State ex rel. Duluth Brewing & Malting Company v. District Court of St. Louis County
| Decision Date | 19 March 1915 |
| Docket Number | 19,221 - (310) |
| Citation | 151 N.W. 912,129 Minn. 176 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. DULUTH BREWING & MALTING COMPANY v. DISTRICT COURT OF ST. LOUIS COUNTY and Others |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Upon the relation of the Duluth Brewing & Malting Co. this court granted a writ of certiorari directed to the judges and clerk of the district court for St. Louis county to review the proceedings in the matter of compensation for injury to Charles DeCook, an employee of relator, whereby he was granted, Cant, J., compensation for personal injuries at the rate of $8.10 per week for a period of 100 weeks. Affirmed.
Workmen's Compensation Act -- injury arising out of employment.
The finding of the trial court that an accidental injury arose out of and in the employment, within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act, is sustained.
Baldwin Baldwin & Holmes, for relator employer.
John Jenswold and C. R. Magney, for respondent employee.
Certiorari to review the findings and judgment of the district court in a proceeding therein to determine the right of an injured servant to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act (chapter 467, p. 675, Laws 1913). Findings were made to the effect that the servant lost the sight in one eye through an accidental injury arising, within the meaning of the act, out of and in the course of employment, and judgment was entered against relator. If the injury arose out of and in the course of the employment the judgment is right.
The injured servant, Charles DeCook, had worked for relator, in the bottling house of its brewery at Duluth, Minnesota, as the foreman's helper during more than five years prior to the accident. In the bottling room were a number of electric light bulbs. To protect them against breakage, a wire screen cover was provided. These screens were fastened with a lock to prevent the bulbs from being stolen. The foreman carried the key -- a simple three cornered contrivance. It was part of DeCook's duty to replace any of the light bulbs which broke or became defective. In doing this he had to get the key from the foreman, unlock the cover, take the broken bulb to the foreman, then go to the office or store room for another bulb, replace it, lock the guard and return the key to the foreman. On April 9, 1914, DeCook had occasion to go to the basement where some other employees were engaged. One of these handed DeCook what appeared to be an empty cartridge shell of unusual length. It occurred to DeCook that the empty shell could be easily fashioned into a key so as to save the time and energy spent in hunting up the foreman and carrying the key back and forth when light bulbs had to be replaced. During the working hours, in the afternoon of April 9, 1914, DeCook went to the place in the room where the tools and appliances to make the ordinary repairs called for in the business were kept, took a hammer, and began to hammer the supposed empty shell into a key. The shell happened to be an unexploded dynamite cap, and the third blow set it off. A fragment therefrom pierced plaintiff's right eye and destroyed the sight.
It is earnestly insisted that the facts show DeCook to have departed from his duties as a servant when he met with the accident, and to have been engaged in something entirely at variance with the master's business and without the scope of the employment. Dynamite caps were neither kept nor used in relator's establishment, and, it is said, DeCook had no express or implied authority to make a key, hence the accident cannot be held to have arisen out of the employment.
The law in question was intended to relieve against the hardships resulting from the many unfortunate accidents which do take place in this age of extensive use of complicated machines and appliances, and of great enterprises necessitating the indiscriminate employment of large forces of laborers and mechanics. All question of the employer's fault or negligence is eliminated from cases arising under this act. The intention was to compensate all accidental injuries growing out of and received in the service except those intentionally self inflicted or due to intoxication. The statute is highly remedial in character. The courts ought therefore to guard against a narrow construction, and should not exclude a servant from the benefits thereof, unless constrained by unambiguous language or the clear intent as gathered from the entire act.
Both employer and employee in this case are within Part 2, which provides that in every case of personal injury "caused by accident, arising out of and in the course of employment without regard to the question of negligence," compensation shall be paid according to a fixed schedule. Section 8213, G.S. 1913. The clause here involved is afterwards defined in the act in these words: "Without otherwise affecting the meaning or...
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