Harlan-Wallins Coal Corporation v. Stewart

275 S.W.2d 912

• Court: Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976)
• Decided: February 25, 1955
• Status: Published

Opinions

CAMMACK, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment approving an award of compensation to George Stewart for a complicated fracture 'of his left wrist, sustained when he fell on ice on his way home from work in one of the appellant’s mines. The appellant is urging that the judgment be reversed because Stewart’s injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment.

At the time Stewart fell, all of the ground in the vicinity of the mine was covered with snow and ice. When he came out of the mine, he left his lamp at the lamp house and started walking home along the gravel on the edge of the highway. The highway was on the appellant’s property, but it was used by the general- public. The appellant had provided a walkway for its employees, but some of them used the highway instead. Stewart was several hundred feet from the mine opening when he fell. Ordinarily, he rode to work in a car, but he said he was walking on the occasion in question because the car was broken down. When asked what made him fall, Stewart said: “I just slipped and fell on the ice accidentally; I don’t guess I would know what made me fall, my feet flew from under me.”

A majority of the members of the Court are of the opinion that the position of the appellant is-well taken and that the judgment should be reversed. It is their view that the opinion in the case of Harlan Collieries Company v. Shell, Ky., 239 S.W.2d 923, is controlling here. In that case we said that the approach to a problem such as the one under consideration should be made from the point of view of an exposure to an industrial hazard; and also that the employee is in essence insured against losses arising from the perils of his work. We said further that the compensation law covers an occupational injury, and that it must have some causative connection with something peculiar to the employment.

In the Shell opinion we discussed the case of Wilson Berger Coal Company v. Brown, 223 Ky. 183, 3 S.W.2d 199, upon which the Compensation Board based its award, and also the case of A. C. Lawrence Leather Company v. Barnhill, 249 Ky. 437, 61 S.W.2d 1, upon which the trial court based his opinion upholding the Board’s award. The Brown case was approached primarily from the point of view of place, the injury having occurred when the employee fell over a stone in a pathway on the employer’s property. In the Barnhill case the employee sustained an injury shortly after he left work, and in a place on the employer’s property where employees parked their cars.

A majority of the members of the Court are still of the opinion that the Shell case presents a sounder approach to the question than would result from its consideration in terms of time, or place, or both. Because of the icy condition prevailing1 throughout the vicinity of the appellant’s mine at the time Stewart sustained his injury, all persons traveling on foot were exposed to the same hazards as was he. According to his own testimony, he slipped on the ice and accidentally fell. Furthermore, we think it is for the Legislature and not the courts to determine the policy of whether the Compensation Law, KRS 342.001 et seq., should cover workers when going to and from work on the premises of their employers.

Judgment reversed, with directions that the case be remanded to the Workmen’s Compensation Board for the entry of an order consistent with this opinion. Judges MILLIKEN and MONTGOMERY, dissenting. Judge HOGG, not sitting.