Simpson v. Lee

• Decision Date: 06 September 1940
• Docket Number: No. 59.,59.
• Citation: 293 N.W. 718,294 Mich. 460
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: SIMPSON v. LEE & CADY et al.

294 Mich. 460

293 N.W. 718

SIMPSON

v.LEE & CADY et al.

No. 59.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Sept. 6, 1940.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Law by Mary Simpson, widow of Fred Lewis Simpson, deceased, against Lee & Cady, employer of Fred Lewis Simpson, deceased, and the American Mutual Liability Company, to recover for the death of Fred Lewis Simpson, deceased. From an adverse judgment, the employer and insurer appeal.

Award vacated.

Appeal in Nature of Certiorari from Department of Labor and industry.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Alexander, McCaslin & Cholette, by E. Dean Alexander, all of Detroit, for defendants and appellants.

De Vere Kostoff, of Saginaw, for plaintiff and appellee.

BUTZEL, Justice.

Plaintiff is the widow and sole dependent of Fred Simpson, deceased, who died as the result of an accidental injury sustained from a fall on February 28, 1939. At the time of the injury he was 77 years of age and was employed as a clerk in defendant Lee & Cady's wholesale house in Bay City, Michigan. He left his home at about 7 o'clock in the morning on the day of the accident and traveled by bus to the place of his employment. His bus stopped on the side of the street opposite an entrance to defendant's store and he was helped across the street by a fellow employee who was also a pssenger on the same bus, and a porter of defendant who had seen Mr. Simpson get off. Apparently the fellow employees proffered their help because the streets and sidewalks were very slippery. Defendant's building was constructed flush with the public sidewalk, and there was a single step about 10 inches high leading from the public sidewalk up to the door in the entranceway. The crossing of the street was made safely with the help of the two kindly employees; we are told that when they reached the entrance, Mr. Simpson insisted on proceeding alone. He was within a few inches of the entrance when he extended his right arm to take hold of the door handle. The reach did not result in a grasp, for at that moment his right foot, yet on the sidewalk, slipped and he fell to the sidewalk. The department found that in reaching for the door his hand extended across the property line of defendant's premises. An award was granted on the ground that the injury took place while the deceased was ‘in the immediate vicinity of, and in the immediate act of entering upon his employment by the defendant,’ and that, therefore, the hazard was borne by the employment.

It is conceded that deceased's travel to and from the place where his duties were to be performed was not a part of the employment. (Dent v. Ford Motor Co., 275 Mich. 39, 265 N.W. 518;Voehl v. Indemnity Insurance Co., 288 U.S. 162, 53 S.Ct. 380, 77 L.Ed. 676, 87 A.L.R. 245;Furino v. City of Lansing, 293 Mich. 211, 291 N.W. 637), and that the instant case is not within the exception where the hazards of travel are incident to, or causally connected with, the activities encompassed by the employment. Morse v. Port Huron & D. R. Co., 251 Mich. 309, 232 N.W. 369;Bisdom v. Kerbrat, 251 Mich. 316, 232 N.W. 408;Konopka v. Jackson County Road Comm., 270 Mich. 174, 258 N.W. 429, 97 A.L.R. 552;Shane v. Alexander, 277 Mich. 85, 268 N.W. 821. Plaintiff seeks to support the award on the ground that the accident had its origin in a risk connected with the employment. It is claimed that the employee fell because of ‘the combination of a slippery condition and the effort to enter the doorway which facts are inseparable and as one, whereby the act of entering not only was a causative danger different than that of a pedestrian but as well necessarily relates the accident to the employment.’ The argument it too frail a reed to support the award. The compensation law is to be liberally construed to provide indemnity for accidents peculiarly incidental to employment, but it was not intended to be health, accident and old age insurance and spread general protection over risks common to all and not arising out of and in the course of employment. The deceased...