14 N.W.2d 861 | Minn. | 1944
The facts are stipulated and are as follows: Emma Brusven was employed as a maid in the hotel operated by relator John Ballord. Her duties consisted chiefly in making up the guest rooms. The wages paid her were $35 cash per month, and in addition she was furnished room and board in her employer's hotel. Her working hours were from 8:00 a. m. to 12 noon and from 1:00 p. m. to 5:00 p. m. for six days a week. Tuesday was her day off. On Wednesday evening, November 12, 1942, she had gone to bed in her room in the hotel. Before she retired she opened a window about eight inches from the top. Some time before midnight she felt that the *503 room was too cold, so she got out of bed to close the window. She first turned on a floor lamp and could therefore see without any difficulty. She could not reach the top of the window while standing on the floor, so she carried a light, straight-backed chair to the window. It was the kind of chair one would expect to find in a hotel room and not broken or defective in any way. She stood on this chair to push the window up. When it was almost, if not entirely, closed, she shifted her weight toward the "end of the chair." It started to tip, and she fell to the floor and was injured. It was also stipulated that the accident was caused solely by reason of her failure to maintain her balance and not by any defective or unusual conditions existing in the premises at the time of the accident, and that it would not have happened if she had not lost her balance. The industrial commission, one member dissenting, held that the injury arose out of and in the course of her employment and awarded compensation.
The workmen's compensation act requires that the injury, to be compensable, must be the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of the employment. Minn. St. 1941, §
Employer contends that it appears as a matter of law that the accident sustained by employe did not arise out of or in the course of her employment, and that her activity at the time of the accident was purely personal and private and was neither incidental to nor related to her employment.
Employe had regular hours of work. The stipulated facts show that she was not subject to call nor required to put in any time in excess of the hours stated. There is nothing in the facts indicating that she was required to board and room at the place of her employment. The arrangement was simply a part of her compensation. The accident happened when she was off duty. It was not caused by a hazard or danger or defect on the premises or by anything attributable to or peculiar to the premises, but solely because she lost her balance. The furnishing of sleeping accommodations to employe as part of her compensation did not cause or have any *504 bearing on her accident. The room was no different from any other sleeping room.
We feel that a résumé of some of the holdings of this and other courts will be helpful in a determination of the question presented.
In Novack v. Montgomery Ward Co.
"The injury is received 'in the course of' the employment when it comes while the employe is doing his work. It may be received 'in the course of the employment' and still have no causal connection with it. State ex rel. [Duluth Brg. Malting Co.] v. District Court,
In Rautio v. International Harv. Co.
"* * * The accident, in order to arise 'out of' the employment, must be of such nature that the risk might have been contemplated by a reasonable person, when entering the employment, as incidental to it. A risk is incidental to the employment when it belongs to or is connected with what a workman has to do in fulfilling his contract of service.
"When a workman is injured while doing a thing outside and unconnected with what he is employed to do he is not under the protection of the act."
See Corcoran v. Teamsters Chauffeurs Joint Council,
In Cavilla v. Northern States Power Co.
"* * * we have said that an injury is received in the course of employment 'when it comes while the employe is doing his work' and that 'it "arises out of" the employment when it reasonably appears from all the facts and circumstances, that there is a causal connection between the conditions which the employer puts about the employe and the resulting injury.' "
In Bloomquist v. Johnson Grocery,
In Daly v. Bates Roberts,
"* * * The fact that she was permitted to use the laundry for her personal benefit did not change the relation of the parties. * * *
"Had the claimant remained in her room in the hotel and engaged her time in mending her clothing, and while so engaged met with an accident by reason of using a scissors, it could scarcely be held that such injury would arise out of and in the course of her employment or was incidental thereto."
In Kane v. Barbe,
In Kraft v. West Hotel Co.
"* * * The fact that this claimant was living in the hotel at the time of the injury is not material or controlling in any sense. Had *507 she lived at her mother's home or in an apartment 16 blocks remote, the same injury might have happened that did happen. Had she been a nurse, schoolteacher, stenographer, or clerk, the same injury could have happened that did happen. * * *
"Under the facts of the instant case no reasonable person can say that the injury which claimant received can be fairly traced to her employment as a contributing proximate cause."
71 C. J., Workmen's Compensation Act, § 437, covers our situation. It is there stated:
"* * * Everything, however, which happens to an employee occupying quarters, the rental of which he receives as part of his compensation, is not attributable to the dangers or risks of his employment, and an injury caused by such personal acts, disassociated from his employment, as would be likely to occur anywhere and in any place that the employee happened to live does not arise out of the employment."
Respondent cites State ex rel. Radisson Hotel v. District Court,
In McKenzie v. Railway Exp. Agency, Inc.
Respondent places much reliance on the recent case of Le Bar v. Ewald Bros. Dairy,
"* * * From the activities displayed by the Ewalds in athletics for more than ten years, the inference is at hand that they, at least, concluded that these contest games were essential or desirable for their dairy business * * *. We are of the opinion that the industrial commission could justifiably find from the way in which the Ewald Bros. partnership had supported game contests of their employee that it was deemed by them an essential part of their business; hence, that respondent's accidental injury arose out of and in the course of his employment."
Stansberry v. Monitor Stove Co.
In the instant came, employe was injured when she lost her balance while standing on a chair to close the window. This was an act done for her own comfort and personal to herself. The accident happened when she was off duty. The moving cause of danger was not "peculiar to the work" but was "common to the neighborhood." It was not "incidental to the character of the business of the employer," but "was independent of the relation of employment." It does not "appear to have had its origin in a risk connected with the employment," and it did not flow from "that source as a rational consequence." Novack v. Montgomery Ward Co.
We hold that the injury did not arise out of respondent's employment.
Reversed.