Smith v. Heine Safety Boiler Co.

• Decision Date: 28 May 1918
• Parties: SMITH v. HEINE SAFETY BOILER CO. et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

224 N.Y. 9

119 N.E. 878

SMITH

v.HEINE SAFETY BOILER CO. et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 28, 1918.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Proceeding by Bessie M. Smith under the Workmen's Compensation Act to obtain compensation for the death of her husband, Warren H. Smith, opposed by the Heine Safety Boiler Company, employer, and the Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corporation, Limited, insurer. From an order of the Appellate Division (-- App. Div. --, 169 N. Y. Supp. 1114), affirming an award of the State Industrial Commission, the employer and insurer appeal. Reversed, and claim dismissed.

Frederick W. Catlin, of New York City, for appellant.

Merton E. Lewis, Atty. Gen. (E. C. Aiken, of Albany, of counsel), for respondent.

CARDOZO, J.

This is a claim for death benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Law. The employer, the Heine Safety Boiler Company, is a Missouri corporation. It has factories in Missouri and Pennsylvania. Warren H. Smith, the decedent, entered its service in 1900 under a contract of employment which was made in New York City. Mr. Smith was a traveling engineer. He was sent all over the United States, and took his orders from the employer's superintendent of construction. At first the employer maintained engineering and construction offices in New York. In 1904, the construction office was moved to Phoenixville, Pa. After that, Mr. Smith reported there and received his orders there. Some years before the accident, the engineering office was moved to the same place. All that was left in New York was a selling agency. On December 10, 1916, Mr. Smith was sent from Pennsylvaniato Biddeford, Me., to install a boiler, and while working there was killed. The question is whether the New York statute applies to such a case.

No hazardous business was transacted by the employer in New York when this accident occurred in Maine. The factory, the construction department, and the engineering department were in Missouri and Pennsylvania. The argument is that liability attaches under our statute because the contract of employment was made in our state. But that is not enough. At the date of that contract (1900), there was no Workmen's Compensation Act in New York. Long before any such act became a law, the employer moved its business away. In 1916 it was subject to no duty to insure its employés under our law, except, indeed, such employés as it might send within our state. The Workmen's Compensation Act involves an exercise of the police power. Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, 238, 37 Sup. Ct. 260, 61 L. Ed. 685, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 642. It does not attempt to regulate the duty of foreign employers in the conduct of their business within foreign jurisdictions.

Nothing to the contrary was held in Matter of Post v. Burger & Gohlke, 216 N. Y. 544, 111 N. E. 351, Ann. Cas. 1916B, 158. There the hazardous business was conducted in New York. The decision was that a workman employed in that business was under the protection of the New York act, though injured in New Jersey. Reading into the contract of employment the provisions of the statute, we held that a liability quasi ex contractu was imposed on the employer. Contractual in a strict sense, of course, the liability is not. People ex rel. Dusenbury v. Speir, 77 N. Y. 144;Matter of Post v. Burger & Gohlke, supra, 216 N. Y. 549, 111 N. E. 351, Ann. Cas. 1916B, 158...