Archibald v. Workmen's Compensation Commissioner

87 S.E. 791, 77 W. Va. 448, 1916 W. Va. LEXIS 175
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 18, 1916
StatusPublished
Cited by79 cases

This text of 87 S.E. 791 (Archibald v. Workmen's Compensation Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Archibald v. Workmen's Compensation Commissioner, 87 S.E. 791, 77 W. Va. 448, 1916 W. Va. LEXIS 175 (W. Va. 1916).

Opinion

POEFENBARGER, JUDGE:

George Archibald, a husband and the father of three children, while working as a plumber for the Sehofield-Cowl Company, at Wheeling, West Virginia, died in consequence of accidental poisoning. That the accident occurred in the course of his employment seems not to be controverted, but that the injury arose out of the employment, or resulted from it, in the legal sense of .the terms, is denied; and compensation to the widow was refused, upon the theory that it did not.

The poisoning was not an occupational disease, such as lead-poison. Archibald drank a poisonous fluid commercially known as Lapidolith and used for hardening concrete, believing it to be drinking water. His employers were installing the plumbing ití the Wheeling High School building. The Fetzer- • Winger Company were doing the concrete work in the same building. All of the employees supplied themselves with drinking water from a neighboring well, by means of buckets and bottles, the city water piped into the building, being unsatisfactory or less desirable than the well water. Bottles of different sizes and kinds were used. Having occasion to be on the third floor of the building, in the course of his work, and becoming thirsty, Archibald discovered what he took to be a large bottle of water in a bucket and drank from it, thinking it had been brought up and left there by some other workman. It proved to be the Lapidolith with which a servant of the Fetzer-Winger Company had been treating the concrete floors. Having made one or more applications of it, this servant had set the bottle in a bucket he had used in applying the fluid and left it there until he should need it for another application. On the bucket, he set a broom and placed a card bearing the word “poison.” At Archibald’s shop or work bench in another part of the building, he had a water bottle of his own. Why he did not notice the. warning on the card is not definitely shown. The fluid was clear and looked like water and knowledge of the common use of such bottles by the workmen no doubt induced the hast3 and thoughtless act.

[450]*450Right of compensation under the statute does not depend upon negligence or fault of the employer and is not precluded by mere negligence on the part of the employee, causing the injury. It gives compensation for injuries received “in the course of and resulting from” the employment. It specifically denies compensation for injuries self-inflicted or occasioned by the wilful misconduct of the employee, his disobedience of rules and regulations adopted by the employer and approved by the Compensation Commissioner, or his intoxication. Its provisions are based upon the principles of the English Compensation Act which has been construed as giving compensation for accidental injuries, though occasioned by negligence of the injured party. In his disposition of the application, the Commissioner does not depart from this construction, nor does he deny right of participation, on the ground of Archibald’s negligence or carelessness. The specifications of certain grounds of exclusion impliedly limits and confines it to them, and relieves from other circumstances which might be deemed sufficient to, exclude, in the absence of an expression of contrary legislative intent. Exclusion on certain grounds argues intent not to exclude on others. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.

As Archibald’s negligence or carelessness is immaterial, and the injury was incurred manifestly in the course of his employment, it remains only to determine whether it resulted from the employment. To 'give right of compensation, an injury must result from, or arise out of, the employment. The two phrases, “in the course of employment” and “resulting from employment,” are not synonymous. The former relates to the time, place and circumstances of the injury and the latter, to its origin. Fitzgerald v. Clark, 1 B. W. C. C. 197; McNicol’s Case, 215 Mass. 497. It is not enough to say the accident would not have happened, if the servant had not been engaged in the work at the time, or had not been in that place. It must appear that it resulted from something he was doing in the course of his work or from some peculiar danger to which the work exposed him. Amys v. Barton, 5 B. W. C. C. 117.

Instances of injuries deemed not to have arisen out of the employment, although sustained in the course thereof, are [451]*451found in the reported eases. An injury intentionally inflicted upon one workman by another, by a blow frpm a piece of iron thrown in anger, or by an assault and battery, is of that kind. Such also is the character of an injury resulting from an assault upon a workman, by a stranger, and of one sustained in 'the course of recreation or diversion at the place of work. In some of these cases, an agency wholly independent of the work, foreign to it and unanticipated, intervenes, or there is a turing aside from the employment, fo'r the time being, to engage in a transaction on the workman’s own account and for his own purposes. It is quite easy to perceive that violence of a fellow-workman or a stranger arises, not out of the work, but out of the vicious or irritable disposition of the assailant and that play or diversion, on the premises, is a step outside of the employment and a thing done for the employee himself and not for the employer. In none of these instances, is the occasion of the injury an incident of the work.

If there is an incidental or causal connection between the employment and the accident, the injury is deemed to have arisen out of the former, even when the connection is somewhat remote, and when the direct and immediate agency of injury is foreign. Murder of a pay-master, incident to his robbery, is an accident arising out of the employment, Nisbet v. Rayne and Burn, 2 K. B. (1910) 689, because the habitual carrying of large sums of money, in the course of the employment and as an act of service therein, is an exposure to the risk of an attack by robbers. An injury to a railroad engine-driver, occasioned by a stone thrown from a bridge by a boy, while the engine was passing under it, was held to be an accident arising out of the employment, Chalis v. London & 8. W. Ry. Co., 2 K. B. (1905) 154, because such a danger is a matter of common knowledge and is accordingly deemed to have been within the contemplation of both master and servant. In each of these eases, the independent criminal agency of injury was held to be immaterial, because the danger of injury by such means was an incident of the performance of the work, as well as of the time and place of performance.

Such acts as are necessary to the life, comfort and convenience of the servant, while at work, though strictly per[452]*452sonal to himself and not acts of service, are incidental to the service, and injury sustained in the performance thereof, is deemed to have arisen out of the employment. A man must breathe and occasionally drink water, while at work. In these and other conceivable instances, he ministers unto himself, but, in a remote sense, these acts contribute to the furtherance of the work. Vennen v. New Dells Lumber Co., (Wis.) 154 N. W. 640; Zabriskie v. Erie R. Co., (N. J.) 88 Atl. 824. That such acts will be done in the course of employment is necessarily contemplated, and they are inevitable incidents. Such dangers as attend them, therefore, are incident dangers. At the same time, injuries occasioned by them are accidents resulting from the employment.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
87 S.E. 791, 77 W. Va. 448, 1916 W. Va. LEXIS 175, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/archibald-v-workmens-compensation-commissioner-wva-1916.