Olde South Custom Landscaping, Inc. v. Mathis, A97A1140

• Decision Date: 22 October 1997
• Docket Number: No. A97A1140,A97A1140
• Citation: 229 Ga.App. 316,494 S.E.2d 14
• Parties: , 97 FCDR 3952 OLDE SOUTH CUSTOM LANDSCAPING, INC. et al. v. MATHIS.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 14

494 S.E.2d 14

229 Ga.App. 316, 97 FCDR 3952

OLDE SOUTH CUSTOM LANDSCAPING, INC. et al. v. MATHIS.

No. A97A1140.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Oct. 22, 1997.

Reconsideration Denied Nov. 13, 1997.

Certiorari Denied Feb. 27, 1998.

Zirkle & Hoffman, Eric S. Jones, Atlanta, for appellants.

Marcus & Moskowitz, Decatur, Todd K. Maziar, Atlanta, for appellee.

RUFFIN, Judge.

Derrick Mathis filed this workers' compensation claim against his employer Olde South Custom Landscaping, Inc. ("Olde South") and its insurer, CIGNA Insurance Company ("CIGNA"), for injuries he sustained when he stopped to assist stranded motorists he encountered while performing employment duties for Olde South. The administrative law judge ("ALJ") declined to award Mathis benefits, finding that his "injuries did not arise out of his employment, but out of a deviation from it." The appellate division of the State Board of Workers' Compensation ("appellate division") reversed, concluding that Mathis had not deviated from his employment, but was "[e]xercising ordinary standards of decency and compassion while in the course of employment...." The superior court affirmed. We granted Olde South's application for discretionary appeal and for reasons which follow, we reverse.

"In reviewing a workers' compensation award, both this court and the superior court must construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the party prevailing before the appellate division. It is axiomatic that the findings of the [Board], when supported by any evidence, are conclusive and binding, and that neither the superior court nor this court has any authority to substitute itself as a fact finding body in lieu of the Board." (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Atlas Automotive v. Wilson, 225 Ga.App. 631, 633(1), 484 S.E.2d 669 (1997). "The courts may, however, review the Board's legal conclusions." Crider's Furs v. Atkinson, 221 Ga.App. 681, 682, 472 S.E.2d 507 (1996).

The relevant facts in this case are undisputed. The record shows Derrick Mathis was a foreman for Olde South. He was required by his employment to travel to various locations for landscaping assignments and thereafter to return to Olde South's office with the truck and landscaping equipment. On January 12, 1995, Mathis and two other Olde South employees had completed their jobs for the day and were returning to Olde South's office in one of the company's trucks. As he was driving north on Interstate 85, Mathis noticed an elderly couple stranded in the emergency lane with the elderly man pushing the car. Mathis saw no one stopping to assist them and in fact claimed to have seen a wrecker drive by without stopping. Mathis exited the interstate two exits later and returned to offer assistance. Olde South had no established policy mandating or prohibiting its employees from assisting stranded motorists.

When they arrived at the stranded car, Mathis and the other Olde South employees helped push the car. When it became difficult to push the car up an incline, Mathis and one of his co-employees put their feet against the back bumper of the stranded car while sitting on the front bumper of the Olde South truck, creating what was described as a human wedge. The third Olde South employee then placed the truck in gear and began pushing the disabled car along the emergency lane, with Mathis and the other Olde South employee between the two vehicles. The plan went awry, however, and Mathis fell under the truck and was caught and dragged by the trailer. Mathis suffered a fractured vertebra and was paralyzed by the accident. Mathis sought total disability income benefits from Olde South and CIGNA.

The ALJ, in denying benefits, refused to recognize "a 'good samaritan' exception to the deviation rule," holding that such relief had to be enacted by the legislature. The ALJ concluded that Olde South received no benefit from Mathis' deviation.

In reversing, the appellate division found that there was no deviation from his employment duties and that Mathis' actions promoted Olde South's good will to the public. The superior court, in affirming the appellate division, relied in part on a decision of the Florida Court of Appeals that found compensable injuries sustained by a truck driver who stopped to assist motorists involved in a head-on collision. Rockhaulers, Inc. v. Davis, 554 So.2d 654 (Fla.App.1989). Based on Davis, the superior court concluded that Mathis was responding to a "true emergency" and thus the appellate division properly found his injuries to be compensable.

The issue of whether the Georgia Workers' Compensation Act applies to an employee who is injured while acting as a Good Samaritan is one of first impression. The Good Samaritan Rule is an extension of the positional risk doctrine. See A. Larson, The Positional-Risk Doctrine in Workmen's Compensation, 1973 Duke L.J. 761, 808. The positional risk doctrine, which has been adopted in Georgia, holds that for an "injury to be compensable it is only necessary for the claimant to prove that his work brought him within range of the danger by requiring his presence in the locale where the peril struck, even though any other person present would have also been injured irrespective of his employment." Nat. Fire Ins. Co. v. Edwards, 152 Ga.App. 566, 567(1), 263 S.E.2d 455 (1979). The Good Samaritan Rule, adopted in Florida and other jurisdictions, does not involve an outside force, such as lightning, tornadoes, or criminal assaults, injuring an employee in a location where his employment placed him, but rather the implied invitation to rescue someone in need encountered by the employee. Larson, 1973 Duke L.J. at 808; Edwards v. Louisiana Forestry Comm., 221 La. 818, 60 So.2d 449 (1952) (employee injured while attempting to rescue a child from attacking dog could obtain benefits); Reilly v. Weber Engineering Co., 107 N.J.Super. 254, 258 A.2d 36 (N.J.Co.1969) (compensable injuries resulted when employee attempted to rescue a young boy dangling from high tension wire); Big "2" Engine Rebuilders v. Freeman, 379 So.2d 888 (Miss.1980) (injuries suffered by employee who stopped for an apparently stranded motorist who hit the employee over the head with a gun were compensable).

Under the Good Samaritan Rule, " '(i)njury incurred in the rescue of a stranger is compensable if the conditions of employment place claimant in a position which requires him by ordinary standards of humanity to undertake the rescue.' [Cit.] ... [T]here must be a true emergency, as distinguished from a mere benefit to an employer through the act of providing assistance to one in trouble. [Cit.] This 'true emergency' requirement lies at the heart of the positional risk doctrine. Under this theory, an employee's injury is compensable if it was incurred in the rescue of a complete stranger, provided the employment brought the employee to the place where he observed the situation calling for a rescue attempt. [Cits.]" Davis, 554 So.2d at 656.

The Good Samaritan Rule, however, is an exception to the deviation rule, which has been employed by Georgia courts. The deviation rule provides that when an employee "steps aside from his employer's business to do some act of his own, not connected with his employer's business, the relationship of employer and employee, or master and servant, is, as to that act, completely suspended, and an accident occurring at that time, resulting in injury to the employee, does not arise out of the employment within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act." Hartford Accident, etc., Co. v. Souther, 110 Ga.App. 84, 85(2), 137 S.E.2d 705 (1964).

We have located only two instances in which our appellate courts have even remotely addressed the Good Samaritan Rule. See Glens Falls Indem. Co. v. Sockwell, 58 Ga.App. 111, 197 S.E. 647 (1938) (physical precedent only), and U.S. Fidelity, etc., Co. v....