Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Mitchell

27 S.W.2d 600, 1930 Tex. App. LEXIS 362
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 15, 1930
DocketNo. 3842.
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 27 S.W.2d 600 (Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Mitchell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Mitchell, 27 S.W.2d 600, 1930 Tex. App. LEXIS 362 (Tex. Ct. App. 1930).

Opinion

LEVY, J.

(after stating the case as above).

The appellant insists that the evidence does not justify the conclusion that Mrs. Mitchell’s injury was either (1) an accidental injury originating in the work of her employer, or (2) was an injury received by her while she was engaged in and about the furtherance of the affairs or business of her employer. It is believed the facts show an “injury” within the meaning of that term as defined in the Workmen’s Compensation Law. Article 8309, R. S. part 4. It was proven that Mrs. Mitchell was vaccinated, and that the vaccination wound became directly infected, and grievous bodily injury resulted therefrom. As affirmatively proven, such bodily ■injury as thdt in question here may be brought about and naturally or proximately result from an infection of a vaccination wound. The bodily injury sustained by Mrs. Mitchell was not. due, as involved in the find *603 ing of the jury, to rheumatism or any other independent disease, but was directly attributable to the infection following the vaccination of her left arm, as must be presumed, taking the evidence most favorable to appel-lee. The every act of vaccination itself cannot be said to have been an “accident” in the ordinary sense of the word, as it was foreseen, expected, and intended. Mrs. Mitchell went to the doctor’s office for that very specific purpose. But the infection and its immediate entry into the system through the vaccination wound was the intervention of an unlooked for circumstance sufficiently constituting the element of accident. There was no intention to have the wound become infected. The vaccination wound and the in.fection following the vaccination combined to immediately cause and bring about the bodily injury. Therefore such injury would appear, and sufficiently so, to be an injury of accidental nature effected through accidental means. The accident here is comparable to the accident in the following cases: Bailey v. Casualty Co., 8 App. Div. 127, 40 N. Y. S. 513; Id., 158 N. Y. 723, 53 N. E. 1123; Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Drews (Tex. Civ. App.) 297 S. W. 630; Lewis v. Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corp., 224 N. Y. 18, 120 N. E. 56, 7 A. L. R. page 1129.

It is thought that the relation of the accident to the service or business of the employer was sufficiently established by the proof as an injury having to do with the service of the employer. As defined by the Workmen’s Compensation Act, the term “injury sustained in the course of employment” embraces, after excluding injuries resulting from certain causes not applicable here, the following injuries, namely: “ * * * Shall include all other injuries of every kind and character having to do with and originating in the work, business, trade or profession of the employer received by an employee while engaged in or about the furtherance of the affairs or business of his employer whether upon the employer’s premises or elsewhere.” Article 8309, It. S., part 4, § 1, second subsecs. 1-4.

- The testimony conclusively shows that Mrs. Mitchell was directed by her employer to be vaccinated, and this direction was coupled with the’ ultimatum that, unless she did so, she could not work any longer for her employer until after the smallpox epidemic was over. It is made clear by the testimony of the ' manager that “no member of the state or city board of health,” acting as a public agency for the.public interest, in any wise directed .or caused the vaccination of the employees. The only one who “gave such order to the employees to be vaccinated” was the manager himself, acting for his company. The manager seems to have assembled “all the employees,” which numbered between 500 and 525, and then directed them, as testified, as follows: “I told the employees it would be

necessary for all of them to be vaccinated or bring a certificate from a physician stating that vaccination was not necessary — either .that or to lay off until such time as the smallpox epidemic or scare had passed.”

The order for vaccination was given on Thursday, March 22, and the vaccination was to be done “Friday,” or before Monday morning, March 26. The circumstances do not reflect the purpose of the manager in so peremptorily ordering the vaccination of the employees to have 'been to discharge a purely moral obligation to provide for medical attention or to further the personal welfare of the employees. Neither do they reflect his intention to require the vaccination to have been an act entirely outside the range of the employees’ service to their employer. The" circumstances strongly point to the view that in the emergency of the smallpox epidemic the vaccination was for the purpose of furthering the work or business of the factory by having the employees made immune to smallpox as a precaution against suspension or interruption through smallpox of the regular work or business of the factory. It is conceivable that a smallpox epidémic might interrupt or suspend the regular work of the factory, with a consequent loss of business to the employer, by reason of the employees or any of them contracting the disease, or of the factory being placed under quarantine. The manager made it evident to the employees as an ultimatum that, in case of the failure or refusal of any one of them to comply with the speciaj order of vaccination promptly, such failure or refusal would automatically operate to put such employee in default of duty, subjecting him to suspension from the service .during the period of the epidemic. Compliance with the special order was intended to operate as an obligation of employment on the part of the employees, and noncomplianee was intended to operate as an act inconsistent with the relation of master and servant, and incompatible with the faithful performance of duty owing the employer. So, in the circumstances, the act of vaccination may be fairly considered as reasonably incidental to the scope of employment of Mrs. Mitchell; for, in the circumstances, such order of vaccination was intended to constitute an added element of the existing employment. The pei> formance of this duty by her, if not the proximate cause, was a concurring cause, of her present injury. The further factual elements are not here controlling, that Mrs. Mitchell was vaccinated at the doctor’s office in the evening, after the usual 5 o’clock closing work hour of the factory. She did not, in point of fact or as a matter of pure law, cease to be in the course of her employment, nor was the continuity of her employment broken, merely because of such circumstances. Mrs. Mitchell was, as proven, fulfilling the required condition imposed by her employer in his interest, *604 at a place and time contemplated by tbe manager for tbe performance of tbe condition so imposed by bim.

Injury through infection of a wound is generally classed as a compensable injury under the Compensation Law, in case the proof shows either that the infection entering the wound was peculiarly incident to the wort or character of business or that the wound or abrasion of the skin was actually 'received in the scope of the employment, and thereafter came in direct contact with some infectious or poisonous matter, although such poisonous matter be not traceable to the work or character of business of the employed. Blaess v. Dolph, 195 Mich. 137, 161 N. W. 885; Dove v. Alpena Hide & Leather Co., 198 Mich. 132, 164 N. W. 253; Jasionowski v. Industrial Commission, 22 Ohio App. 112, 153 N. E. 247; Millers’ Indem. Underwriters v. Heller (Tex. Civ. App.) 253 S. W. 853; Houston Packing Co. v. Mason (Tex. Civ.

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27 S.W.2d 600, 1930 Tex. App. LEXIS 362, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/texas-employers-ins-assn-v-mitchell-texapp-1930.