684, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 764. It is a general rule that the accident which caused the injury must have resulted from a risk belonging to or connected with what a workman had to do in fulfilling his contract of service, and the employer is not liable where the employee voluntarily exposed himself to a danger which was not one arising from his employment. United Disposal Co. v. Industrial Com., 291 Ill. 480, 126 N. E. 183. This rule is not to be extended so as to deprive an employee of the right to compensation merely because he accepts an unnecessary risk or danger. To do so would be to defeat the purpose which motivated the Legislature in enacting the Workmen's Compensation Law (Smith-Hurd Rev. St. 1933, c. 48, § 138 et seq.). One of the objectives of the law was to do away with the defenses of contributory...