Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Souther

137 S.E.2d 705, 110 Ga. App. 84, 1964 Ga. App. LEXIS 552

• Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
• Decided: June 30, 1964
• Docket: 40703
• Status: Published

Opinions

Pannell, Judge.

1. “There is no requirement in our [Workmen’s Compensation] law that the employee at the time of the injury must have no objective other than the service of the employer.” Travelers Ins. Co. v. Bailey, 76 Ga. App. 698 (2) (47 SE2d 103); U.S. Fidelity &c. Co. v. Croft, 93 Ga. App. 114 (3) (91 SE2d 110). If an employee, while engaged in the business of his master, makes a slight deviation for ends of his own, the master remains liable when the act was so closely connected with the master’s affairs, that though the employee may derive some benefit from it, it may nevertheless be fairly regarded as arising out of and in the course of his employment. Pike v. Maryland Cas. Co., 107 Ga. App. 49, 51 (129 SE2d 78); U.S. Fidelity &c. Co. v. Croft, 93 Ga. App. 114 (2), supra; Fidelity & Cas. Co. v. Roberts, 86 Ga. App. 472, 474 (71 SE2d 718).

2. Where the employee steps aside from his employer’s business to do some act of his own, not connected with his employer’s business, the relationship of employer and employee, or master and servant, is, as to that act, completely suspended, and an accident occurring at that time, resulting in injury to the employee, does not arise out of the employment within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. However, the incident necessary to constitute a break in the employment must be of a pronounced character. Shoffler v. LeHigh Valley Coal Co., 290 Pa. 480 (139 A 192). Service to the employer is not interrupted when for a brief interval the employee performs a personal errand not forbidden. Smith v. University of Idaho, 67 Idaho 22 (170 P2d 404).

If an employee, while doing something in the interest of his employer, is simultaneously engaged in an act personally beneficial to himself, the service to the employer is not broken, and any injury received by him at that time as the result of the ordinary exposures of his employment, is an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, and, particularly so where the cause for the employee’s engaging in such act personally beneficial to himself is the reasonable result of his employment.

3. It follows, therefore, that where, as in the present case, an employee whose duties require him to take calls for and operate a wrecker during the night hours during the employer’s absence, answers a call to tow a disabled car to a certain location, and the employee, while engaged in securing the tow to the wrecker, loses a ring from his finger, then while carrying the tow to its destination realizes the loss, then after carrying the tow to its destination returns to the place where he lost the ring which was on the route back to the station, parks the wrecker off the highway on its left side of the road with its lights burning and its red blinker on, and while looking for his ring off the pavement to the left of and a few feet from the wrecker, is struck and killed by an automobile which came from the direction the wrecker was facing, such facts authorize a finding that the death of the employee arose out of and in the course of his employment. In considering what is meant by “deviation,” we usually and rightly think of the term as a temporary severance of the master-servant relationship. Here the employee was wearing a ring which was a part of his personal apparel. He lost the ring while in the course of his employment. When he discovered the loss he did not turn back, he did not drive to any other place, he continued on his mission of delivering the disabled vehicle to its appointed place and then commenced his return to the garage by the same direct route which he had taken in picking up and delivering the disabled car. He never did turn off his direct route. He stopped when he passed the place where the car had been picked up to see whether his ring was lying there. If this is a deviation from employment, then it would also be a deviation from employment for a man whose ring fell off his hand while working to stoop over and pick it up. It would be a deviation, if he had discovered his loss before leaving the scene, to bend over and look for the ring. The Workmen’s Compensation Act is to be liberally construed and neither requires nor contemplates any such strictures. It has been held that a stop by an employee to make a needed change of clothing, even though he deviates from his assigned route to do so, and even though the change is not absolutely essential, will not bar compensation. Mitchell v. Mitchell Drilling Co., 154 Kan. 117 (114 P2d 841). The value of the ring is not in issue, and to assume that an employee could not conduct a reasonable search for an article of value lost in the course of his employment without severing the master-servant relationship is applying strictures unknown even in the days of peonage. The judge of the superior court did not err in affirming the award of the full board which reversed the award of the single director denying compensation.

Decided June 30, 1964 Rehearing denied July 15, 1964. Woodruff, Saveli, Lane & Williams, John M. Williams, for plaintiff in error. William V. George, contra.

Judgment affirmed.

Nichols, P. J., Jordan, Hall and Russell, JJ., concur. Felton, C. J., concurs specially. Bell, P. J., Frankum and Eberhardt, JJ., dissent.