Pariser Bakery & State Accident Fund v. Koontz

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal on behalf of the Pariser Bakery, employer, and the State Accident Fund, insurer, from a judgment entered in the Baltimore City Court. The case was submitted to that court upon an agreed statement of facts. Chief Judge Manley affirmed the finding of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission, that the claimant-appellee, Charles A. Koontz, had sustained an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment.

For some years and on the date of the accident, the claimant had been employed by Pariser Bakery. On August 24, 1962, Koontz, who regularly worked the night shift, drove his automobile to the bakery and parked it on Sanford Place, a public street which dead ends into Pennsylvania Avenue opposite the bakery premises in Baltimore City. In order to get to the bakery at 2304 Pennsylvania Avenue, he walked down Sanford Place and across Pennsylvania Avenue to a door designated for the exclusive use of employees, officials and customers. He arrived at approximately 7:00 p.m., changed into his work clothes and went to the second floor where he operated a dough mixing machine.

Shortly before 4:00 a.m. on August 25, the claimant concluded his work, went down to the first floor of the plant to the locker room where he changed his clothes, punched out at the time clock, and departed from the building, intending to retrace his steps of the previous evening. He walked out of the bakery’s entrance and across the truck loading area, which is approximately seventeen feet wide, covered by the extension of the second floor. This area abuts a public sidewalk fourteen feet wide in front of the bakery’s premises. The curb of the sidewalk was beveled in front of the plant’s loading area to permit its trucks to back to the loading platform.

When the claimant reached the point where the sidewalk meets the bakery’s building line, he said that he took one step onto the sidewalk, heard a loud noise, looked to his right, saw an object and stepped back toward the building. An automobile, ⁵⁸⁹ driven at a high rate of speed, ran onto the sidewalk at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Baker Street. It continued in a northerly direction on the sidewalk, struck the right side of an automobile parked alongside the curb facing south on the west side of Pennsylvania Avenue, knocked down a street light located on the sidewalk next to the curb between the parked car and the building line, and then struck and injured the claimant. His body came to rest on the sidewalk about seven feet east of the bakery’s building line, within that portion of the sidewalk where the west curbing of Pennsylvania Avenue had been removed.

After being struck, the claimant said that he attempted to rise by putting his hands on the fender of one of the bakery’s trucks, which was backed up to the loading platform. The automobile continued to move upon the sidewalk for some distance, went out into the street, and finally stopped ninety feet north of the place where the claimant was struck. The driver maintained that he lost control of the vehicle, which was five and a half to six feet wide, because of a faulty steering mechanism. The appellants’ sole contention on appeal is that the claimant’s injury did not arise “out of” and “in the course of” his employment, as provided in Code (1957), Article 101, Section 15.

An injury arises out of a claimant’s employment when it results from some obligation, condition or incident of his employment. Whether it does must be decided from the facts and circumstances of each individual case. There must be a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the ensuing injury. Thus, if the injury can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work and to have been contemplated by a reasonable person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment, then it arises out of the employment.

However, it does not include an injury which can not be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and which comes from a hazard to which the workman would have been exposed away from the employment. Scherr v. Miller, 229 Md. 538 , 184 A. 2d 916 ; Watson v. Grimm, 200 Md. 461 , 90 A. 2d 180 ; Hill v. Liberty Motors, 185 Md. 596 , 45 A. 2d 467 . Here, the claimant’s injury was ⁵⁹⁰ not one which followed