Bishop v. Bowman Dairy Co.

198 Ill. App. 312, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 415
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 15, 1916
DocketGen. No. 21,016
StatusPublished

This text of 198 Ill. App. 312 (Bishop v. Bowman Dairy Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bishop v. Bowman Dairy Co., 198 Ill. App. 312, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 415 (Ill. Ct. App. 1916).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Goodwin

delivered the opinion of the court.

Bowman Dairy Company, appellant, hereinafter referred to as defendant, appeals from a judgment obtained by James F. Bishop, administrator of the estate of Frederick P. Noyes, appellee, hereinafter referred to as plaintiff, for $2,850, recovered on account of the death of the decedent, and based upon the contention that the business of the defendant fell within the terms of section 3 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act of July 1, 1913, which went into effect eight days before the accident. It was stipulated by the parties that if the defendant’s business did come within the terms of section 3, the proper amount for which it was liable was $2,850.

Plaintiff’s declaration, in substance, charged that defendant was possessed of a large number of buildings, outside of Chicago, known as bottling stations to which milk was delivered; that within these buildings the defendant had installed machinery and appliances used by numerous employees in separating and bottling milk and cream and canning and packing various other dairy products; that the stations were located close to railroad tracks on which were placed special cars, used exclusively in the transportation of defendant’s milk and other dairy products, between the stations and defendant’s switch tracks in Chicago, although these cars might be used by other dairy companies; that defendant loaded large quantities of these products on the cars, which were transported to its switch tracks in Chicago, where defendant unloaded them and distributed them by horses and wagons to consumers throughout the city; that at some of the switch tracks defendant maintained buildings used as offices and places where excess and unsold milk and other products were deposited and kept until disposed of. It further recites that there were municipal ordinances in Chicago, regulating vendors of milk and cream, providing license fees, requiring the name to be stamped on the cap of the bottle, and containing certain health regulations providing for the disposal of unfit products. It also recites the general vehicle regulations applicable to horse-drawn vehicles, and requiring horses to be hitched when left standing in any street; that the duties of the plaintiff’s intestate, who was a driver in the employ of the defendant, were to unload milk and other dairy products from the cars upon the wagons, and deliver them to consumers and to return the undelivered products to defendant’s buildings; that while he was driving a wagon belonging to the defendant, carrying milk and other products for delivery, the horse attached to his wagon became unmanageable and ran away, ‘1 and the plaintiff was then and there thrown to and upon the ground and was thereby then and there killed.” It avers the sending of the notice required by the statute, the granting of letters of administration, a statement of the amount of his wages, and avers that by force of the statutes defendant became liable to the beneficiaries thereunder in the sum of $3,500, payable in weekly instalments, and that defendant has refused to pay them. Plaintiff further averred that plaintiff and defendant had agreed that if defendant is liable in this cause as an employer under the statute in such case made and provided, being the act of the Legislature of Illinois, approved June 28, 1913, entitled “An Act to promote the general welfare,” etc., then the sum of $2,850 was the full value of the right of plaintiff to compensation for the death of said Frederick P. Noyes, deceased. Defendant elected to stand by its general demurrer, which had been overruled.

The sole question in the case is as to whether the defendant company, which it was agreed had not affirmatively elected to be bound by the terms of the Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1913, came within the terms of the third section thereof. It may be said that all employers included in that section are, by the second section, conclusively presumed to have elected to be bound by the terms of the act, unless they have manifested a contrary intention in the manner therein provided.

The third section of the act, which appears as paragraph 128 of chapter 48, Hurd’s Revised Statutes of Illinois (1913) is as follows:

“3 (a) In any action to recover damages against an employer, engaged in any of the occupations, enterprises or businesses enumerated in paragraph (b) of this section, who shall elect not to provide and pay compensation to any employe, according to the provisions of this act, it shall not be a defense, that: First, the employe assumed the risks of the employment; second, the injury or death was caused in whole or in part by the negligence of a fellow-servant; or third, the injury or death was proximately caused by the contributory negligence of the employe.

“(b) The provisions of paragraph (a) of this section shall only apply to an employer engaged in any of the following occupations, enterprises or businesses, namely:

“1. The building, maintaining, repairing or demolishing of any structure;

“2. Construction, excavating or electrical work;

‘ ‘ 3. Carriage by land or water and loading and unloading in connection therewith;

“4. The operation of any warehouse or general or terminal store houses;

‘ ‘ 5. Mining, surface mining or quarrying;

“6. Any enterprise in which explosive materials are manufactured, handled or used in dangerous quantities;

“7. In any enterprise wherein molten metal, or explosive or injurious gases or vapors or inflammable vapors or fluids, or corrosive acids are manufactured, used, generated, stored or conveyed in dangerous quantities ;

“8. In any enterprise in which statutory or municipal ordinance regulations are now or shall hereafter be imposed for the regulating, guarding, use or the placing of machinery or appliances, or for the protection and safeguarding of the employes or the public therein; each of which occupations, enterprises or businesses are hereby declared to be extra-hazardous.”

It is claimed that the business of the defendant, as described in the declaration, comes within the terms of clauses 3, 4, and 8. It seems very clear to us that the defendant was not, within the meaning of the statute, engaged in the “occupation, enterprise, or business” of 1 ‘ carriage by land or water, ’ ’ etc. In one very broad sense, practically every manufacturer, business house, farmer and truck grower, as well as those engaged in almost innumerable other occupations, as an incident to his business, carries by land or water, and loads and unloads in connection therewith, but very clearly, “carriage by land or water” relates to those engaged in carriage as an “occupation, enterprise or business,” and not to those engaged in an occupation, enterprise or business to which carriage is an incident. (See Uphoff v. Industrial Board of Illinois, 271 Ill. 312.) What is said in regard to clause 3 applies with equal force to clause 4, for while the defendant may have used and maintained “warehouses or general or terminal store houses” in connection with its business, it certainly was not engaged in the business of operating them within the meaning of the statute.

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Related

Uphoff v. Industrial Board
271 Ill. 312 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1915)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
198 Ill. App. 312, 1916 Ill. App. LEXIS 415, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bishop-v-bowman-dairy-co-illappct-1916.