1. “Nо compensation shall be allowed for аn injury or death due to the employee’s wilful misconduct, . . due to intoxication or wilful failure or refusаl to . . perform a duty required by statute. . . The burden of proof shall be upon him who claims an exemption- or forfeiture under this section.” Code, § 114-105.
2. “The general rule is that mere violations of instructions, orders, rules, ordinances, and statutes, and the doing оf hazardous acts where the danger is obvious, do not, without more, as a matter of law, constitute wilful misconduct; and where the misconduct consists оf a failure or refusal to perform a duty requirеd by statute, a bare failure, or refusal, without more, does not constitute a wilful failure or refusal to perform such duty. Such violations or failures or refusals generally constitute mere negligence, and such negligence, however great, does not constitute wilful misconduct or wilful failure or refusаl to perform a duty required by statute, and will not defеat recovery of compensation by thе employee or his dependents.”
Ætna Life Insurance Co.
v.
Carroll,
169
Ga.
333 (l-a, 6) (
3. “Wilful misconduct, or wilful failure or refusal to perform a duty requirеd by statute, is more than negligence or even grоss negligence; it involves conduct of a criminal or quasi-criminal nature, the intentional doing of something, either with the knowledge that it is likely to result in serious injury, or with a wanton and reckless disregard of its prоbable consequences.” “While generally the mere violation of a statute-is negligencе, if such statute is a penal statute, and its violation is a crime, the transaction loses its character of negligence, and becomes wilful misconduct within the meaning of our compensation act.” Ætna Life Insurance Co. v. Carroll, supra.
4. Under the evidence and the apрlication of the above stated princiрles. of law, the single director of the Industrial Board and the full board were authorized to find that the deceased employee’s death was proximately caused by his wilful misconduct in operating an automobile-while intoxicated, in violation of Code, § 68-307, which act is made a misdemeanоr under Code, § 68-9908, and in operating the automobilе in excess of 55 miles an hour upon a public strеet, in violation of § 2 of the act of 1939 (Ga. L. 1939, pр. 295, 296), which act is made a misdemeanor under § 9 of thе said act, and to render the award denying-compensation to the dependent claimant. Accordingly, the superior court did not err, on appeal, in affirming the award of the Industrial
Board. Judgment affirmed.