O'Leary v. Brown-Pacific-Maxon/Dissent Minton

by Sherman Minton

United States Supreme Court

340 U.S. 504

O'Leary  v.  Brown-Pacific-Maxon

 Argued: Dec. 7, 1950. --- Decided: Feb 26, 1951

Mr. Justice MINTON, with whom Mr. Justice JACKSON and Mr. Justice BURTON join, dissenting.

Liability accrues in the instant case only if the death arose out of and in the course of the employment. This is a statutory provision common to all Workmen's Compensation Acts. There must be more than death and the relationship of employee and employer. There must be some connection between the death and the employment. Not in any common-law sense of causal connection but in the common-sense, everyday, realistic view. The Deputy Commissioner knew that, so he found as a fact that 'at the time of his drowning and death the deceased was using the recreational facilities sponsored and made available by the employer for the use of its employees and such participation by the deceased was an incident of his employment * * *.' This finding is false and has no scintilla of evidence or inference to support it.

I am unable to understand how this Court can say this is a fact based upon evidence. It is undisputed upon this record that the deceased, at the time he met his death, was outside the recreational area in the performance of a voluntary act of attempted rescue of someone unknown to the record. There can be no inference of liability here unless liability follows from the mere relationship of employer and employee. The attempt to rescue was an isolated, voluntary act of bravery of the deceased in no manner arising out of or in the course of his employment. The only relation his employment had with the attempted rescue and the following death was that his employment put him on the Island of Guam.

I suppose the way to avoid what we said today in Universal Camera Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, supra, is to find facts where there are no facts, on the whole record or any piece of it. It sounds a bit hollow to me for the Court, as it does, to quote from the New York case of Matter of Waters v. William J. Taylor Co., 218 N.Y. 248, 252, 112 N.E. 727, 728, L.R.A.1917A, 347, 'where an employee, even with the laudable purpose of helping another, might go so far from his employment and become so thoroughly disconnected from the service of his employer that it would be entirely unreasonable to say that injuries suffered by him arose out of and in the course of his employment.' This would seem to indicate that we are leaving some place for voluntary acts of the employees outside the course of their employment for which the employer may not be liable. There surely are such areas, but this case does not recognize them. The employer is liable in this case because he is an employer.

I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Notes