Queen v. General Motors Corp.

196 N.W.2d 875, 38 Mich. App. 630, 1972 Mich. App. LEXIS 1695
CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 24, 1972
DocketDocket 11275
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 196 N.W.2d 875 (Queen v. General Motors Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Queen v. General Motors Corp., 196 N.W.2d 875, 38 Mich. App. 630, 1972 Mich. App. LEXIS 1695 (Mich. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

Targonski, J.

Plaintiff was employed by the defendant on .the afternoon shift. Defendant provided a parking lot for its employees. On April 30, 1969, plaintiff arrived at the parking lot early. He parked his car and began talking to some fellow employees when one of such other employees arrived and offered him a ride on his motorcycle through the company lot. Plaintiff accepted. He estimated that the motorcycle reached a speed of 45 or 50 miles per hour before colliding with an automobile which was entering the parking lot. As a result of injuries sustained in this collision, plaintiff has been unable to work.

Plaintiff made application for benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. As a result of a hearing before a referee, an award was made to plaintiff for payment of medical and hospital expenses, plus compensation from date of injury and continuing until further order of the bureau. The Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board unanimously affirmed the award of compensation by order and opinion dated February 10, 1971. Defendant, upon leave granted, appealed from such award contending that an employee, who arrives at his employer’s premises unreasonably early, and is there *632 after injured during a deviation from Ms work-bound journey, is not entitled to workmen’s compensation benefits.

This appeal, questions the applicability of tbe Workmen’s Compensation Act to tMs injury in view of MCLA 412.1; MSA 17.151:

“An employee, wbo receives a personal injury arising out of and in tbe course of Ms employment by an employer who is at the time of such injury subject to the provisions of this act, shall be paid compensation in the manner and to the extent hereinafter provided, or in ease of Ms death resulting from such injuries such compensation shall be paid to his dependents as hereinafter defined. The term ‘time of injury’ or ‘date of injury’ as used in this act shall in the case of a disease or in the case of an injury not attributable to a single event be the last day of work in the employment in which the employee was last subjected to the conditions resulting in disability or death.
“Every employee going to or from his work while on the premises where his work is to be performed, and within a reasonable time before and after his working hours, shall be presumed to be in the course of his employment.” 1

The period of time between plaintiff’s arrival at work and the start of his shift was unreasonably long according to the defendant’s contention. Defendant further contends that plaintiff’s ride on a co-worker’s motorcycle through defendant’s parking lot constituted a deviation sufficient to take the plaintiff out of the course of his employment. Our analysis of these two issues follows.

We must note, before embarking upon a review of the problem involved herein, that this Court’s review is limited:

*633 “Review by an appellate court of a factual determination made by the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board is limited to any inquiry whether there is any evidence whatever to support the determination of the appeal board. Clark v Apex Foundry, Inc, 2 supra; Const. 1963, art 6, § 28.” Williams v Chrysler Corp, 29 Mich App 398, 401-402 (1971).

The appeal board, in its opinion on the question of whether plaintiff was on the parking lot at a reasonable time before his scheduled working hours, held as follows:

“The record establishes that plaintiff had arrived at the parking lot sufficiently early but I do not find that to be of particular significance. Would the employer expect the employee to arrive late or cut the amount of arrival so fine that all employees would arrive at precisely the same moment? Thus, there must exist some individual exercise of judgment in permitting employees to enter the parking lot and plant prior to the start of each shift.”

While the appeal board did not specifically state that plaintiff’s arrival was within a reasonable time before working hours, it can certainly be inferred from the above paragraph that the board did find, as fact, that the arrival of plaintiff was within reasonable bounds.

Even though there exists a difference of opinion between the two parties here as to the actual time of plaintiff’s arrival at the parking lot, there was sufficient testimony elicited at the hearing to substantiate the appeal board’s determination .that plaintiff did arrive within a reasonable time. Plaintiff has contended throughout these proceedings that he arrived in the parking lot at approximately 4:15 p.m. Defendant has argued that the time of *634 plaintiff’s arrival was not 4:15 p.m., but at sometime prior to that time, conceivably before 4 p.m. Plaintiff was ' to begin his afternoon shift at 4:42 p.m. Plaintiff gave testimony that it took him approximately three minutes to walk from the parking lot to his work station, and that if he had arrived at the parking lot at 4:30 p.m. he could have been at his station on time.

It was also brought out that plaintiff had 'been on the afternoon shift for a period of four months, and that he had to be in the lot at 4:15 p.m. the day of the accident because he did not leave the house until 4 p.m. when his friend was driving, and his friend was driving that week.

Finally, the only other evidence introduced bearing on the time of the accident was a medical or injury report which was prepared at the Buick Hospital at the time the accident occurred. On this report, the hour of the accident has been filled in to read 4:15 p.m. From the testimony, it appears plaintiff must have arrived in the parking lot approximately 22-32 minutes before he was scheduled to begin work.

The appeal board’s reasoning that defendant would not wish all of its employees to arrive at precisely the same time, and therefore there must exist some individual exercise of judgment, seems sound. While we do not know why plaintiff chose to arrive at the parking lot at the time he did, this is not inconsistent with the patterns that he had developed over the previous four months of his employment on the afternoon shift. Also, our Supreme Court has held that a 25-minute period is within the statutory reasonable time. Ladner v Vander Band, 376 Mich 321 (1965). Thus, we find that there was evidence presented before the appeal board to support its de *635 termination that plaintiff had arrived within a reasonable time before working hours.

Having determined that the accident occurred within a reasonable time before the working hours, we are next faced with the problem whether the accident can be said to have arisen out of, and in the course of, the plaintiff’s employment. A review of some of the leading cases which have been decided during the past few years, and which have dealt with similar questions, will aid in resolving this issue. One of the first of these cases is Dyer v Sears, Roebuck & Co, 350 Mich 92 (1957). In

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Bluebook (online)
196 N.W.2d 875, 38 Mich. App. 630, 1972 Mich. App. LEXIS 1695, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/queen-v-general-motors-corp-michctapp-1972.