Walker v. Woldridge

• Decision Date: 17 February 1954
• Docket Number: No. 5704,5704
• Citation: 1954 NMSC 27,58 N.M. 183,268 P.2d 579
• Parties: WALKER v. WOLDRIDGE.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 579

268 P.2d 579

58 N.M. 183

WALKER v. WOLDRIDGE.

No. 5704.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Feb. 17, 1954.

Rehearing Denied March 23, 1954.

Robert W. Ward, Lovington, Philip H. Dunleavy, Albuquerque, for appellant.

Edwards & Reese, Hobbs, for appellee.

COMPTON, Justice.

This appeal was taken to review the action of the trial court in denying a claim for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

While employed in appellee's gasoline service station, appellant received an injury for which he claims compensation. He was required to wash, grease and service automobiles and trucks generally. On January 25, 1952, Alex Trimble, a deputy sheriff, brought his automobile to the garage to be serviced. In the automobile was a sawed off shotgun, also a tear gas gun. The shotgun was in the back seat and the tear gas gun was hanging on the spotlight handle, inside the automobile. In handling the tear gas gun, it exploded in appellant's face, resulting in permanent and total blindness.

Appellee defended on the grounds, (a) the operation of a service station is not an extrahazardous occupation; (b) the employer was not within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act since he did not employ four or more employees; (c) that appellant was engaged in a prohibited act; and (d) the act which resulted in the injury did not arise out of and in the course of employment. Our discussion will be limited to defenses (c) and (d), since a determination of other questions is not necessary to a decision.

It is not enough that the injury arose in the course of employment. For an injury to be compensable, it must 'arise out of' and in the course of employment and not wilfully suffered or intentionally inflicted. The principles 'arising out of' and 'in the course of employment' within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act must coexist at the time of the injury in order that an award be sustained. These terms are not synonymous, the former relates to the cause of the injury and the latter refers to the time, place and circumstances under which the injury occurred. The injury must be reasonably incident to the employment or one flowing therefrom as a natural consequence.

Appellee purchased the service station in 1951. Appellant had previously worked for the former owner and continued in the services of appellee. He was a student of the age of 17 years at the time, and worked after school hours and on Saturdays and Sundays. While he was servicing the Trimble automobile, cleaning and polishing windows on the inside, he discovered the tear gas gun hanging on the spotlight handle. He picked it up, looked into the barrel, pressed the trigger and discharged it in his face, causing the injury for which he now claims compensation.

The Trimble automobile had been serviced at appellee's service station on previous occasions, and there is evidence that appellant was warned not to disturb or molest anything in the automobile, particularly the tear gas gun, that it was dangerous. The former owner, Elmer Martin, testified:

'Q. Did you ever discuss that tear gas gun with Donald Walker? A. Yes, sir.

'Q. What did you tell him in regard to that * * *? A. I told him it was dangerous and not to be fooling with it.'

Appellee testified:

'Q. Did you warn him about any particular instruments? A. Guns, tear gas guns, guns, tear gas guns, all that stuff.'

It is our opinion that appellant's departure from specific instructions, bars a recovery. The order or warning was one limiting the scope or sphere of work which he was authorized to do, and the violation forecloses compensability for the injury so sustained. Black v. Town of Springfield, 217 S.C. 413, 60 S.E.2d 854; Simon v. Standard Oil Co., 150 Neb. 799, 36 N.W.2d 102; Tiralongo v. Stanley Works, 104 Conn. 331, 133 A. 98; Goodyear Aircraft Corp. v. Gilbert, 65 Ariz. 379, 181 P.2d 624; Eugene Dietzen Co. v. Industrial Board of Illinois, 279 Ill. 11, 116 N.E. 684; Sullivan's Case, 128 Me. 353, 147 A. 431; Dalsheim v. Industrial Accident Comm., 215 Cal. 107, 8 P.2d 840; Saucier's Case, 122 Me. 325, 119 A. 860. Also see Annotations, 23 A.L.R. 1161, 26 A.L.R. 166, 119 A.L.R. 1409 where the cases are assembled.

Appellant must be held to stand the risk of the injury received by him which proximately resulted from an act of his own which had no reasonable relation to the employment.

The judgment will be affirmed and, it is so ordered.

LUJAN and SEYMOUR, JJ., concur.

SADLER, J., and McGHEE, C. J., concurring specially.

SADLER, Justice (concurring specially).

The opinion by Mr. Justice COMPTON reaches a correct result. In my view, however, a recovery is barred, not simply, or at all, because the claimant violated instructions as such, but because that violation in this particular case took the accident it caused out of the category of one 'arising out of and in the course of' his employment and, hence, outside the protection afforded by the Workmen's Compensation Act. Furthermore, under the facts here present as found by the trial court, the accident was of such a nature that it placed the injury suffered, even if deemed to 'arise out of and in the course of' his employment beyond premissible recovery because one 'wilfully suffered.' 1941 Comp., Sec. 57-908.

It is not every departure from specific instructions that will bar a recovery. See annotations in...