43 A.2d 746 | Conn. | 1945
Lead Opinion
The plaintiff, while in the employ of the defendant, suffered burns when a spark from a *280 match with which she was lighting a cigarette set fire to her sweater. She was awarded compensation and the award was confirmed by the trial court. The defendant has appealed on the sole ground that the injury did not arise out of her employment.
The commissioner's finding is not attacked. The facts are as follows: The plaintiff was employed in the defendant's factory as a pieceworker. The defendant maintained a service room for the rest, relaxation and refreshment of its employees where smoking was permitted and ash trays provided. Cigarettes were sold to employees in another part of the factory. On January 27, 1943, the plaintiff was working on a 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift, and at 10 p.m., which was a designated rest period, she went to the service room. She was wearing a "fluffy" angora sweater. She struck a match to light a cigarette and a spark flew from this, lodged in the fabric of her sweater and set it afire, causing severe burns. No regulation of the defendant prescribed the character of clothing to be worn by its employees, nor was the plaintiff ever cautioned or instructed as to this. The permission to smoke given by the defendant to its employees was for the mutual advantage of both. The commissioner concluded that the plaintiff's injury arose in the course of and out of her employment and the trial court sustained the ruling. The defendant concedes that the injury arose in the course of the plaintiff's employment, but claims it did not arise out of it.
Lovallo v. American Brass Co.,
The claim of the defendant is that the injury was not incidental to the employment because it might as readily have occurred outside the employment, and that it resulted from the fact that the plaintiff wore peculiarly inflammable clothing. The fact is that it did not occur outside the employment but in the course of it and incidental to a practice authorized by the defendant, restricted to its employees and not inclusive of the general public. That the inflammable nature of the employee's clothing was an immediate cause is not vital. The defendant made provisions for smoking in the service room and none as to the dress of his employees while using it; he left it to their free choice to wear whatever they wished. The defendant must be assumed to know that women's dresses are of some degree of inflammability. While it is found that the plaintiff's sweater was highly inflammable, it is not found that it was an unusual article of clothing for a woman to wear. "Where an employer has knowledge, actual or constructive, of the conditions under which the employment is actually being carried on and permits them to continue, they become conditions of the employment." Stulginski v. Waterbury Rolling Mills Co.,
The trial court was not in error in ruling that the plaintiff, who concededly was injured in the course of her employment, was also injured because of it.
There is no error.
Dissenting Opinion
As this court well said in Mann v. Glastonbury Knitting Co.,
For the reason stated, I conclude that there was error and that judgment should be directed for the defendant. *284