Rivera Osorio v. Industrial Commission of Puerto Rico
Rivera Osorio v. Industrial Commission of Puerto Rico
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a case of an accident which occurred on á highway. The-injured party claims compensation under, the Workmen’s Accident Compensation .Act, 11 L.P.R.A. § 1 et seq. The Manager- of the State Insurance Fund as well as the Industrial Commission. denied the compensation on the ground that this accident was not covered by the Act. The facts may be summarized as follows:
Petitioner was an employee of the San Juan Mercantile Corporation. The day of the accident he began Work at 4:00 p.m. and left at 10:50 p.m.' After he left the employer’s
The position of the Commission is that it is a traffic accident produced by the street risks and not a labor accident. In his memorandum, the Manager of the Fund, who was affirmed by the Commission, stated it as follows:
“The accidents occurring while en route to and from work are not risks inherent to the worker’s occupation or employment, but rather street risks to which all citizens are exposed.”1
Petitioner assigns the following four errors: (1) that the Commission erred in not consenting to an inspection of the place where the accident occurred; (2) that it erred in failing to decide that said place is part of the area of the risk created by the employment; (3) that it erred in failing to consider this case as an exception to the going and coming rule; and (4) that it erred in failing to decide that said rule is not applicable to petitioner.
The first error assigned was not committed. The granting of an inspection rests upon the sound discretion of the trial court, and in this case, of the Commission. Rodríguez v. Alcover, 78 P.R.R. 783 (1955); Martínez v. Martínez, 68 P.R.R. 191, 195 (1948); Jiménez v. Fletcher, 67 P.R.R. 153, 155 (1947).
It is generally known, we believe, that the Workmen’s Accident Compensation Act is applicable to the persons injured in “accidents caused by any act or function inherent in their work or employment, when such accidents happen in the course of said work or employment, and as a consequence thereof; or such as suffer disease or death caused by the occupations.” 11 L.P.R.A. § 2. Naturally, the Act neither had nor has the purpose of constituting an insurance against all kinds of automobile accidents which workers and employees might suffer. That is why the aforementioned going and coming rule was originated: labor accidents occurring while worker or employee is en route to and from work are not covered by the Act. However, since the cases which occur in real life are not organized according to rules and concepts produced by the judges, the courts started to confront cases in which the strict application of said rule would have produced an injustice and in order to avoid this the courts were and are constrained to acknowledge exceptions.
tWe agree with’the Manager -and with the Industrial Commission in the sense that the case at bar. does hot present an exception to the. going and coming ruleMn Gallart, Managers. Industrial Commission, supra, we have already stated at. page; 24 that we would decide these cases on'the merits by determining, whether ■ there existed or not a causal nexus between-, the injury and the employment. The case-at bar deals-with -, a trip going from-the work to the house, and the employment-injury causal relationship is not present therein, which'.would make the accident compensable. Nor is it correct to state that the employer created a special-hazard situation. This is not a route almost compulsory by the.circumstances, of the-employment, which consisted in crossing, a-river, Gallart, Manager v. Industrial Commission, supra, or which required the crossing of the railway tracks, Bountiful Brick Co. v.
The workmen’s accident compensation laws emerged when the industrialized societies realized .that labor accidents would occur, anyway and that it was desirable to protect the victims. It seems that it is high time that those selfsame societies realize that traffic accidents are practically unavoidable, and thát it is desirable that their victims be.protectéd. On this particular see Keeton and O’Connell, Basic Protection' for the Traffic Victim (1965), Boston, Little, Brown & Co.; by the same authors, “The Basic Protection Plan for Traffic Accident Cases,” 43 Notre Dame Law. 184 (1967); also the symposium “Automobile Compensation Plans,” 51 J. Am. Jud. Soc’y 148 (1967); O’Connell, “Basic Protection—Relief for the Ills of Automobile Insurance,” 27 La. L. Rev. 647 (1967).
In connection with the last assignment petitioner argues that the going and coming rule does not apply to the workers who are on call 24 hours a day and seven days a week. We need not decide now whether this is true or false since that situation does not concur in the case at bar. There is nothing in the evidence to show it. In Malavé v. Industrial Commission, 69 P.R.R. 61 (1948), the accident did not occur as a result of any going and coming trip. It occurred-when the employee fell from the second story of a hotel and while he was on duty. The injured party was a chauffeur- who had driven a baseball team from' Ponce to Mayagüez and
For recent cases of accidents suffered by employees who assume street risks to which everybody is exposed, and which were decided consistently with this opinion, see Pariser Bakery v. Koontz, 212 A.2d 324 (1965); Snodgrass v. Douglas Aircraft Co., 406 P.2d 463 (1965); Greydanus v. Industrial Acc. Comm’n, 43 Cal. Rep. 795 (1965); and Verret v. Travelers Ins. Co., 166 So.2d 292 (1964).
For the reasons stated the decision of the Industrial Commission appealed from will be affirmed.
As to the “street risks” rule see Gallart, Manager v. Industrial Commission, 87 P.R.R. 16 (1962), at page 23 and the authorities cited therein.
O.n dual-purpose trips see Heirs of Pérez Puerta v. Industrial Commission, 94 P.R.R. 531 (1967), and Larson, The Law. of Workmen’s Compensation, § 18.00. '
See House Bill No. 335 of the year 1961. Obviously, suclr>a-thing-entails economic considerations.
See, also, House Bill No. 874 of the year 1968.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.