Southern Motor Lines Co. v. Alvis

• Decision Date: 10 September 1958
• Docket Number: No. 4835,4835
• Citation: 200 Va. 168,104 S.E.2d 735
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: SOUTHERN MOTOR LINES COMPANY v. LOTTIE PEARL ALVIS, ET AL. Record

Page 735

104 S.E.2d 735

200 Va. 168

SOUTHERN MOTOR LINES COMPANY v. LOTTIE PEARL ALVIS, ET AL.

Record No. 4835.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia

September 10, 1958.

Ralph A. Elmore (Elmore & Belcher, on brief), for the appellant.

David Meade White and Richard Mci. Dunn, Jr. (White, White & Roberts, on brief), for the appellees.

JUDGE: WHITTLE

WHITTLE, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This appeal, presented by Southern Motor Lines Company, grows out of an award of the Industrial Commission in which it was found that Edward Wilson Alvis was killed by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment when he fell to his death from a hotel window, and wherein full compensation was awarded his wife and children, the appellees.

The record discloses that Alvis was a truck driver employed in long distance hauling by Southern Motor Lines Company of Richmond. It was stipulated that he died on October 11, 1956, in Columbus, Georgia; that the duties of his employment required him to be in that city at the time and required him to remain there over night on the 10th and 11th of October.

Alvis had arrived in Columbus with a load of eggs from Nebraska. The eggs were to be unloaded and he was to pick up a load of peanuts bound for Nebraska on Friday the 12th. As was customary, he telephoned his employer upon arrival, advising that he was stopping at the Rankin Hotel and asked that expense money be wired him. The money was forwarded that same day. He was seen by the hotel employees several times on Thursday, the 11th, and was last seen by the night clerk on the evening of that day when he paid for his lodging.

On Friday, the 12th, the hotel manager entered the locked room assigned to Alvis after first working out of the keyhole the key that was inserted therein from inside the room. Alvis' personal belongings were in the room, and it was found that a screen intended for one of the windows had been removed and placed against the wall. The screen bore evidence of having been pried at one corner. It was replaced by the manager who found nothing unusual in its being out of place. The window overlooked a narrow light well some four feet wide at a point approximately opposite the roof of the adjoining building.

The employer's first knowledge of anything amiss came on Monday, October 15th, when a telephone call was received from the consignee in Nebraska complaining that the peanut shipment had not arrived. Another complaint on Tuesday led the employer to call the hotel, and sometime thereafter the body of Alvis was discovered in the light well beneath the third story window of the room which he had occupied.

The report of the coroner's inquest was to the effect that Alvis came to his death of a major concussion to the back of the head after accidentally falling from a third story window of the hotel.

The evidence disclosed that the night of October 11th was extremely warm, and that the guests of the hotel frequently removed screens from the windows to admit more air. A representative of the employer testified that Alvis' accounts were in proper shape; that he found nothing to indicate that Alvis did not intend to pick up the load of peanuts on Friday; and found nothing to indicate that Alvis would have taken his own life. Mrs. Alvis presented a letter from her husband dated October 11th, written on hotel stationery, addressing her in endearing terms and stating that he was leaving for the west on the following day, and expressing the hope that he would be home the latter part of the following week.

The Virginia statute on which the claim is based (§ 65-7) provides that an injury is compensable if it is one occasioned by accident which arises out of and in the course of employment. Thus under the statute three elements must be proved: (1) An injury by accident; (2) the injury must have arisen out of the employment, and (3) it must have occurred in the course of employment.

The phrases 'arising out of' and 'in the course of' the employment are not synonymous. The words 'arising out of' refer to the origin or cause of the injury while the words 'in the course of' refer to the time, place and circumstances under which the accident occurred. Bradshaw v. Aronovitch, 170 Va. 329, 335, 196 S.E. 684; 71 C.J., Workmen's Compensation, § 396, p. 644.

We have held that an accident occurs 'in the course of employment' when it takes place within the period of employment, at a place where the employee may reasonably be expected to be, and while he is reasonably fulfilling duties of his employment or is doing something reasonably incidental thereto. Bradshaw v. Aronovitch, supra, (170 Va., at p. 335); Lasear, Inc. v. Anderson, 99 Ind.App. 428, 192 N.E. 762, 765; 71 C.J., Workmen's Compensation, § 404, p. 659.

It is conceded by appellant that Alvis met his death through accidental means, and it is not seriously controverted that he was engaged in the course of his employment at the time. It is urged, however, that appellees have failed to...