284 Mass. 345 | Mass. | 1933
The first question is whether the claimant was an “Employee” under G. L. (Ter.,Ed.) c. 152, § 1, or an independent contractor. He was hired by Sears, Roebuck and Co. to install oil burners in the houses of their customers. Some customers paid Sears, Roebuck and Co. for installation, and others received installation free. Sears, Roebuck and Co. paid the claimant, upon presentation of his account, at the rate of $3 a burner and $2 a coil. One Levy, acting for Sears, Roebuck and Co., told him where to go to do work. The claimant was required to have his own automobile with which to travel to jobs at his own expense. He was one of several “service men” working for Sears, Roebuck and Co., some of whom worked on a salary basis but with similar duties. As often as three or four times a week the claimant was sent out to do service work on burners that he had not installed. On C. O. D. orders he collected money and turned it in. Whenever he finished a job he telephoned Levy for further directions or returned to the store. Rarely he did a little incidental work for a customer, not included in the installation, and received pay from the customer “on his own,” but he had little time for such work. On these facts the finding of the Industrial Accident Board that the claimant was an
The injury in the present case, however, occurred not while the claimant was working on a job, but while he was travelling on the highway in his automobile on March 5, 1932, from a finished job to the store of Sears, Roebuck and Co., in pursuance of his duty to return to the store when not otherwise assigned. His automobile caught fire without apparent reason, and that caused him to lose control of the automobile and to run into a tree, which resulted in serious bodily injury. Prior to the amendment to G. L. c. 152, § 26, introduced by St. 1930, c. 205 (now forming part of the last sentence of G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 152, § 26), a person in the position of the claimant, while operating his own automobile on the highway, was deemed an independent contractor and not an employee with reference to that operation, although he might have been an employee with respect to other parts of his work; but under that amendment the claimant remained an employee while operating his automobile “with his employer’s general authorization or approval, in the performance of work in connection with the business affairs or undertakings of his employer.” See Manley’s Case, 280 Mass. 331.
Yet it is not enough to entitle the claimant to compensation, to show that he remained an employee while operating his automobile. The original workmen’s compensation act, St. 1911, c. 751, Part II, § 1, gave compensation to an employee only for a personal injury “arising out of and in the course of his employment”; and these words still remain the principal test of a compensable injury. G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 152, § 26. Compensation has often been denied an employee sustaining an injury while at work at his station, because of a lack of causal relation between the employment and the injury. Harbroe’s Case, 223 Mass. 139. Sanderson’s Case, 224 Mass. 558. Murphy’s Case, 230 Mass. 99. Dougherty’s Case, 238 Mass. 456. Lee’s Case, 240 Mass. 473. Feldman’s Case, 240 Mass. 555. Cinmino’s Case, 251 Mass. 158, In McNicol’s Case, 215
Where an employee works in the street, as a teamster does, a causal connection between his employment and a risk of the street is not hard to find. Keaney’s Case, 232 Mass. 532. Moran’s Case, 234 Mass. 566, explained in the dissenting opinion in Cook’s Case, 243 Mass. 572, 578, which became substantially the prevailing opinion in Colarullo’s Case, 258 Mass. 521. Gardner’s Case, 247 Mass. 308, 310. See also Mannix’s Case, 264 Mass. 584. If an employer, in performance of one of the express or implied terms of the employment, furnishes vehicular transportation to an employee, an injury during that transportation has been held to arise “out of and in the course of his employment.” Donovan’s Case, 217 Mass. 76. Gilbert’s Case, 253 Mass. 538. Vogel’s Case, 257 Mass. 3. Johnson’s Case, 258 Mass. 489, 493. Lee’s Case, 279 Mass. 357. See also Ross v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins, Co. 222 Mass. 560; White v.
St. 1927, c. 309, § 3 (now part of G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 152, § 26), inserted in the statute, as an additional class of compensable personal injuries to an employee, those “arising out of an ordinary risk of the street while actually engaged, with his employer’s authorization, in the business affairs or undertakings of his employer, and whether within or without the commonwealth.” The present case turns upon the construction of the amendment of 1927. Its legislative history is not significant, for the language of the amendment as enacted was substituted in the Senate (Senate No. 298, § 3) for a bill (House No. 999; Senate No. 239, § 2) which contained no particular reference to street risks but provided for compensation whenever an employee receives personal injury “while . . . actually engaged in . . . the business, affairs, dr undertakings of the employer.” The insurer contends that the risk which caused the injury in the present case was not “ordinary,” but extraordinary and unusual, and not within the amendment of 1927 as construed in the opinion in Morse’s Case, 270 Mass. 276; with the result that the rule allowing no compensation for injury resulting from risks of travel in the street, illustrated by Colarullo’s Case, 258 Mass. 521, still applies to preclude compensation. But there are grave objections to such a construction of the amendment of 1927. In the first place, it would open in cases falling
Decree affirmed.
The Chief Justice and Justices Crosby and Pierce are unable to agree with the interpretation given in the prevailing opinion to the words added to the earlier statute by St. 1927, c. 309, § 3, and now found in G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 152, § 26. .They feel constrained to express, their dissent because that interpretation seems to them to violate a settled rule of statutory construction from which this court is not at liberty to depart and because that interpretation in effect overrules the one given to the same statutory words in Morse’s Case, 270 Mass. 276.
1. No principle of law is more firmly fixed than this, that “it is an anciently established rule in the interpretation of statutes, that such a sense is to be made upon the whole statute, that no clause, sentence or word shall prove superfluous, void or insignificant, if, by any other con
Before the amendment added by St. 1927, c. 309, § 3, it had been held that an employee injured while travelling upon a highway as an incident of his employment was not compensable under the workmen’s compensation act on the ground that, as all persons travelling upon streets are exposed to such hazard, the danger was not a “causative danger” “peculiar to the work,” but was a risk common to the general travelling public. Hewitt’s Case, 225 Mass. 1, 3, and cases cited. Colarullo’s Case, 258 Mass. 521, 522. The distinction between ordinary and extraordinary risks
It was in that state of the decisions that the General Court enacted the amendment, St. 1927, c. 309, § 3, adding to injuries received by an employee otherwise compensable under the act those “arising out of an ordinary risk of the street while actually engaged, with his employer’s authorization, in the business affairs or undertakings of his employer.” This amendment extended the workmen’s compensation act to a new class of injuries. The qualifying word “ordinary” was used. It would have been easy to omit that word if it had not been intended that meaning be given to it. An amendment making compensable injuries “arising out of a risk of the street” would have been simple. It would have been easy to interpret and apply to cases as they arise. The omission of the word “ordinary” from the amending statute would have made compensable every injury received from a risk of the street while the employee was engaged by the authorization of his employer in the latter’s business or undertakings. It must be presumed that the word “ordinary” was inserted in the statute with the purpose that it should be given effect by those charged with the duty of passing upon claims for compensation. It is enacted by G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 4, § 6, Third, that in interpreting statutes “Words and
The meaning of the amendment as phrased in the statute appears so free from doubt that reference to legislative history is unnecessary. It is not without significance, however, that the General Court of 1927 had before it the report of a special commission appointed pursuant to Res. 1926, c. 36, for the purpose of investigating the effect of the workmen’s compensation act in order to ascertain and cure its defects. That report was House No. 999 of 1927. It recommended the enactment of an amendment to G. L. c. 152, § 26, making compensable “an injury sustained while the employee is actually engaged in the furtherance of the business, affairs, or undertakings of the employer, whether upon the employer’s premises or elsewhere.” That recommendation was not adopted. Manifestly, the General Court deliberately rejected the broad extension of compensable injuries recommended by the commission and enacted a more limited extension. This affords strong reason to believe that the words of limitation in the amendment were intelligently and intentionally used to accomplish a deliberate design.
2. The meaning and scope of the words added to G. L. c. 152, § 26, by St. 1927, c. 309, § 3, were presented to this court for decision in Morse’s Case, 270 Mass. 276. In that case the employee was actually engaged by his employer’s authority in its business affairs and was driving an auto
The case at bar is governed by the effect and by the words of the decision in Morse’s Case. That was a unanimous decision rendered by the full court less than four years ago, after ample argument, and it contains a comprehensive discussion of the precise point now raised. There was no misconception as to what was being done by the court. No arguments have been here adduced not then considered. It does not appear that the law was then “misunderstood or misapplied.” The • doctrine of stare decisis applies to the decision in Morse’s Case. It requires the interpretation of the words added to G. L. c. 152, § 26, by St. 1927, c. 309, § 3, which is set forth in this dissent. That doctrine is salutary and is the law of this Common
The injury to the employee arose, as testified by him and as found by the single member, in this way: As he was driving his automobile on the street in the business of his employer “a sheet of flame came up in front of the car, both inside and out. He states he does not know what happened” after that. The finding of the reviewing board was that while the employee was driving his automobile “a sheet of flame suddenly enveloped the car and caused him to lose control of the.car,” with consequent injuries. The injury thus resulting cannot rightly be found to be one “arising out of an ordinary risk of the street,” but on the contrary was one arising from a rare, extraordinary, uncommon, and exceptional risk. Morse’s Case, 270 Mass. 276.