Case Digest: Iloilo Dock & Engineering Co. v. Workmen's Compensation Commission, No. L-26341, November 27, 1968.
Labor Law | Policy and Definitions
Facts:
- At about 5:02 o’clock in the afternoon of January 29, 1960, Teodoro G. Pablo, a mechanic of Iloilo Dock and Engineering Company (IDECO), was shot to death while walking on his way home. He was about 20 meters away from the main IDECO gate, on a private road commonly called the IDECO road.
- The motive for the crime was unknown, and the assailant, Martin Cordero, was killed before he could be tried for Pablo’s death.
- Workmen’s Compensation Commission: Affirmed the decision of the Regional Office VII in Iloilo City, and ordered the IDECO to pay to the widow and children of Teodoro G. Pablo the sum of P4,000, to pay to the widow P89 as reimbursement for burial expenses and P300 as attorney’s fees, and to pay to the Commission the amount of P46 as fees pursuant to Section 55 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
The two components of the coverage formula — "arising out of" and "in the course of employment" — are said to be separate tests which must be independently satisfied; however, it should not be forgotten that the basic concept of compensation coverage is unitary, not dual, and is best expressed in the word, "work-connection," because an uncompromising insistence on an independent application of each of the two portions of the test can, in certain cases, exclude clearly work-connected injuries. The words "arising out of" refer to the origin or cause of the accident, and are descriptive of its character, while the words "in the course of" refer to the time, place, and circumstances under which the accident takes place.
"But if both the 'course' and 'arising' quantities are small, the minimum quantum will not be met.
"As an example of the first, a strong `arising’ factor but weak `course’ factor, one may cite the cases in which recoveries have been allowed of the employment premises, outside business hours, when an employee going to or coming from work is injured by a hazard distinctly traceable to the employment, such as a traffic jam overflowing from the employment premises, or a rock flying through the air from a blast on the premises. Here, by normal course of employment standards, there would be no award, since the employee was not on the premises while coming or going. Yet the unmistakeable character of the casual relation of the injury to the employment has been sufficient to make up for the weakness of the `course’ factor. Another example of the same kind of balancing-out is seen in the line of cases dealing with injury to travelling men or loggers while sleeping in hotels or bunk-houses. It was shown in the analysis of these cases that, although the `course’ factor is on the borderline when the employee is sound asleep at the time of injury, a strong causal relation of the injury to the conditions of employment — as where a fellow logger runs amok, or a straw falls into the bunk-house-inmate’s throat from the mattress above, or the employee is trapped in a burning hotel — will boost the case over the line to success; while a weak causal connection, as where the salesman merely slips in a hotel bath, coupled with a weak `course’ factor due to the absence of any direct service performed for the employer at the time, will under present decisions add up to a quantum of work-connection too small to support an award. It was also shown that when the `course’ element is strengthened by the fact that the employee is at all times on call, the range of compensable sources of injury is broader than when the employee, although living on the premises is not on call.
"A somewhat similar balancing-out process is seen in the holding that a borderline course-of-employment activity like seeking personal comfort or going to and from work falls short of compensability if the method adopted is unusual, unreasonable and dangerous, while no such restriction applies to the direct performance of the work.
"As an example of the reverse situation, a strong `course’ element and a weak `arising’ element, one may recall the `positional’ cases discussed in Section 10, as well as the unexplained-fall and other `neutra -cause’ cases. Here the course of employment test is satisfied beyond the slightest doubt: the employee is in the midst of performing the active duties of his job. But the causal connection is very weak, since the source of the injury — whether a stray bullet, a wandering lunatic, an unexplained fall or death, or a mistaken assault by a stranger — is not distinctly associated with employment conditions as such, and is tied to the employment only by the argument that the injury would not have occurred to this employee but for the obligation of the employment which placed him in the position to be hurt. Yet, since the `course’ element is so strong, awards are becoming increasingly common on these facts.
"Incidentally, it may be observed that this `quantum’ idea forms a useful yardstick for measuring just how generous a court has become in expanding compensation coverage; for if a court makes an award when a case, by the above standards, is weak both on course of employment and on causal connection, one can conclude that the court is capable of giving the act a broad construction. Thus, an award was made in Puffin v. General Electric, where the course element was weak (rest period) and the causal element was weak (setting fire to own sweater while smoking). Both factors were likewise very weak in O’Leary v. Brown Pacific-Maxon Inc., where the course of employment consisted of a recreation period interrupted by a rescue of a stranger, and the arising factor consisted of drowning in a channel where decedent was prohibited from going. And, in Martin v. Plaut, the course of employment factor was weak (a cook dressing in the morning) and the causal factor was also weak (an unexplained fall); yet an award was made in New York.
"But another New York case shows that the simultaneous weakness of course and arising factors may reach the point where the requisite quantum is not found. In Shultz v. Nation Associates, compensation was denied to an employee who while combing her hair preparatory to going to lunch negligently struck her eye with the comb. Here we see thinness on all fronts: as to course of employment time factor, we have a lunch period; as to the course of employment activity factor, we have care of personal appearance; and as to the causal factor, we have negligence of the employee. Eack weakness standing alone —lunch period, care of appearance, negligence — would not be fatal; there are many awards in which one or another of these is present. But when all are present, while an award is not impossible and could be defended on a point by point basis, it can not be relied upon in most jurisdictions by the prudent lawyer." Larson’s Workmen’s Compensation Law, 1965 ed. Vol. 1, pp. 452.97 to 452.100.
In resumé:
1. Workmen’s compensation is granted if the injuries result from an accident which arise out of and in the course of employment.
2. Both the "arising" factor and the "course" factor must be present. If one factor is weak and the other is strong, the injury is compensable, but not where both factors are weak. Ultimately, the question is whether the accident is work-connected.
3. In a proceeding for the enforcement of a claim, the same is presumed to come within the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. But a preliminary link must first be shown to exist between the injury and the employment. Thus if the injury occurred in the course of employment, it is presumed to have arisen out of the employment.
4. The "course" factor applies to time, place and circumstances. This factor is present if the injury takes place within the period of employment, at a place where the employee may be, and while he is fulfilling his duties or is engaged in doing something incidental thereto.
5. The rule is that an injury sustained while the employee goes to or comes from his place of work, is not of employment.
6. The exception to the rule is an injury sustained off the employee’s premises, but while in close proximity thereto and while using a customary means of ingress and egress. The reason for extending the scope of "course of employment" to off-premises injuries is that there is a causal connection between the work and the hazard.
7. An "assault" may be considered an "accident" within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The employment may either increase risk of assault because of its nature or be the subject-matter of a dispute leading to the assault.
From these milestones, we now proceed to take our bearings in the case at bar, having in mind always that no cover-all formula can be spelled out with specificity, that the particular facts and circumstances of each case must be inquired into, and that in any perceptive inquiry, the question as to where the line should be drawn beyond which the liability of the employer cannot continue has been held to be usually one of fact.
We shall first dwell on the question of ownership of the private road where Pablo was killed. In granting compensation, that Commission said that "the road where the deceased was shot was of private ownership, was called the IDECO road, and led straight to the main IDECO gate, thus raising the reasonable assumption that it belonged" to the IDECO. The Commission reasoned out that "even if the ownership of the road were open to question, there was no doubt that its private character was obviously exploited by the respondent for the purpose of its own business to such an extent as to make it to all intents and purposes an extension of its premises," so that "the shooting of the deceased may be considered to have taken place on the premises, and therefore within the employment," and that "while respondent allowed its name to be used in connection with the private road for the ingress and egress of the employees it did not apparently take the necessary precaution to make it safe for its employees by employing security guards."
But the IDECO denies ownership of the road. In its memorandum filed with the Regional Office, IDECO averred that Pablo’s death did not originate from his work as to time, place and circumstances. This, in effect, is a denial of ownership of the road. The decision of the Regional Office does not state that the road belongs to the IDECO. All that it says is that Pablo was shot "barely two minutes after he was dismissed from work and while walking along the IDECO road about twenty (20) meters from the gate." In its motion for reconsideration and/or review," the IDECO emphasized that "the place where the incident happened was a public road, not less than (20) meters away from the main gate of the compound, and therefore not proximate to or in the immediate vicinity of the place of work." Again, the ownership of the road was implicitly denied. And in its "motion for reconsideration and/or appeal to the Commission en banc," the IDECO alleged outright that the "road where the incident took place, although of private ownership, does not belong to IDECO. There is absolutely no evidence on record that shows IDECO owns the road." If the road were owned by the IDECO, there would have been no question that the assault arose "in the course of employment." But if it did indeed own the road, then the IDECO would have fenced it, and placed its main gate at the other end of the road where it meets the public highway.
But while the IDECO does not own the private road, it cannot be denied that it was using the same as the principal means of ingress and egress. The private road leads directly to its main gate. Its right to use the road must then perforce proceed from either an easement of right of way or a lease. Its right, therefore, is either a legal one or a contractual one. In either case the IDECO should logically and properly be charged with security control of the road. The IDECO owned its employees a safe passage to its premises. In compliance with such duty, the IDECO should have seen to it not only the road was properly paved and did not have holes or ditches, but should also have instituted measures for the proper policing of the immediate area. The point where Pablo was shot was barely twenty meters away from the main IDECO gate, certainly nearer than a stone’s throw therefrom. The spot is immediately proximate to the IDECO’s premises. Considering this fact, and the further facts that Pablo has just finished overtime work at the time, and was killed barely two minutes after dismissal from work, the Ampil case is squarely applicable here. We may say, as we did in Ampil, that the place where the employee was injured being "immediately proximate to his place of work, the accident in question must be deemed to have occurred within the zone of his employment and therefore arose out of and in the course thereof." Our principal question is whether the injury was sustained in the course of employment. We find that it was, and so conclude that the assault arose out of the employment, even though the said assault is unexplained.
American jurisprudence supports this view.
In Bountiful Brick Company v. Giles, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled:
"Employment includes not only the actual doing of the work, but a reasonable margin of time and space necessary to be used in passing to and from the place where the work is to be done. If the employee be injured while passing, with the express or implied consent of the employer, to or from his work by a way over the employer’s, to or from his work by a way over the employer’s premises, or over those of another such proximity and relation as to be in practical effect a part of the employer’s premises, the injury is one arising out and in the course of the employment as much as though it had happened while the employee was engaged in his work at the place of its performance. In other words, the employment may begin in point of time before the work is entered upon and in point of space before the place where the work is to be done is reached. Probably, as a general rule, employment may be said to begin when the employee reaches the entrance to the employer’s premises where the work is to be done; but it is clear that in some cases the rule extends to include adjacent premises used by the employee as a means of ingress and egress with the express or implied consent of the employer."
The above ruling is on all fours with our facts. Two minutes from dismissal and twenty meters from the main IDECO gate are "a reasonable margin of time and space necessary to be used in passing to and from" the IDECO’s premises. The IDECO employees used the private road with its consent, express or implied. Twenty meters on that road from the main gate is in closed proximity to the IDECO’s premises. It follows that Pablo’s death was in the course of employment.
In Carter v. Lanzetta, it was held that "such statutes envision extension of coverage to employees from the time they reach the employer’s premises until they depart therefrom and that hours of service include a period when this might be accomplished within a reasonable interval" ; and that "under exceptional circumstances, a continuance of the course of employment may be extended by allowing the employee a reasonable time not only to enter or leave the premises but also to surmount certain hazards adjacent thereto."
The private road led directly to the main IDECO gate. From this description, it would appear that the road is a dead-end street. In Singer v. Rich Marine Sales, it was held that, where the employee, while returning to work at the end of the lunch period, fell at the curb of the sidewalk immediately adjacent to the employer’s premises and one other located thereon, and the general public used the street only in connection with those premises, and the employer actually stored boats on the sidewalk, the sidewalk was within the precincts of employment. In that case there were even two business establishments on the dead-end street. Here, it is exclusively the IDECO premises which appear to be at the end of the private road.
We find in Jaen v. Chrysler Corporation a meaningful statement of the obligation of the employer to its employees: "That the employer owes, so to speak, a duty of `safe passage’ to an employee to the point where he can reach the proper arrival or departure from his work seems without question."
We next quote extensively from Kelty v. Traverllers Insurance Company:
"The rule has been repeatedly announced in Texas that an injury received by an employee while using the public streets and highways in going to or returning from the place of employment is not compensable, the rationale of the rule being that in most instances such an injury is suffered as a consequence of risk and hazards to which all members of the travelling public are subject rather than risk and hazards having to do with and originating in the work or business of the employer. . . .
"Another exception, however, which is applicable is found in the so-called `access’ cases. In these cases a workman who has been injured at a place intended by the employer for use as a means of ingress and egress to and from the actual place of the employee’s work has been held to be in the course of his employment. The courts have said that these access areas are so closely related to the employer’s premises as to be fairly treated as a part of the employer’s premises. We shall discuss the principal authorities dealing with this exception to the general rule.
"The leading cases in Texas dealing with the `access’ exception, and one which we think is controlling of this appeal, is Lumberman’s Reciprocal Assn. v. Behnken, 112 Tex. 103, 246 S.W. 72, 28 A.L.R. 1402. In that case the employee was employed by Hartburg Lumber Company, which company operated and owned a sawmill in Hartburg, Texas, which was a lumber town, consisting solely of the employer’s facilities. A railroad track ran through the town and a part of the lumber company’s facilities was situated on either side of the right- of-way. A public road ran parallel to the railroad tracks which led to the various buildings on the property of the lumber company. This crossing was used by any member of the public desiring to go to any part of the lumber company facilities. On the day in question the decedent quit work at noon, went home for lunch and while returning to the lumber company plant for the purpose of resuming his employment, was struck and killed by a train at the crossing in question. The insurance company contended (as it does here) that the decedent’s death did not originate in the work or business of his employer and that at the time of his fatal injuries he was not in or about the furtherance of the affairs or business of his employer. The Supreme Court, in an extensive opinion, reviewed the authorities from other states and especially Latter’s Case 238 Mass. 326, 130 N.E. 637, 638, and arrived at the conclusion that the injury and death under such circumstances were compensable under the Texas Act. The court held that the railroad crossing bore so intimate a relation to the lumber company’s premises that it could hardly be treated otherwise than as a part of the premises. The court pointed out that the lumber company had rights in and to the crossing which was used in connection with the lumber company’s business, whether by employees or by members of the public. In announcing the `access’ doctrine Justice Greenwood said:
`Was Behnken engaged in or about the furtherance of the affairs or business of his employer when he received the injury causing his death? He was upon the crossing provided as the means of access to his work solely because he was an employee. He encountered the dangers incident to use of the crossing in order that he might perform the duties imposed by his contract of service. Without subjecting himself to such dangers he could not do what was required of him in the conduct of the lumber company’s business. He had reached a place provided and used only as an adjunct to that business and was injured from a risk created by the conditions under which the business was carried on. To hold that he was not acting in furtherance of the affairs or business of the lumber company would be to give a strict interpretation to this remedial statute, which should be liberally construed with a view to accomplish its purpose and to promote justice.’. . . "In Texas Employer’s Ins. Ass’n. v. Anderson, Tex. Civ. App., 125 S.W. 2d 674, wr. ref., this court followed the rule announced in Behnken, supra. In that case the employee was killed while crossing the railroad track near his place of employment. In discussing the question of the situs of the injury Justice Looney said:
`Its use as a means of ingress to and exit from his place of work not only conduced to his safety and convenience, but contributed to the promptness and efficiency with which he was enabled to discharge the duties owing his employer; hence the reason and necessity for his presence upon the railroad track (that portion of the pathway leading over the railroad right of way) when injured, in our opinion, had to do with, originated in and grew out of the work of the employer; and that, the injury received at the time, place, and under the circumstances, necessarily was in furtherance of the affairs or business of the employer.’
"Again, in Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n. v. Boecker, Tex. Civ. App., 53 S.W. 2d 327, err. ref., this court had occasion to follow the `access’ doctrine. In that case Chief Justice Jones quoted from the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Bountiful Brick Company Et. Al. v. Giles, 276 U.5. 154, 48 S.Ct. 221, 72 L.Ed. 507, 66 A. L.R. 1402, as follows:
`An employment includes not only the actual doing of the work, but a reasonable margin of time and space necessary to be used in passing to and from the place where the work is to be done. If the employee be injured while passing, with the express or implied consent of the employer, to or from his work by a way over the employer’s premises, or over those of another in such proximity and relation as to be in practical effect a part of the employer’s premises, the injury is one arising out of and in the course of the employment as much as though it had happened while the employee was engaged in his work at the place of its performance. In other words, the employment may begin in point of time before the work is entered upon and in point of space before the place where the work is to be done is reached.’"
The ruling enunciated above is applicable in the case at bar. That part of the road where Pablo was killed is in very close proximity to the employer’s premises. It is an "access area" "so clearly related to the employee’s premises as to be fairly treated as a part of the employer’s premises." That portion of the road bears "so intimate a relation" to the company’s premises. It is the chief means of entering the IDECO premises, either for the public or for its employees. The IDECO uses it extensively in pursuit of its business. It has rights of passage over the road, either legal, if by virtue of easement, or contractual, if by reason of lease. Pablo was using the road as a means of access to his work solely because he was an employee. For this reason, the IDECO was under obligation to keep the place safe for its employees. Safe, that is, against dangers that the employees might encounter therein, one of these dangers being assault by third persons. Having failed to take the proper security measures over the said area which it controls, the IDECO is liable for the injuries suffered by Pablo resulting in his death. As heretofore stated, the assault on Pablo is unexplained. The murderer was himself killed before he could be brought to trial. It is true there is authority for the statement that before the "proximity" rule may be applied it must first be shown that there is a causal connection between the employment and the hazard which resulted in the injury. The following more modern view was expressed in Lewis Wood Preserving Company v. Jones.
"While some earlier cases seem to indicate that the causative danger must be peculiar to the work and not common to the neighborhood for the injuries to arise out of and in the course of the employment (see Maryland Casualty Co. v. Peek, 36 Ga. App. 557 [137 S.E. 121], Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co. v. Cox, 61 Ga App. 420, 6 S.E. 2d 189), later cases have been somewhat more liberal, saying that, `to be compensable, injuries do not have to arise from something peculiar to the employment.’ Fidelity & Casualty Co. of N.Y. v. Bardon, 79 Ga. App. 260, 262, 54 S.E. 2d 443, 444. `Where the duties of an employee entail his presence (at a place and a time) the claim for an injury there occurring is not to be barred because it results from a risk common to all others .. unless it is also common to the general public without regard to such conditions, and independently of place, employment, or pursuit.’ New Amsterdam Casualty Co. v. Sumrell, 30 Ga. App. 682, 118 S.E. 786, cited in Globe Indemnity Co. v. MacKendree, 39 Ga. App. 58, 146 S.E. 46, 47. McKiney v. Reynolds & Manley Lumber Co., 79 Ga. App. 826, 829, 54 S.E. 2d 471, 473."
But even without the foregoing pronouncement, the employer should still be held liable in view of our conclusion that that portion of the road where Pablo was killed, because of its proximity, should be considered part of the IDECO’s premises. Hence, the injury was in the course of employment, and there automatically arises the presumption — invoked in Rivera — that the injury by assault arose out of the employment, i.e., there is a causal relation between the assault and the employment.
We do say here that the circumstances of time, two minutes after dismissal from overtime work, and space, twenty meters from the employer’s main gate, bring Pablo’s death within the scope of the course factor. But it may logically be asked: Suppose it were three minutes after and thirty meters from, or five minutes after and fifty meters from, would the "proximity" rule still apply? In answer, we need but quote that portion of the decision in Jean v. Chrysler Corporation, supra, which answered a question arising from an ingenious hypothetical situation put forth by the defendant therein:
"We could, of course, say `this is not the case before us’ and utilize the old saw, `that which is not before us we do not decide.’ Instead, we prefer to utilize the considerably older saw: `Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof’ (Matthew 6:34), appending, however, this admonition: no statute is static; it must remain constantly viable to meet new challenges placed to it. Recovery in a proper case should not be suppressed because of a conjectural posture which may never arise and which if it does, will be decided in the light of then-existing law." Since the Workmen’s Compensation Act is basically a social legislation designed to afford relief to workmen, it must be liberally construed to attain the purpose for which it was enacted. Liberally construed, Sec. 2 of the Act comprehends Pablo’s death. The Commission did not err in granting compensation.
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