Olson v. Trinity Lodge No. 282, A. F. & A. M.

• Decision Date: 23 April 1948
• Docket Number: No. 34610.,34610.
• Citation: 226 Minn. 141,32 N.W.2d 255
• Parties: OLSON v. TRINITY LODGE NO. 282, A. F. & A. M. et al.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

32 N.W.2d 255

226 Minn. 141

OLSON v. TRINITY LODGE NO. 282, A. F. & A. M. et al.

No. 34610.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 23, 1948.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Erick Olson, claimant, opposed by Trinity Lodge No. 282, A. F. & A. M., employer and another, to recover compensation for injuries. To review an order of the Industrial Commission awarding compensation and medical benefits, Trinity Lodge No. 282, A. F. & A. M., and another bring certiorari.

Affirmed.

R. Vern Eckman, of Duluth, for relators.

Dancer, Montague, Applequist, Lyons & Spang and John H. Louisell, all of Duluth, for respondent.

MATSON, Justice.

Certiorari to review an order of the industrial commission awarding compensation and medical benefits to respondent.

At the time of his injury, respondent was regularly employed as a carpenter at a sash and door factory in Duluth. In addition thereto, he was employed as a part-time janitor by Trinity Lodge No. 282, A. F. & A. M. The janitorial work involved taking care of the screens and storm windows, tending the furnace, and shoveling and sanding the sidewalks of the lodge building, which is located about four blocks from the sash and door factory. As compensation for this part-time janitorial work, respondent was given, instead of a monetary consideration, a rent-free room in the lodge building, where he made his home.

Each winter morning respondent would fill the furnace stoker shortly before leaving for work at the sash and door plant, where his hours were from 8:00 in the morning to 5:00 in the afternoon. As a rule, the furnace required no further attention until he returned to the lodge at about 5:15 in the evening, although in extremely cold weather he would return to the lodge at noon and refill the stoker and remove clinkers from the furnace. If there had been snow, respondent would shovel and sand the sidewalk in the morning or evening as the circumstances required.

On January 31, 1946, at about ten minutes after five in the evening, respondent was returning to the lodge after his day's work at the sash and door plant. As he approached the front entrance of the lodge he fell and broke his hip. The fall occurred after he had turned off the public sidewalk and had entered upon a concrete walk leading across the lodge front yard from the public sidewalk to the front entrance of the lodge. The evidence reasonably supports an inference that the immediate cause of the fall was an accumulation of ice and snow on that walk. Respondent testified that he had spread sand on it early that morning, but that the wind had blown it away. In keeping with his usual custom, it was his intention to go to his room to take off his mackinaw and then proceed at once to the basement to tend the furnace.

1. The sole issue presented is raised by relators' contention that respondent's injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment. M.S.A. § 176.01, subd. 11, provides:

"Without otherwise affecting either the meaning or interpretation of the abridged clause `personal injuries arising out of and in the course of employment,' it is hereby declared:

"Not to cover workmen except while engaged in, on, or about the premises where their services are being performed, or where their services require their presence as a part of such service, at the time of the injury, and during the hours of service as such workmen; * * *." (Italics supplied.)

A restricted or narrow construction is not to be applied to this section. In recognition of the remedial purpose of the Workmen's Compensation Act, we have repeatedly emphasized and applied to it a broad and liberal construction. Simonson v. Knight, 174 Minn. 491, 219 N.W. 869; Le Bar v. Ewald Bros. Dairy, 217 Minn. 16, 13 N.W.2d 729; Locke v. County of Steele, 223 Minn. 464, 27 N.W.2d 285; 6 Dunnell, Dig. & Supp. § 10385. This policy of liberal construction is not to be frittered away by a narrow application of the doctrine of stare decisis. Whether an injury to a workman has arisen out of and in the course of his employment must be determined, in the light of the broad remedial purpose of the act, according to the varying circumstances of each case. Simonson v. Knight, supra.

2. The phrase "arising out of" the employment expresses the factor of origin, source, or contribution rather than cause in the sense of being proximate or direct. Compensation acts are sui generis, and care must be taken not to defeat their purpose by applying, through long judicial habit, concepts belonging to fundamentally different fields of litigation. Hanson v. Robitshek-Schneider Co., 209 Minn. 596, 297 N.W. 19; Horovitz, Current Trends in Workmen's Compensation, pp. 509-511. The standard of origin or source as a contributing factor obviously goes far beyond the restrictive limitations of the tort concept of proximate cause. The Massachusetts supreme court in Caswell's Case, 305 Mass. 500, 502, 26 N.E.2d 328, 330, rejected its earlier restrictive definitions and said: "* * * An injury arises out of the employment if it arises out of the nature, conditions, obligations or incidents of the employment; in other words, out of the employment looked at in any of its aspects."

The companion phrase "in the course of" employment refers to the factors of time and place. State ex rel. Duluth B. & M. Co. v. District Court, 129 Minn. 176, 151 N.W. 912; Novack v. Montgomery Ward & Co. 158 Minn. 495, 198 N.W. 290.

3. In respect to the elements of time and place, we come to a consideration of whether respondent was injured "in the course of" his employment. He was pursuing the proper and regular route to the scene of his labors. At the moment of his injury, he had reached not merely the premises of his employer, but also a portion of those premises which required his presence in the performance of his janitorial service. M.S.A. § 176.01, subd. 11. He fell on the very sidewalk that he had sanded in the morning. His injury occurred in the zone of ingress to the building, and this zone comprised a part of the place or area of his employment. In this respect, we have here a stronger case than that of Simonson v. Knight, 174 Minn. 491, 219 N.W. 869, where the employe was injured in an area of egress not included within the portion of the premises where she actually performed her duties, but which we held was, nevertheless, a part of the working premises. We have likewise a stronger case than that of Novack v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 158 Minn. 495, 198 N.W. 290, where we held that the employe was injured upon the working premises although her injury occurred in a different portion of the building from that where she actually performed her duties. Clearly, as to the element of place, respondent's injury occurred in the course of his employment.

Relators, however, emphasize the element of time, and allege that the accident did not occur during the "hours of service" as required by M.S.A. § 176.01, subd. 11. Respondent, they say, "was not doing any work for the employer at the time," but was only going to his room. We find no merit in this contention. The term "hours of service" must not be construed so narrowly as to include only that time for which the worker is paid or only those moments which he actually spends at a shovel, machine, or workbench. An injury to a workman may arise out of and in the course of his employment even if he is not actually working at the time of his injury. Simonson v. Knight, 174 Minn. 491, 219...