State ex rel. Rau v. Dist. Court

• Decision Date: 02 November 1917
• Docket Number: No. 20535.,20535.
• Parties: STATE ex rel. RAU v. DISTRICT COURT, RAMSEY COUNTY, et al.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

138 Minn. 250

164 N.W. 916

STATE ex rel. RAU

v.DISTRICT COURT, RAMSEY COUNTY, et al.

No. 20535.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Nov. 2, 1917.

Certiorari in Supreme Court by the State, on relation of Lena Rau, against the District Court of Ramsey County and others, to review a judgment denying compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act to relator, the widow of George Rau, an employé of the respondent City of St. Paul. Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Syllabus by the Court

‘Sunstroke’ is a personal injury caused by ‘accident,’ within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act (Gen. St. 1913, c. 84a).

Where the work and the conditon of the place where it is carried on expose the employé to the happening of an event causing the accident, there is no longer a risk to which all are exposed, and the result is an ‘accident arising out of the employment.’ Kueffner & Marks, of St. Paul, for relator.

O. H. O'Neill and W. J. Giberson, both of St. Paul, for respondents.

QUINN, J.

Certiorari to review a judgment of the district court of Ramsey county, denying compensation, under the Workmen's Compensation Act, to the relator, Lena Rau, widow of the decedent, George Rau, who was an employé of the respondent city.

For a number of years George Rau had been employed by the city of St. Paul, doing manual labor on its streets at $2 a day, under the direction of a foreman, during which time he and the defendant were bound by and subject to the provisions of part 2 of chapter 467, Laws of Minnesota for 1913, and amendments thereto. On July 1, 1916, while so employed, he was working on East Robie street. The day was hot. He was working in the open, with no protection from the rays of the sun. The street was sandy. It had rained the night before, and the sand was moist. During the early part of the afternoon decedent and his fellow workmen rested for a time in the shade near by. They resumed work at about 3 o'clock. Shortly thereafter Rau was at work near the middle of the street. A workman saw him stagger and went to his assistance. The foreman gave him a drink of water and then took him to the hospital, arriving there at about 4:30. Rau was in an unconscious condition; temperature, 110; pulse, 110. He regained consciousness at about 11 o'clock that evening. The doctor in charge stated that Rau was suffering from sunstroke. On the following day he was conscious and took liquid diet. He left the hospital on the afternoon of the 3d; on the 4th Dr. Endress was called to the Rau home, and found Rau's temperature 102 and pulse 100. On the 5th he was improved, but died on the morning of the 7th. The trial court found that the cause of death was sunstroke.

The record contains none of the testimony offered upon the trial, and the case must be considered solely upon the findings of the trial court and determined upon deductions therefrom.

[1] The question here for determination is: Did Rau come to his death by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, within the meaning of the Compensation Act? If he did, then the relator is entitled to recover compensation, and the judgment of the district court should be reversed; otherwise, affirmed.

The term ‘accident,’ as used in the Compensation Act and as therein defined, shall--

‘be construed to mean an unexpected or unforeseen event, happening suddenly and violently, with or without human fault and producing at the time, injury to the physical structure of the body.’ G. S. 1913, § 8230.

The first inquiry is: What is sunstroke? It is stated, in effect, in Hare's Practice of Medicine, 1915, that sunstroke, more properly called heat stroke, is a condition of the body produced by great heat; that the chief factor is the presence of great heat, associated, as a rule, with marked humidity and physical exertion; and that heat stroke may occur at night as well as day, provided the atmosphere is hot and moist. Webster's New International Dictionary defines sunstroke as:

‘An affection, often fatal, due to exposure to the sun or excessive heat and marked by sudden prostration, with symptoms like those of apoplexy.’

The Encyclopedia Americana article on the subject begins:

‘Sunstroke; prostration due to exposure to intense external heat. Such exposure may be due to the direct or indirect rays of a tropical sun or to the excessive heat of an engine room. In either case heat and physical exertion combine to bring about the results. A high degree of humidity of the atmosphere is one of the most important features, since this hinders free evaporation from the body.’

The conditions surrounding decedent at the time of his injury exposed him to an unusual danger, different from that to which the masses engaged in like employment were subjected. It had rained the night before; the sand was wet; the sun's rays direct, thereby enhancing liability to sunstroke. Decedent was exposed to the direct rays of the sun, in addition to the humid atmosphere emanating from the wet street.

That the injury was sustained in the course of the employment is not denied; that it was an ‘unexpected and unforeseen event’ is not questioned; and we have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that it was an event ‘producing at the time...