Free v. Indemnity Ins. Co. of North America

145 S.W.2d 1026, 177 Tenn. 287, 13 Beeler 287, 1940 Tenn. LEXIS 37
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 1, 1941
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 145 S.W.2d 1026 (Free v. Indemnity Ins. Co. of North America) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Free v. Indemnity Ins. Co. of North America, 145 S.W.2d 1026, 177 Tenn. 287, 13 Beeler 287, 1940 Tenn. LEXIS 37 (Tenn. 1941).

Opinion

Mr. Special. Justice Prank T. Fañcher

delivered the opinion of the Court.

*289 This ease presents a claim for Workman’s Compensation under the laws of Tennessee, Code 1932, sec. 6851 et seq., and is on appeal from a judgment against petitioner employee by the Circuit Court of .Montgomery County. The facts necessary to he stated are as follows:

Defendant Insurance Company was obligated to pay all compensation due under the law to those employed by Hailey Motor Company in its business. Hailey Motor Company operated a garage and motor sales agency in Clarksville and petitioner was employed by it on a commission basis to sell automobiles.

Petitioner resided about one and a fourth miles from this business place. He was not required to do so by the employer, but at the time of his injury he had driven his own car, which he sometimes did in his employment. There was no room for parking cars on the premises of the employer, and this salesman had his car on the street a short distance from the place of business.

Petitioner had been negotiating a sale of a used car to Roy Ezell, who was employed by Montgomery Ward at a store in Clarksville on another street. Petitioner had demonstrated this car to Ezell and named a price. On the day of the accident Ezell came to the office of Hailey Motor Company at noon and declined to pay the price and made a counter offer. This offer was later presented by petitioner to Mr. Hailey, manager of the company, and he declined it. About 5 P. M. that afternoon, petitioner left the office of Hailey Motor Company and started to his parked car, intending to get in it and to drive first to Brothers ’ Grocery Store, get some groceries for home use, then go by Montgomery Ward’s a short distance from the store, inform Ezell his offer would not be accepted, then go home for supper and come back to the office for work. This was on Saturday, and the clos *290 ing hour of the motor company was about 9 o ’clock. This use of his own car by petitioner when convenient was known and acquiesced in by the employer, if there be any importance in that fact, as insisted upon by petitioner.

As petitioner proceeded toward his parked oar with the intentions above stated, walking to the end of the block, then turning across the street on the cross street and reaching a point ten or twelve feet from his car, he slipped on the ice on the sidewalk, fell and fractured his hip. It is on account of this injury that petitioner sues.

The sole question before the court is whether appellant’s injury arose out of and in the course of his employment.

Appellant insists that the place of his work was not merely the office of the company, but as an automobile salesman, selling on a commission, was all over Clarks-ville and adjacent territory in Montgomery County, and that he was at his place of business at the very spot where he met the accident; that appellant’s own automobile was his tool or instrument of work.

Appellant insists that the slippery ice on the sidewalk was incident to and grew out of the operation of the employer’s business; that he was in the zone of danger incident to his employment; that the failure of his employment to furnish him a parking place on the premises made this enforced parking place equivalent to and was, in the broad sense of the word, on the employer’s premises ; that it was as if this parking place was the employer’s garage on the premises.

He insists that the employer received the benefit of the use of this parked automobile and knowingly allowed appellant to use it on the employer’s business; that his work for the day was not through; that he was to use *291 this car in going by Montgomery Ward’s place on this deal with Ezell; that his intended stopping on the way to get groceries was incidental.

The facts are not identical, but the application of law is covered by the many reported cases in this State. It would be tiresome to restate those cases here, but they hold that'an injury sustained by an employee while he is on his way to or from his work from or to his home and while he is not engaged in any duty connected with his employment is not compensable, because it does not arise out of or in the course of his employment. In those cases where he was departing from or was coming to his work an injury off the premises of the employer or place of work was not compensable unless the injury was so close by or so nearly adjoining that it might be reasonably considered under the circumstances as in effect at the place, or he was using immediate means of access to or from the work so that he was directly and immediately connected with it. Hinton Laundry Co. v. De Lozier, 143 Tenn., 399, 225 S. W., 1037, 16 A. L. R., 1361; Johnson Cofee Co. v. McDonald, 143 Tenn., 505, 510, 226 S. W., 215; Milne v. Sanders, 143 Tenn., 602, 228 S. W., 70; Tennessee Chemical Co. v. Smith, 145 Tenn., 532, 238 S. W., 97; Patten Hotel Co. v. Milner, 145 Tenn. 632, 637, 238 S. W., 75; McClain v. Kingsport Imp. Corp., 147 Tenn., 130, 245 S. W., 837; Moore v. Railway Co., 148 Tenn., 561, 567, 256 S. W., 876; Hendrix v. Ins. Co., 154 Tenn., 287, 289, 290 S. W., 30; Washington County v. Evans, 156 Tenn., 197, 199, 299 S. W., 780; Little v. Machine Co., 158 Tenn., 102, 104, 11 S. W. (2d), 690; American Casualty Co. v. McDonald, 166 Tenn., 25, 27, 57 S. W. (2d), 795; Scott v. Shinn, 171 Tenn., 478, 482, 105 S. W. (2d), 103; Jellico Grocery Co. v. Hendrickson, 172 Tenn., 148, 154, 110 S. W. (2d), 333; Employers’ Liability *292 Assurance Corp. v. Warren, 172 Tenn., 403, 414, 112 S. W. (2d), 837; Toombs v. Ins. Co., 173 Tenn., 38, 41, 114 S. W. (2d), 785.

This separation of a trip as partly personal and partly in the course of employment is considered in cases on this subject. Our own cases recognize that a trip may be partly one and partly the other.

The Wisconsin court is quoted from in the above-cited case of American Casualty Co. v. McDonald, [166 Tenn., 25, 57 S. W. (2d), 796], as follows:

“Counsel for the employee refer us to Barragar v. Industrial Commission, 205 Wis., 550, 238 N. W., 368, 369, 78 A. L. R., 679, which, following Matter of Marks v. Gray, 251 N. Y., 90, 167 N. E., 181, recognizes that a servant may be protected on his travel under a compensation statute although service to'the master is not the sole object of the trip. If the business of the master creates the necessity for the travel, the servant is in the course of his employment although he is furthering at the same time some purpose of his own.

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Bluebook (online)
145 S.W.2d 1026, 177 Tenn. 287, 13 Beeler 287, 1940 Tenn. LEXIS 37, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/free-v-indemnity-ins-co-of-north-america-tenn-1941.