Suniland Toys & Juvenile Furniture, Inc. v. Karns
| Decision Date | 09 January 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 31801,31801 |
| Parties | SUNILAND TOYS AND JUVENILE FURNITURE, INC. and American Casualty Company, Petitioners, v. Elizabeth Y. KARNS and Florida Industrial Commssion, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Harry M. Ross, Miami, for petitioners.
Shevin, Goodman & Holtzman, Miami, for Elizabeth Y. Karns.
Burnis T. Coleman and Patrick H. Mears, Tallahassee for respondent, Florida Industrial Commission.
The petition for writ of certionari here seeks review of an order of the Industrial Commission affirming a workmen's compensation award for temporary total disability, remedial treatment and attorney's fees.
Claimant's injury, an allergenic reaction, followed typhoid injections administered during working hours in the office of a private physician at the expense of her employer's lessor in a shopping center after hurricane damage in the locality during September of 1960. The controversy here relates not to factual circumstances but to the legal consequences of substantially undisputed facts, and is a case of first impression in this jurisdiction on the question of compensation liability for injury resulting from such preventive medical treatment connected with employment.
Upon resumption of business after the hurricane emergency the claimant, a saleslady, was informed by her employer of the possibility that the public water supply serving the shopping center might be contaminated, that his lessor had arranged for typhoid inoculations to be given free of charge to employees of businesses in the center, and that employees might at their option obtain same during working hours. The bottled drinking water normally furnished employees in the store was not then provided or available to them, and prior to notice from their employer the claimant and fellow employees had already consumed tap water in the store for drinking purposes. Claimant's testimony was that she had not otherwise been exposed to a doubtful water supply.
The statute and cases establish the fundamental requirement that, in order to be compensable, an injury must have originated in some risk connected with the employment or flowing as a natural consequence from the employment. 1 We think the pivotal point in applying that rule to the situation at bar is the determination of whether in the election to obtain or accept inoculation there existed an element of coercion, direct or indirect, by employer upon employee. 2
From the recitation of facts above it is apparent that in this case the necessity for preventive inoculations arose not only from the absence of a safe water supply in the business premises, but also from the fact that the employee, without notice of the potential contamination, had already been exposed by consumption of questionable water in the course of her employment. The Commission noted in its order that disability such as disease resulting directly from that exposure would unquestionably be compensable. 3 Injury caused by preventive medical treatment reasonably required by the exposure would likewise be compensable. Whether or not the employer made any direct effort to influence claimant's decision to accept inoculation, an element of coercion undoubtedly existed in the fact of her exposure in her employment to a risk of disease from consumption of water concerning which warnings were later given. Even if an employer in this situation could choose the risk of liability for disability from disease rather than inoculation injury, the record here clearly shows that the preventive treatment was administered with his active assent and approval, 4 and we concur with the Commission's conclusion that under these circumstances the consequent disability had the requisite causal relationship to the employment and originated in a risk sufficiently connected with that employment.
The order of the full Commission also sustains the deputy's finding that the inoculation was of 'benefit' and 'mutually advantageous' to the employer. This finding, we think, is...
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Lampkin v. Harzfeld's
...Alewine v. Tobin Quarries, 206 S.C. 103, 33 S.E.2d 81; Smith v. Brown Paper Mill Co., La.App., 152 So. 700; Suniland Toys and Juvenile Furniture, Inc. v. Karns, Fla., 148 So.2d 523. We return now to the issue of whether plaintiff's injuries arose out of and in the course of her employment. ......
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...In McCook, we were concerned with the "arising out of" element rather than "in the course of." Relying on Suniland Toys & Juvenile Furniture, Inc. v. Karns, 148 So.2d 523 (Fla.1963), we defined "arising out of" to mean originating in some risk connected with employment or flowing as a natur......
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Maher v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd.
...Shows, Inc., supra, 91 Cal.App.2d at p. 885, 205 P.2d 1116, citations omitted, emphasis added; accord, Suniland Toys and Juvenile Furniture, Inc. v. Karns (Fla.1963) 148 So.2d 523 [adverse reaction to typhoid injections administered with employer's active assent and approval held compensabl......
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Hicks's Case, No. 03-P-1370 (MA 1/18/2005)
...See Monette v. Manatee Memorial Hosp., 579 So. 2d 195, 197 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1991), quoting from Suniland Toys & Juvenile Furniture, Inc. v. Karns, 148 So. 2d 523, 524 (Fla. 1963) (injury from flu shot "flow[ed] as a natural consequence of the [claimant's] employment" as a housekeeper in......