State ex rel. Common School District No. 1 in Itasca County v. District Court of Itasca County
| Decision Date | 12 July 1918 |
| Docket Number | 20,993 |
| Citation | 168 N.W. 555,140 Minn. 470 |
| Parties | STATE EX REL. COMMON SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1 IN ITASCA COUNTY v. DISTRICT COURT OF ITASCA COUNTY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Upon the relation of the Common School District No. 1 in Itasca county, the supreme court granted its writ of certiorari directed to the district court for Itasca county to review proceedings in that court, wherein a teacher in the employ of relator was allowed by Wright, J., compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Reversed.
Workmen's Compensation Act -- accident arising out of employment -- school teacher.
A school district employed a young woman teacher for a one-room school in a densely wooded and sparsely settled part of the country. On her way to her boarding house, after her day's work at the school-house was done, and when off the school-house grounds, she was assaulted by an unknown man for the gratification of his passions and as a part of the transaction she was shot and the sight of one eye was destroyed. The Workmen's Compensation Act gives compensation for personal injury "caused by accident arising out of and in the course of employment." It does not cover workmen except while engaged in or about the premises where their work is done or their service requires their pr esence; and it excludes "an injury caused by the act of a third person or fellow employee intended to injure the employee because of reasons personal to him, and not directed against him as an employee, or because of his employment." Without determining whether the injuries to the teacher arose in the course of the employment it is held that they were not caused by accident arising out of the employment and that they are not compensable under the compensation act.
Baldwin Baldwin & Holmes, for relator.
Ralph A. Stone, for respondent.
Certiorari to the district court of Itasca to review a judgment awarding compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act to a school teacher in the employ of School District No. 1 of the county.
The facts are not in dispute. The school district employed a young woman to teach in the Round Lake school some 35 miles from Deer River in Itasca county and 25 miles from Black Duck in Beltrami county, these two places being the nearest railway points. The country is densely wooded and sparsely settled. The school was a one-room school and 15 pupils attended. The nearest house was a half mile away and the boarding place was a mile or a mile and a quarter. On the morning of September 20, 1916, an unknown man asked for food at the boarding place of the teacher. On the evening of that day, when her work at the school-house was finished, she started for her boarding house taking a short cut through the woods. She had some papers which she intended to correct at home in the evening and a book to study. As she was on her way, and when just off the school grounds, she was criminally assaulted by this man for the gratification of his passions and as a part of the transaction he shot her destroying the sight of her left eye. Some months later his body was found in a creek some miles away with a bullet wound through the heart and a revolver nearby. He had evidently committed suicide. There is no mistaking the facts recited. The assailant saw the teacher in the morning, lurked about until the opportunity came after she left school, and then committed the assault for purposes of his own.
The Compensation Act requires of the employer compensation "in every case of personal injury or death of his employee, caused by accident, arising out of and in the course of employment," etc. G.S. 1913, § 8203.
The meaning of the word "accident" and the phrase "personal injuries" arising out of and in the course of employment is defined as follows:
"Not to cover workmen except while engaged in, on, or about the premises where their services are being performed, or where their service requires their presence as a part of such service at the time of the injury, and during the hours of service as such workmen, and shall not include an injury caused by the act of a third person or fellow employee intended to injure the employee because of reasons personal to him, and not directed against him as an employee, or because of his employment." G.S. 1913, § 8230.
It is not questioned that a wilful assault may be an accident within the definition of the act. Without stopping to consider whether the injury to the teacher occurred in the course of employment, as the statute uses the term, since she was away from the place of her definite school work, and on her way home, and upon that question this opinion is not to be taken as intimating a view, we pass to a consideration of whether it arose out of employment within the meaning of the statute.
The phrase, arising out of employment, is usual to compensation acts though some do not have it, and it has been provocative of litigation. That under some circumstances an injury from an assault is one caused by accident arising out of the employment is without question; and it is as much without question that under other circumstances it is not.
When the nature of the employment is such as naturally to invite an assault, or when the employee is exposed to an assault by the character of his work, as when he is protecting or in charge of his employer's property, and the assault naturally results because of the employment and not because of something unconnected with it, so that it is a hazard or special risk of the work, the cases say that it arises out of the employment. The following are illustrative Trim Joint Dist. School v. Kelly [1914] A.C. 667 (schoolmaster in industrial school assaulted by pupils); Weekes v. Stead & Co. 7 B.W.C.C. 398 (); Nisbet v. Rayne [1910] 2 K.B. 689 (); Anderson v. Balfour [1910] 2 I.R. 497 (); Challis v. London, etc. Co. [1905] 2 K.B. 154 ();...
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