Stocker v. Southfield Co.

• Decision Date: 01 October 1928
• Docket Number: No. 52.,52.
• Citation: 244 Mich. 13,221 N.W. 175
• Parties: STOCKER v. SOUTHFIELD CO. et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

244 Mich. 13

221 N.W. 175

STOCKER

v.SOUTHFIELD CO. et al.

No. 52.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Oct. 1, 1928.

Certiorari to Department of Labor and Industry.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by H. R. Stocker, employee, for injuries, opposed by the Southfield Company, employer, and the Federal Surety Company, insurance carrier. The Department of Labor and Industry awarded compensation, and the employer and insurance carrier bring certiorari. Reversed.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Stevens T. Mason, of Detroit, for appellants.

John W. Hurley, of Detroit, for appellee.

WIEST, J.

Our writ of certiorari brings before us the question of whether injuries, for which plaintiff was awarded compensation, arose out of and in the course of his employment.

The Southfield Company employed plaintiff to organize and operate a riding school to stimulate interest and activity in the sale and development of its real estate holdings in Southfield township, Oakland county. At the time plaintiff was injured, his employment was for no fixed hours, and related to organizing the scheme of development, such as supervising the erection of suitable buildings and the purchasing of horses to start the proposed riding club. He boarded and roomed at a private home a short distance from the proposed club site. October 11, 1927, he went to Windsor, Ontario, to look for riding horses, spent the day on such errand, purchased two horses, crossed the river to Detroit, and there took a highway bus to go to his boarding house. He left the bus near his boarding house, and, while crossing the highway to reach his room, to which he was going for the night, was struck by an automobile and injured.

The serious question is whether the injury arose out of the employment. We think this question answered by our decision in Hopkins v. Michigan Sugar Co., 184 Mich. 87, 150 N. W. 325, L. R. A. 1916A, 310. In that case we referred to the rule prevailing in Massachusetts and adopted it. The Massachusetts court in Colarullo's Case, 258 Mass. 521, 155 N. E. 425, 51 A. L. R. 508, reaffirmed the rule that:

‘Ordinarily it is held that, as all persons upon streets are likewise exposed to such hazard, the danger incident to such travel is not a ‘causative danger’ ‘peculiar to the work’ but is a risk which is common to all persons so traveling.'

What was plaintiff's mission at the time of the accident? It was to reach his boarding house for his individual purposes of the night. This constituted no travel to any place in behalf of his employer. The risk of being struck by an automobile was not incidental to the character of the employment; neither did any condition of the employment expose plaintiff to such an injury. The essential causative relation between injury and employment cannot be found in this case. Plaintiff's use of the street was a mere everyday incident, common to every one, and not a special exposure in the course of an employment sending him into the street. The rule is well settled that:

‘There must be some connection between the injury and the employment other than the mere fact that the employment brought the injured party to the place of injury. There must be some causal connection between the employment and the injury in the sense that, by reason of the employment, there was an unusual or additional exposure of the injured party to the kind or character of hazard and danger (in this case an ordinary street risk) which caused the injury. The injury must have its origin in a risk connected with the employment, and must have flowed from that source as a rational and natural course.’ California Casualty Indemnity Exch. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 190 Cal. 433, 213 P. 257.

The risk in crossing the street in going to one's home for the night is but an incident of life generally, and constitutes no part of an employment. What we have in mind is well stated in Dreyfus & Co. v. Meade, 142 Va. 567, 574, 129 S. E. 336, 338:

‘It is impossible to distinguish and reconcile all of the cases, but when analyzed the conclusion deduced therefrom appears clearly to be that there must be some special risk incident to the particular employment which imposes some greater danger upon the employee than is imposed upon other persons actually using the streets. The test, however, is not that other persons are exposed to similar risks, but rather that the employment exposes the workman to the particular danger in the street.'

This states the line of cleavage between the case of Kunze v. Detroit Shade Tree Co., 192 Mich. 435, 158 N. W. 851, L. R. A. 1917A, 252, and the Hopkins Case, supra.

There is not in the compensation Act a general insurance liability placed upon the employer. The law limits liability to accidents arising out of and in the course of an employment.

The case of Haddock v. Edgewater Steel Co., 263 Pa. 120, 106 A. 196, was cited by the Board of Industry as authority sustaining the award, and is also called to our attention in the brief for plaintiff. The facts in that case were somewhat similar to the case at bar, and the opinion would be quite apropos, were it not for the fact that it was made to rest upon the terms of the Pennsylvania Compensation Law (section 301, art. 3, Act of June 2, 1915; Pa. St. 1920, § 21984), and that law awards compensation to an employee for injury by an accident in the course of his employment and omits the provision in our st...