Tompkins v. George Rinner Construction Co.

398 P.2d 578, 194 Kan. 278, 1965 Kan. LEXIS 264
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedJanuary 23, 1965
Docket44,055
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 398 P.2d 578 (Tompkins v. George Rinner Construction Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tompkins v. George Rinner Construction Co., 398 P.2d 578, 194 Kan. 278, 1965 Kan. LEXIS 264 (kan 1965).

Opinions

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Price, J.:

This is a workman’s compensation case. The workman died as a result of his accidental injuries. The district court entered an award to his widow for the death benefit, together with a funeral allowance. The employer and its insurance carrier have appealed.

It was stipulated that the only question presented is whether the fatal accidental injury arose out of and in the course of the employment.

The workman being deceased, his widow is of course the one making claim. For convenience, however, we will refer to him as claimant.

Oddly enough, this entire case swings around and hinges upon the circumstances surrounding the purchase by claimant of a jar of “instant coffee” for use in the office of defendant construction company. [279]*279Highly summarized, the background of the matter is substantially as follows:

Dean and Bill Rinner were the owners of defendant company. Claimant had worked for them since 1950 in the capacity of office manager. Apparently, he was more or less his “own boss” — so to speak. The employment relationship was on a quite informal basis. If there were special or urgent things to do, claimant came to work early in the morning, and, when occasion required, he was there “after hours” in the evening. He did not “punch a clock” and received no pay for “overtime.” He frequently ran errands for the company and generally drove his own car, for which he was not reimbursed.

For several years it appears that around the office coffee had been available to the employees, customers, or any one else who happened to drop in. “Instant coffee” was used. Claimant had not been delegated or directed by the Rinners or by any one else in authority, to purchase the coffee used at the office, but it appears that for sometime he had taken it upon himself to do so, and frequently had bought a jar of instant coffee for office use while grocery-shopping with his wife. On these occasions he would pay for the coffee and then reimburse himself from the petty cash drawer at the office. The Rinners were not aware of such practice, but had they been, it would have met with their approval.

Claimant customarily took an hour off for lunch. His time was his own, and he could and did eat lunch where and when he cared to. During his lunch hour period he frequently ran errands — both personal and company, and most of the time used his own car— for which he was not reimbursed.

On the morning of March 6, 1963, claimant went to work as usual. His wife called him by telephone and told him that she had invited some friends in for dinner the following evening. She gave him a list of groceries to purchase. He suggested that they get them that evening when they went to the store. Apparently such arrangement was satisfactory to her. That noon, claimant and Bill Rinner left the office together to go to lunch at a restaurant in North Topeka which they frequently patronized. Claimant suggested that he drive his own car, giving as his reason that he wanted to pick up some groceries for his wife. Nothing was said about getting any coffee. The understanding was that he would meet Rinner at the restaurant on his return from the grocery store. While returning from the store on a direct route to the restaurant, [280]*280claimant’s car was involved in a collision. He died as a result of his injuries. In his car were found the items of groceries which his wife had mentioned to him over the telephone that morning. Also found in his car, in a separate sack, was a ten-ounce jar of instant coffee. Coffee was not included in the list of groceries he was to purchase for his wife. They used “percolator” type coffee at home.

His wife had known that in the past he now and then bought instant coffee for use at the office. Such purchases had been made by him when grocery-shopping with her in the evening, or else while running around during the noon hour. It was her opinion that he would not have made a special trip during office hours to purchase such coffee. There was evidence to the effect that on the day in question the office was “out of coffee.”

In rendering judgment for the widow the court stated that it had—

“. . . reached the conclusion that the evidence is barely sufficient to show that the deceased employee, Raymond Tompkins, was on a mission partially for the benefit of his employer at the time of the fatal accident.”

The court further commented that since its decision in Taylor v. Centex Construction Co., 191 Kan. 130, 379 P. 2d 217, had been reversed — it was “gun shy” — and that this (case) was a better case for claimant than was that case.

In contending there is no substantial evidence that claimant’s death arose “out of” and “in the course of” his employment, defendant employer and its insurance carrier contend that the evidence shows conclusively that claimant was on a personal errand to purchase groceries for his wife during his noon lunch hour when the fatal accident occurred, and that if the coffee found in his car was for use at the office the purchase of it was only incidental to the trip to purchase groceries for his wife and at most it was therefore a “dual purpose” trip. It further is contended the evidence showy that no special trip would have been made by claimant or any other person to purchase coffee for the office and, therefore, under the “dual purpose” rule the accident is not compensable because the evidence shows that no special trip would have been made to purchase the coffee.

Appellee widow, on the other hand, contends that from the evidence the inference is clear that the office was out of coffee; that claimant probably would have gone after it any way even though he would not have bought groceries for her, and that even under [281]*281the “dual purpose” rule the purchase of the coffee was at the very least a concurrent mission and was so tied in with claimant’s general duties around the office as to constitute a causal relationship between the injury and his employment.

The workmen’s compensation act (G. S. 1949, 44-501) provides that in order to be compensable an accidental injury must arise “out of” and “in the course of” the employment. The terms “out of” and “in the course of’ are used in the conjunctive, and both conditions must exist.

Generally speaking, the term “in the course of” the employment relates to the time, place and circumstances under which the accident occurred, and means the injury happened while the workman was at work in his employer’s service. (Pinkston v. Rice Motor Co., 180 Kan. 295, 301, Syl. 3, 303 P. 2d 197.)

The question whether an accidental injury can be said to have arisen “out of” the employment has been before this court many times and the term has a well settled meaning. In Repstine v. Hudson Oil Co., 155 Kan. 486, 126 P. 2d 225, the workman was manager of a gasoline service station owned by respondent employer. As manager he was responsible for the money taken in at the station. It was customary for him to take the money home with him and bring it back when he came to work the next day. On the morning in question he was driving from his home to the station by the most direct route and was taking back to the station the previous day’s receipts which he had taken home the night before. On his way to the station he was involved in an automobile collision and died from injuries received.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
398 P.2d 578, 194 Kan. 278, 1965 Kan. LEXIS 264, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tompkins-v-george-rinner-construction-co-kan-1965.