Shane v. Alexander

• Decision Date: 02 September 1936
• Docket Number: No. 19.,19.
• Citation: 277 Mich. 85,268 N.W. 821
• Parties: SHANE v. ALEXANDER et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

277 Mich. 85

268 N.W. 821

SHANE

v.ALEXANDER et al.

No. 19.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Sept. 2, 1936.

Certiorari from Department of Labor and Industry.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Willis W. Shane, opposed by Rutgers Alexander, cashier of the Loan & Deposit State Bank, Grand Lodge, Mich., the Maryland Casualty Company, Rutgers, Elizabeth and Ethel Alexander, and the State Accident Fund. To review an order of the Department of Labor and Industry awarding compensation for total disability, the defendants bring certiorari.

Award set aside and vacated.

Argued before the Entire Bench, except POTTER, J.

Alexander, McCaslin & Cholette, of Grand Rapids (Roy Andrus, of Lansing, of counsel), for appellants.

Richard I. Lawson, of Detroit, and Walter McLean, of Grand Ledge, for appellee.

TOY, Justice.

Defendants review by certiorari the order of the Department of Labor and Industry awarding plaintiff compensation for total disability arising from an injury occurring on March 7, 1935.

Appellants present one question for review; namely, Did the accident arise out of and in the course of plaintiff's employment?

Nine years before the injury plaintiff was hired by the then cashier of the Loan & Deposit Bank in Grand Ledge as a janitor for the bank. Since that time he has received from the bank its check of $15 per month for his services. Three months before the accident, Rutgers Alexander employed plaintiff to do the janitor work of the Alexander Block, a building in Grand Ledge owned by the Alexander Estate, which employment plaintiff undertook in addition to his duties as janitor of the bank, and for which he received the sum of $15 per month. Mr. Alexander was, at that time, cashier of the bank and also manager of the estate. Plaintiff was paid for his services separately, receiving each month, one check from the bank and one check from the estate. Neither position was a ‘full time job.’

On the date of the accident, plaintiff went to the Alexander Block, fired the boiler, and carried out the ashes. He then left that building and started for the bank building to perform janitor services there, and when about 4 rods from the Alexander Block and about half a block from the bank building, and while on the public street, he fell and sustained the injury complained of. Plaintiff had no regular hours of employment, but performed his janitor work mainly at hours of his own selection, and fired the furnaces in the two buildings as required by varying weather conditions.

Plaintiff was not injured while employed as janitor for the Alexander Estate. Neither was he performing his janitor duties for the bank at the time of his injury. He was proceeding from one job to the other. His injury did not arise out of or in the course...