 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Hurdle and Son v. Holloway10/5/1999
y the Mississippi Legislature when it enacted our state's workers' compensation laws. Id. We conclude that there is no basis for us to set aside the Commission's determination that equipment failure caused the accident, and not Sam Hurdle's intoxication. Therefore, Sam Hurdle's intoxication, even though traceable directly to Michael Holloway's efforts to procure beer for him, does not serve to bar Holloway's right to compensation under the theory of "imported risk."
VI. Issue Four: Are the Commission's Findings of Fact Supported by Substantial Evidence?
. Hurdle and Son, as its final issue, suggests that the factual findings made by the Commission do not find support in the evidence. The Commission, by adopting the findings of fact made by the administrative Judge, made eighteen separate enumerated findings of fact. The Commission then applied the law relating to the various disputed issues to those findings and concluded that Michael Holloway's injuries were compensable.
. In its general attack on the Commission's findings of fact, Hurdle and Son appears to take particular issue with the Commission's stated Conclusion that, as to a substantial number of those eighteen findings of fact, the matter was not disputed by the parties. Hurdle and Son, in its brief to this Court, selects six issues that the Commission concluded to be undisputed and points to evidence in the record that would indicate that there might be some dispute.
. As a logical first step in our inquiry, we must determine whether any one of those six findings of fact under attack are crucial to the Commission's ultimate decision on compensability. In other words, would a decision that the particular finding of fact was not supported by substantial evidence necessarily require this Court to overturn the Commission's ruling? As will appear more fully in the Discussion to follow, we conclude that certain of the findings may be disposed of in that manner. They simply are not pivotal to the key issue of compensability. As to those findings that survive this analysis, we would, of course, be required to treat them further. However, it should be noted that our inquiry is not into the correctness of the Commission's assertion that any particular finding is not disputed. The Commission may have, as to certain of the findings of fact, overstated the case to some extent, in saying they were beyond dispute. However, that alone does not permit this Court to set aside the underlying finding of fact essential to a correct decision of the case. Rather, our obligation remains to determine whether there is, in reality, substantial evidence in the record to support the finding even though there may indeed be evidence that would support a contrary finding. We will consider the six findings in that light.
A.
The Regularity of Holloway's Workday
. Hurdle and Son's contention from the beginning of this controversy has been that Holloway was assisting Sam Hurdle in a personal endeavor not actually associated with either Sam Hurdle's or Holloway's actual job duties as farm laborers. In furtherance of that proposition, Hurdle and Son attacks the Commission's finding that the end of Holloway's work day at 5:00 was not rigidly observed, so that an injury occurring later in the evening could still be job-related. The Commission had made that finding in view of the fact that the accident in which Holloway was injured occurred at approximately 9:00 in the evening, a time which, in the ordinary course of events, would appear to be after Holloway had completed his duties as an employee of the farming enterprise. There was certainly evidence in the record to support a finding that these farm e
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mississippi DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|