Williams v. Bebbington
| Decision Date | 15 February 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 18463,18463 |
| Citation | 247 S.C. 260,146 S.E.2d 853 |
| Parties | Edward A. WILLIAMS, Respondent, v. W. P. BEBBINGTON and George J. Deily, Appellants. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Julian B. Salley, Jr., of Henderson, salley, Cushman & Summerall, Aiken, for appellants.
Lybrand, Rich & Cain, Aiken, for respondent.
In this action plaintiff-respondent seeks to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in an automobile accident. The plaintiff and the defendants, at the time of the accident on August 28, 1962, were employees of E. I DuPont de Nemours and Company, at its Savannah River Plant. The defendants asserted as a third defense in their answer that they were exempted from common law liability to the plaintiff by virtue of the provisions of Code Section 72-401, of the Code of Laws of South Carolina, 1962, and on the same ground moved to dismiss plaintiff's complaint. The motion was heard before the circuit judge on a stipulation of facts, and the defendants appeal from an order of that court denying their motion and striking from their answer their third defense.
The sole question involved is whether under the stipulated facts the defendants are immune from common law liability to the plaintiff by virtue of the provisions of the above mentioned Code Section, which reads as follows,
For the sake of brevity, the common employer of the parties will be referred to simply as DuPont, and the name of its plant will be abbreviated, S. R. P. On the morning of the accident plaintiff drove his Corvair automobile to the S. R. P. where he was injured at about 7:40 A.M., he being due to report for work at 7:45 A.M. DuPont paid for neither his travel time nor his expenses.
After reaching the boundary of the S. R. P., plaintiff drove his Corvair for a distance of approximately five miles over the main highway of public travel between the City of Aiken and the Town of Jackson. He then turned onto a roadway which is under the control of DuPont but open to the public, and proceed approximately six hundred feet to a widened portion of the roadway, where he stopped, left the motor running and alighted on the left side of the vehicle. Plaintiff had two riders and one of his riders in the front seat moved to the driver's seat preparatory to driving away. Plaintiff was walking to the rear of the Corvair, proceeding from the left to the right side thereof, when the front of a Pontiac automobile, owned by the defendant Bebbington, ran into plaintiff, catching him between the rear bumper of the Corvair and the front bumper of the Pontiac, crushing both of plaintiff's legs.
The widened portion of the roadway, where plaintiff stopped his car, is what is known as a 'pull out' or unloading zone for employees and others going to buildings of DuPont. The said zone is several feet wider than an automobile and separated from the regular traveled portion of the road by a white line. It is bordered on the opposite side by a curb and sidewalk. The area is under the control of DuPont and provided solely for access to and from its buildings.
The site of the accident is something more than six hundred feet from the entrance to the building where plaintiff was employed. While under the control of DuPont, it is accessible to and used by members of the public, as well as employees, and it is not within a security area. The building in which plaintiff worked, as well as other buildings of DuPont, was beyond a fence from the site of the accident and, at least inferentially, within a security area.
The plaintiff was not required to perform any work whatsoever for DuPont outside of the building where he worked. He has neither applied for nor received any benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Law of South Carolina.
The only information contained in the stipulation of facts with respect to the defendants is that they were employees of DuPont at the S. R. P., and that the defendant Bebbington was either alighting from the left side of his automobile, or was on the ground at the time of the accident, and the defendant Deily was then sliding across the front seat of the Pontiac preparatory to driving the same to another area. If either of said defendants had any work or duties to perform for the employer prior to arrival at the buildings in which they respectively worked, the record does not show it.
DuPont and the parties to this action are subject to the Workmen's Compensation Law of South Carolina, and much of the argument of counsel is addressed to the question of whether or not plainiff's injuries arose out of and in he course of his employment so as to make his injuries compensable under the Workmen's Compensation Law. Unless he sustained a compensable injury, Code Section 72-401, relied upon by the defendants, would have no bearing. We deem it unnecessary, however, to consider or determine in the instant case whether or not plaintiff sustained a compensable injury within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Law. Assuming that his injuries were compensable, d...
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