Thе sole question for decision is of the meaning of the term “accident” as it is used in the Workmen’s Compensation Law of Idaho (Idaho Compiled Statutes 1919, § 6213 et seq.). If under any reasonable view of the evidence the injury for which plaintiff below (appellee here) sued and rеcovered was not “accidental” within such statutory meaning, appellant concedes the judgment should be affirmed; otherwise it should be reversed and the action dismissed on the ground that the
Plaintiff’s injury was incurred while he was working for appellant as a painter, from January 13 to January 20, 1928. His job was to do the inside painting upon a new zinc smelter appellant was constructing near Kellogg, Idaho. For the work appellant furnished him with a certain brand of paint and a thinner, with instructions to mix them half and half; and this he did. From the first day he had a headache which grеw increasingly distressing, and gradually he lost his appetite and his ability to sleep. Shortly after he quit work on the 20th, he became very sick, and irrational and was taken to the hospital. It turns out that the thinner, the nature of which at the time was unknown to him, was carbon disulphide, a volatile substanсe giving off a poisonous gas. He was an experienced painter and assumed that his headaches and other physical discomfort were due to usual paint fumes not as a rule highly or permanently injurious, but more than ordinarily active in the present ease, so he thought, because the work was being done in a warm, closed room. The gas from the thinner was extremely poisonous, appellee was ignorant of its character, and appellant failed to warn him, and as a consequence he suffered a serious impairment оf his health. If the injury resulted from an “accident,” it was compensable under the provisions of the Compensation Act; otherwise it was cognizable in courts of law.
Section 6217 of the act provides that, “If a workman receives personal injury by aeeident arising out of and in thе course of any employment covered by this chapter his employer or the surety shall pay compensation,” etc. The act itself attempts no comprehensive definition of the words “accident” or “accidental.” By section 6324 it is declared that such injury dоes “not include a disease except as it shall result from the injury,” and by section 6323 as amended in 1927 (1927 Sess. L. p. 148), that, “An ‘injury’ or ‘personal injury’ to be compensable must be the result of an aeeident.” By the Supreme Court of the state, however, the term has been construed, and, under familiаr principles, by that construction we are bound. In McNeil v. Panhandle Lbr. Co.,
With apparent approval the сourt quotes from Carroll v. Industrial Commission,
And from Glasgow Coal Co. v. Welsh, 9 B. W. C. C. 371, as follows: “The learned counsel for the appellants argue that, in order to satisfy the aet, there must be some distinct event or occurrence which, taken by itself, can be. recognized as an accident, and then that the injury must bе shown to have followed as a consequence from that specific event. But this is. just the argument that was rejected in Fenton v. Thorley, supra. It is unnecessary to say more; but I venture to add that the argument seems to me to rest upon a misreading of the statute, which can only hаve arisen from a failure to give an ex
And from Associated Employers’ Reciprocal v. State Industrial Commission,
And from Fidelity & Casualty Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission,
In harmony with the conclusions reached in these cases, we infer it to be the view of the Idaho Supreme Court that to be accidental in contemplation of the Compensation Act it is nоt a prerequisite that the injury result from a sudden or violent cause or that the cause or agency be accidental or unexpected, but, as expressly stated by that court, “a workman may be said to receive a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the сourse of his employment when, from the operation of known and usual causes, he receives an injury, neither expected nor designed.” The contention that to be accidental, the injury must result from a single,. sudden occurrence was definitely rejected. Said the court: “Now if the single pressing of the knee against the lever and the single striking of the knee by the lever would result in an injury by accident, can we say that the injury actually received was not caused by accident merely because there was a continuation of the causes that brought on the injury? The statute does not restrict compensation to an. injury that results from single event, and there would seem to be no sound reason for holding that an injury occasioned by a number or series of events is not within the act.”
We are unable to see how, under any view of the еvidence, plaintiff can escape the application of the rule of this decision. If any distinction is to be made, the “accidental” element would seem to stand out more clearly in the present case.1 There the claimant was cognizant of all matеrial conditions including the existence and character of the forces which in time operated to disable him. The unexpected or unanticipated consisted only of the cumulative effect. Here the plaintiff was without knowledge of the character of the element or force by whieh he was disabled. In that case the ultimate injury resulted from repeated occurrences through a period of nearly five weeks, whereas here plaintiff was wholly disabled in the course of a little more than a week. In neither ease wаs the injury designed or expected. In common understanding we think plaintiff’s injury would be regarded and spoken of as accidental, or, in more technical language, as “an unlooked for mishap or an untoward event whieh was not expected or designed.” Nor do we think the injury was in any real sense an occupational disease. It was more in the nature of an acute case of poisoning. Had appellee suffered an impairment of health as the gradual result of breathing fumes from paints in common use and of working under ordinary conditiоns, that would be classed as an occupational disease. But here his disability resulted unexpectedly and suddenly from an unusual agency. Hazard from its use was not a common incident of a painter’s occupation, but was fortuitous. The distinction between such a case аnd an occupational disease is clearly-recognized in Mauchline v. State Insurance Fund,
With apparent confidence appellee re
Decisions in great number from other states have been collected in the briefs, particularly in appellee’s brief; but we think that no useful purpose would be subserved by an attempt to review them. They exhibit much diversity, some of which may be accounted for by differences of fact or in statutory provisions. For example, a requirement that to be compensable the injury must result from “violent or external means,” as in Oregon, or that the disability must result from a traumatic injury, as in Kentucky, would seem to present a materially different case. So where, as in Massachusetts and some other statеs, the word “accident” is not used but only “injury/’ the law is more susceptible to differing interpretations. Undoubtedly the diversity cannot all be explained by either differences in statutory provisions or in point of fact and must to some extent be attributed to a difference of general judicial attitude. This condition is recognized by the Supreme Court of Idaho, and we think that it has unequivocally indicated that it stands with those courts which have taken the more liberal view of the law and given to it a broader .meaning, and to its views we must defer. That such an attitude is not exceрtional or without basis of reason, see, in addition to eases already cited, Carroll v. Industrial Commission of Colo.,
The judgment is reversed.