Olson Drilling Co. v. Indus. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 11 May 1944
• Docket Number: No. 27386.,27386.
• Citation: 54 N.E.2d 452,386 Ill. 402
• Parties: OLSON DRILLING CO. et al. v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

386 Ill. 402

54 N.E.2d 452

OLSON DRILLING CO. et al.

v.INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

No. 27386.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

March 21, 1944.

Rehearing Denied May 11, 1944.

Error to Circuit Court, Richland County; Blaine Huffman, Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act on the claim of Dan D. Wolf, employee, for compensation for accidental injuries sustained in an automobile accident, opposed by Olson Drilling Company, employer, and others. To review a judgment confirming a decision of the Industrial Commission sustaining an award for complete permanent disability, employer and others bring error.

Affirmed.

WILSON, J., dissenting.Pope & Driemeyer, of East St. Louis, for plaintiffs in error.

W. S. Willhite, of Mt. Carmel, for defendant in error.

THOMPSON, Justice.

This is a writ of error granted by this court to reverse the judgment of the circuit court of Richland county. The cause arises under the Workmen's Compensation Act. It involves a claim for compensation on account of injuries received by defendant in error, Dan D. Wolf. It is claimed the injuries received were accidental and arose out of and in the course of his employment. Application for adjustment of claim was filed on April 25, 1941, against the Olson Drilling Company, alleging that on February 14, 1941, he was injured at Enfield, Illinois, in an automobile accident which arose out of and in the course of his employment. Wolf, at the time, was en route from an oil well, where he was employed, to the office of the company to deliver a drilling report. The arbitrator awarded compensation for complete permanent disability. The Industrial Commission, on review, sustained the award and the circuit court of Richland county confirmed the decision of the commission.

The evidence reveals that on February 14, 1941, and for some time prior thereto, Dan D. Wolf was employed as a driller by the Olson Drilling Company on an oil well described as ‘Edwards No. 8,’ located south of McLeansboro, in Hamilton county and approximately sixty miles south of Olney where Wolf resided. In his employment he commenced work at twelve o'clock midnight and continued until eight o'clock in the morning. His duties were those of a driller and he had charge of the rig while in the tower and was responsible for everything that happened therein. Wolf drove from his residence to the well and from the well to his home each day in an automobile. At times he used his own automobile and at other times he made the trips to and from the well in the car of his son, Robert, who worked with his father at the well, doing any work there he was called on to do. Wolf carried the drilling reports, covering the twenty-four-hour operating period commencing in the morning of the preceding day, to the office of his employer in Olney. He traveled the same route as he traversed in returning from the well to his home until he reached Olney and passed a shoe factory. Wolf received no additional remuneration for bringing the reports to his employer's office. Nor did he receive an allowance for travel to and from the well. His duties required him to keep the drilling report for the company and on the day of the accident the tool pusher who was at the well signed the drilling report, tore it out of the book and handed it to Wolf with orders to take it to the office, which was located in the Insurance Building at Olney, Illinois. Quoting his words he said: ‘Take the drilling reports to the office. You won't need to call up this morning.’ In explanation as to what was meant by, ‘You won't need to call up,’ Wolf testified, and it was not disputed, ‘I usually had to call in from McLeansboro over the phone, and tell them the condition of the well.’ He further testified he was required to have the reports in the office ‘as soon as possible.’

The evidence reveals that Wolf carried the reports to the office as many as thirteen times on as many different mornings and that after he reached Olney or the shoe factory, as he stated, he had to take a different route than he would have taken to have gone to his home.

After the accident employees of the drilling company called to secure the reports with which he had been entrusted and which he had been instructed to take from the well to the drilling company's office.

Shortly after eight o'clock on the morning of February 14, after completing his work, he left in his son's automobile. He was carrying the drilling report and the time sheet to be delivered as instructed, to the office of the company at Olney. While driving on State Route No. 45, several miles from the well, the car in which he was riding collided with an automobile driven on the wrong side of the pavement by one Shoemaker, who was not employed by, and had no connection with, the Olson Drilling Co. Wolf sustained an injury to his spine as the direct result of the collision.

The question presented here in whether or not Wolf's accidental injury arose out of his employment, which must be determined by whether the accidental injury was incidental to the performance of the contract of service, and whether the origin or cause of the accident belonged to and was connected with the contract of service. Klug v. Industrial Comm., 381 Ill. 608, 46 N.E.2d 38;Schwartz v. Industrial Comm., 379 Ill. 139, 39 N.E.2d 980;Rainford v. Chicago City Railway Co., 289 Ill. 427, 124 N.E. 643. The Workmen's Compensation Act does not apply to every accidental injury which may happen to an employee during his employment. It does not make the employer an insurer against all injury. The injury contemplated by the act must have its origin in some risk of the employment. Klug v. Industrial Comm., 381 Ill. 608, 46 N.E.2d 38;Schwartz v. Industrial Comm., 379 Ill. 139, 39 N.E.2d 980;Edelweiss Gardens v. Industrial Comm., 290 Ill. 459, 125 N.E. 260. The employer is liable for compensation only for an injury which occurs to the employee while performing some act for the employer in the course of his employment, or incidental to it. Klug v. Industrial Comm., 381 Ill. 608, 46 N.E.2d 38;Schwartz v. Industrial Comm., 379 Ill. 139, 39 N.E.2d 980;Fairbank Co. v. Industrial Comm., 285 Ill. 11, 120 N.E. 457. A risk is incidental to the employment when it belongs to or is connected with what a workman has to do in fulfilling his contract of service. Boorde v. Industrial Comm., 310 Ill. 62, 141 N.E. 399. A prerequisite to the right to compensation is that the accidental injury must arise out of, as well as occur in the course of, the employment, and the mere fact that the duties take the employee to the place of the injury and that, but for the employment, he would not have been there, is not, of itself, sufficient to give rise to the right to compensation. There must be some causal relation between the employment and the injury, and the causative danger must be peculiar to the work and not common to the neighborhood. Klug v. Industrial Comm., 381 Ill. 608, 46 N.E.2d 38;Great American Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Comm., 367 Ill. 241, 11 N.E.2d 9.

In order for an accidental injury to come within the Workmen's Compensation Act it must be of such character that it may seem to have had its origin in the nature of the employment or have been incidental to the employment, or it must have been the result of a risk to which, by reason of the employment, the injured employee was exposed to a greater degree than if he had not been so employed. It is not enough that the presence of the injured person at the place he was injured was due to his employment, if the injury is sustained by reason of some cause having no relation to the nature of the employment. Klug v. Industrial Comm., 381 Ill. 608, 46 N.E.2d 38;Sure Pure Ice Co. v. Industrial Comm., 320 Ill. 332, 150 N.E. 909.

Plaintiff in error contends that as Wolf elected to ride in an automobile to reach his place of employment and also to return home, his employment did not expose him to a risk to a greater degree than if he had not been employed; that the fact he was carrying the drilling report and the time sheet neither contributed to nor increased the danger of personal injury resultant from a collision.

Plaintiff in error further contends that since the risk of the collision was not incidental to Wolf's employment it could not be said that a causal relation obtained between the employment and the injury, for the reason that Wolf's injury did not originate in a risk connected with or incidental to the employment, and did not arise out of the employment. In support of his contention plaintiff in error cites the cases of Sure Pure Ice Co. v. Industrial Comm., 320 Ill. 332, 150 N.E. 909;Schwartz v. Industrial Comm., 379 Ill. 139, 39 N.E.2d 980, and Farley v. Industrial Comm., 378 Ill. 234, 37 N.E.2d 787.

In the Sure Pure Ice Company case, one Frank Manthey was killed about 4:30 o'clock in the morning while he was on the premises of his employer. He had returned to the plant after his working hours were over to ascertain if everything was all right at the plant. It was his duty to fix anything which broke down at night and to see that the men did their work, and he was frequently at the plant at night in the discharge of his duties. While Manthey was walking toward the plant to which he had returned in an early hour of the morning, a police automobile with officers stopped near him, got out and called for him to halt. As he did not do so but continued on, one of the officers shot and killed him as he neared the door of the plant. This court in that case held there was no causal connection between the duties of Manthey and his shooting by the policeman although Manthey's duties required him to be at the place where he was at the time he was killed; that what happened to Manthey might as well have happened to any man employed at night anywhere in the section guarded by these policemen; that the cause of his death arose from an agency which was entirely outside of his employment, and...