Opinion
37637.
DECIDED APRIL 23, 1959. REHEARING DENIED MAY 6, 1959.
Workmen's compensation. Bibb Superior Court. Before Judge Anderson. February 3, 1959.
Leggett Leggett, Robert E. Steele, Jr., Louis M. Tatham, R. A. Whitsett, for plaintiffs in error.
Smith, Field, Doremus Ringel, Herbert A. Ringel, contra.
Where an employee is discovered fatally injured upon the premises of his employer, shortly after having been sent upon an errand by his employer, and there is no evidence showing that such fatal injury and accident resulted from wilful misconduct upon the employee's part or was otherwise not within the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, it was error for the Superior Court of Bibb County to affirm and approve the award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation denying compensation to the widow and minor children of the deceased employee.
DECIDED APRIL 23, 1959 — REHEARING DENIED MAY 6, 1959.
Charles Williams was employed by the Holiday Inn of Macon, Inc., as a porter, and his hours of work were from 11 p. m. until 7 o'clock. Williams reported for work around 11, dressed in his working uniform, upon which were stitched the letters "Holiday Inn." Some time after reporting for work, the night clerk on duty at the motel sent the said Williams upon an errand in connection with the duties ordinarily performed by him. Later, some short time following, a young man rushed to the motel office and reported to the clerk that Williams had been injured. The clerk thereupon hurried to the motel swimming pool, where he found Williams lying beside the pool, and some young white persons were then giving him first-aid treatment, or attempting to resuscitate him. Williams was taken to the emergency clinic of the Macon Hospital and was there pronounced dead. The examining physician found also upon the body of the dead employee certain bruises, evidently recently inflicted, showing that he had been beaten, but stated that his death was due to drowning. The widow of the deceased Charles Williams, Cleo Williams, as well as the minor children of the deceased by a former marriage, filed claims with the State Board of Workmen's Compensation for compensation. The claims came on for a hearing before a single director and were denied. An appeal was filed as provided by statute from such decision to the full board, which board approved and affirmed the finding of the single director to the effect that it was not shown that the deceased had met his death as a result of and during the course of his employment as night porter of said Holiday Inn of Macon, Inc. The claimants thereupon filed their appeals to the Superior Court of Bibb County, Georgia, and that court rendered its judgment and order affirming the finding of the full board of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation, to wit: "This case, having come on for hearing before this court on January 28, 1959, on appeal by the claimants from an award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation dated September 3, 1958, which denied compensation; and after hearing argument, and consideration of the record and briefs of counsel, it is considered, ordered, and adjudged that said appeal be, and the same is hereby denied and said award is hereby affirmed." This order and final judgment was rendered by Honorable A. M. Anderson, Judge of the Superior Court of Bibb County, on February 3, 1959, and to the same claimants excepted and duly assigned error in their direct bill of exceptions to this court.
Code (Ann.) § 114-102 reads: "`Injury' and `personal injury' shall mean only injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment and shall not, except as hereinafter provided, include a disease in any form except where it results naturally and unavoidably from the accident, nor shall `injury' and `personal injury' include injury caused by the wilful act of a third person directed against an employee for reasons personal to such employee."
The law is that an injury arises in the course of employment when it occurs within a period of employment at a place where the employee may reasonably be expected to be, in performance of his duties, and while engaged in performing same or in doing something incidental thereto. Employers Liability Assurance Corp. v. Montgomery, 45 Ga. App. 634 ( 165 S.E. 903); Bibb Mfg. Co. v. Alford, 51 Ga. App. 237 ( 179 S.E. 912). Of course in a claim for compensation, under the compensation laws of this State, the burden is on the claimants to show that the injury to the employee was the direct result of injury caused by accident or that the injury to such employee arose both out of and in the course of his employment. See Home Accident Ins. Co. v. Gilliard, 43 Ga. App. 208 ( 158 S.E. 359); Fulton Bag Cotton Mills v. Haynie, 43 Ga. App. 579 ( 159 S.E. 781). In Standard Accident Ins. Co. v. Kiker, 45 Ga. App. 706 ( 165 S.E. 850), it was ruled that where an employee was found dead in a place where he might reasonably be expected to be in the performance of his duties, the natural presumption arises that the death of such employee arose out of and in the course of his employment. Several cases were cited by this court for the above statement and ruling.
As stated in Maryland Cas. Co. v. Peek, 36 Ga. App. 557 ( 137 S.E. 121), and Hartford Accident c. Co. v. Cox, 61 Ga. App. 420 ( 6 S.E.2d 189) the words "arising out of" and "in the course of" employment are not synonymous, and the words "arising out of employment" mean there must be some causal connection between the conditions under which the employee worked and the injury which he received. It was held in Federal Ins. Co. v. Coram, 95 Ga. App. 622 ( 98 S.E.2d 214), that: "Where the claimant was injured while proceeding from her immediate work area on the employer's premises to another part of the employer's premises where she was furnished parking facilities by the employer, a finding that the accident arose out of and in the course of employment was authorized," even though she may have been negligent when she stepped off a gravel walkway to take a short cut to her destination, and was on the way home from her work.
The burden was on the claimant in the present case to show that the death of the deceased employee occurred at a place where he might reasonably have been expected to be in the performance of his duties, and while he was fulfilling his duties or was engaged in doing something incidental thereto, and that his employment was the contributing proximate cause thereof. See authorities cited in Ladson Motor Co. v. Croft, 212 Ga. 275, 277 ( 92 S.E.2d 103).
Williams, the deceased employee, was discovered in a fatally injured condition beside the swimming pool on the premises of his employer, Holiday Inn of Macon, Inc., and it does not appear that Williams in being at such location on the premises of his employer was not in the line of his duty and in the performance thereof, where the night clerk of the motel, which employed Williams, had sent him on an errand. It has been frequently ruled by this court that where an accidental injury occurs to an employee which is not explained, same constitutes an accidental compensable injury. Brown v. Lumbermen's Mutual Cas. Co., 49 Ga. App. 99 ( 174 S.E. 359).
An accident arises out of the employment of the employee under the workmen's compensation laws of this State when the same arises because of it, as when the employment is the contributing cause thereof. See Bibb Mfg. Co. v. Alford, 51 Ga. App. 237, supra.
An employee is entitled to compensation for injuries received in an accident arising out of and in the course of employment, that is for such occurrences as might have been reasonably contemplated by the employer, as a risk incidental to the nature of the employment or such as could be seen to have had its origin in a risk connected with the business of the employer, and to have arisen out of and flowed from that source as a natural consequence. See Keen v. New Amsterdam Cas. Co., 34 Ga. App. 257 (2) ( 129 S.E. 174).
Taking into consideration the authorities above cited and the facts of the present case, the single director erred in finding that as a matter of law the deceased employee, Charles Williams, did not meet his death by reason of an injury or accident occurring in the course of his employment or out of his employment and it was consequently erroneous for the full board, on appeal, to affirm such award and finding. Therefore, the Superior Court of Bibb County erred in affirming the award adversely to the claimants and in holding that the State Board of Workmen's Compensation correctly so determined.
Judgment reversed. Townsend and Carlisle, JJ., concur.