delivered the opinion of the Court.
On July 29, 1949, Gеorge W. Watson, aged about 60, fell from a garbage truck driven by his employer, William M. Grimm, garbage collector for the City of Hagerstown, and sustained injury which resulted in his death. In April, 1950, his 9-year-old dependent son filed this claim for compensation with the State Industrial Accident Commission. The employer denied that the employee’s accidental injury was one “arising out of and in the course of his employment” within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Code Supp. 1947, art. 101, sec. 14. On August 14, 1951, the Commission decided that the injury arose out of and in the course of the employment, and ordered the employer to pay compensation to the guardian of the employee’s son at the rate of $16.67 per week, beginning July 30, 1949, but not to exсeed $7,500, and in addition $300 for funeral expenses. The employer appealed from that award to the Circuit Court for Washington County.
*464 Grimm testified that he paid Watson a salary of $50 per month and also gave him board and lodging on his farm, which was located near Cavetown about five miles from Hagerstown. He also testified that it was his custom to drive a truck each dаy from his farm to Hagerstown, taking Watson with him and picking up one or two other helpers before proceeding to some section of the city where the garbage was to be collected. On the day of the accident Grimm took Watson on the truck to Hagerstown as usual. After picking up two other helpers, Oscar Kline and a Negro, he drove to the northern section of the city, where the garbage was to be collected that day. The work was completed about 3 p. m. The truck was then about a mile from the center of the city.
Grimm then testified that Watson told him that he did not want to ride back to the farm that afternoon, but wanted to get off the truck downtown. Kline, who lived some distance from the city, wanted to ride on the truck as far as Harristown, where he would catch another truck going toward his home. The Negro, who lived in Hagerstown, wanted to get off downtown. While Grimm was driving the truck downtown, Watson and Kline stood on the running board on one side of the truck while the Negro stood on the running board on the other side. After the truck had traveled a short distance, Watson became dizzy and fell off the running board at the intersection of Potomac Avenue and Laurel Street, and one of the rear wheels ran over his left leg. He was taken to the Washington County Hospital, where his physician found that he had suffered a fracture of the left ankle, contusion of the right thigh and right elbow, and other injuries, and was in a condition of acute surgical shock. He died оn the following day.
The Court, after hearing the case without a jury, held that the accidental injury did not arise out of and in the course of the employment, and thereupon entered a judgment reversing the order of the Commission. The claimant has appealed here from that judgment.
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The Workmen’s Compensation Act imposes liability upon the employer only whеre there is a causal connection between the accidental injury and the employment, a connection substantially contributory, though it need not be the sole or proximate cause.
Cudahy Packing Co. of Nebraska v. Parramore,
The first question before us is whether the accidental injury was one arising out of the employment. An injury to an employee arises out of his employment when it results from some obligation, condition or incident of the employment. It was argued by Grimm that Watson’s dizzy spell was caused by an idiopathic condition that had no connection with his employment. It is true that the physican testified that the employee told him at the hospital that he did not know what caused him to fall from the truсk “except he got dizzy and things got black and he fell.” But whatever the condition was that made him faint, there was a causal connection between the injury and the work of garbage collection, as his employer allowed him to ride on the truck, and especially as there was some hazard in riding on the running board. When Grimm was asked whether it was customary for his employees to ride on the running board, he admitted: “Yes, they rode on the running board all the time. In the summer time it is hot. You can hardly stand it. You get warm working, and it feels good out there in the air.” An employee’s fall
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need not be caused by an accident in order that his death resulting from the fall may be compensablé under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, but it is sufficient if the death is brought аbout by a hazard of the employment and would not have ensued if it had not been for the employment. It is considered that the fall and the resulting injury constitute the accident within the contemplation of the Act. Where an employee’s injury resulting from a fall is contributed to by some factor peculiar to the employment, it arises out of the employment within the meaning of the Act, although the fall has its origin solely in some idiopathy of the employee.
Baltimore Towage & Lighterage Co. v. Shenton,
We now come to the main question whether the injury was one arising in the course of the employment. This, question depends in every case upon the nature of the work and the terms of the contract of employment. The word “employment,” as used in the Workmen’s Compensation Act, includes not only the actual physical labor but the whole period of time or sphere of activities. So it is generally held that an injury arises “in the course of employment” when it occurs within the period of employment at a place where the employee reasonably may be in the performance of his duties and while he is fulfilling those duties or engaged in doing something incident thereto.
Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission,
In England the Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1897 applied only to employment on, in or about a railroad, mine, quarry or engineering work. It was accordingly held by the English courts that a workmen was not entitled to compensation under that Act unless he was injured while engaged on, in or about the premisеs where his services were being performed, or where his work required his presence as a part of his services, and during the hours of his employment. Thus the courts in England and the United States adopted the general rule that injuries sustained by employees while going to or returning from their regular place of work do not arise out of and in the course of their emplоyment, as the hazards they encounter on such trips are ordinarily not incidents to the employer’s business.
Miller v. United Rys. & Electric Co.,
The courts soon learned that it was necessary to adopt rules qualifying the general rule. Ohe of these qualifications is that where the employer furnishes the employee free transportation to and from his work as an incident to the employment, an injury sustained by the employee during such transportation arises out of and in the course of his employment. This rule was announced by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1914 in the leading case of
In re Donovan,
That decision was followed by the New York Court of Appeals in 1918 in
Littler v. George A. Fuller Co.,
In 1919 this qualification of the “going and coming rule” was accepted by the Maryland Court of Appеals in
Harrison v. Central Construction Corporation,
We have stаted that where an employer provides free transportation for his employee, the employee is deemed to be on duty during transportation, whether the employer supplies the vehicle or compensates the employee for the use of his own.
Heaps v. Cobb,
The employee in this case was allowed to live in a small house on the employer’s farm as а part of the contract of employment, and it was customary for him to ride to Hagerstown in the morning on an empty truck, and, after the truck was loaded, to ride all or part of the way home. The fact that for three years the employee lived on the employer’s farm three miles away from the city, and the fact that the place where he finishеd work was often more than a mile from the center of the city, considered together with the other *470 facts and circumstances in the case, warranted the finding of the Commission that the employment continued from the time he got on the truck until he got off.
It is generally accepted that the agreement of an employer to provide transportatiоn for his employee need not be express but may be implied from the nature, conditions and circumstances of the employment and the custom of the employer to provide transportation. In
Voehl v. Indemnity Insurance Co. of North America,
■ In this case Grimm testified that Watson told him he wanted to ride downtown “to attend to some business in the business sectiоn.” The trial judge stated that the route by way of the downtown business section was .not the shortest route to the farm, that Watson was bound' upon “a personal mission of his -own,” and that Grimm was .taking Watson downtown merely as “a; personal favor.” . We concede that where an employer, without any agreement as to transportation, cbnveys his employee to- or from his place óf' work 'merely as an act of courtesy, an accident occurring during the journey is not covered- by the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
Schultz v. Beaver Products Co.,
In order to bring a case within the exception to the “going and coming rule,” it is not necessary to show that service to the employer was the sole cause оf the trip, but it must at least have been a concurrent cause. As the Court of Appeals of New York said in
Marks’ Dependents v. Gray,
We acknowledge, of course, that if the employee himself is driving the vehicle and the employer has not given consent to a deviation from the normal route of transportation, then an injury sustained during the deviation may not have occurred in the course of employment. For instance, in
Mountain v. Industrial Accident Commission of California,
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On the other hand, the tendency of the modern decisions has been to give to the Workmen’s Compensation Act a construction as liberal in favor of the employees as the provisions of the Act will permit in order to effectuate its benevolent purposes.
Bethlehem-Fair field Shipyard v. Rosenthal,
Where the driver of the vehicle is furnished by the employer, the employee’s case is stronger because then the employer’s аgent has control over the acts and movements of the employee. While the presence or absence of control by the employer over acts and movements of the employee during transportation to or from work is not decisive, it is a factor to be considered in determining whether an injury during the transportation arose out of аnd in the course of employment.
Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.,
In citing these decisions we are not intimating that the employee in this case deviated from the course of his employment. Actually he had not yet left his employment for the day. This is a case where the employer himself chose to take a longer route for the convenience of three employees, as he had done many times before, *473 rather than the “short cut” to his farm. But we emphasize that the employer himself was driving the garbage truck and had personal control over the acts and movements of the employees. Even if the route was not the shortest to the farm, it was a route which the employer had taken on many previous occasions, and he was not transporting the employees merely as an act of courtesy.
These reasons lead to the inescapable conclusion that the evidence supports the finding of the Commission that the employee’s accidental injury arose out of and in the course of his employment. We must therefore reverse the judgment of the Court below and remand the case for the entry of a judgment affirming the order of the Commission.
Judgment reversed and case remanded, with costs.