112 F.2d 11, 15 (D.C. Cir. 1940)
On October 10, 1938, Ray Bridges was employed as a helper in the Sanitary Grocery Company, Inc. produce warehouse.1 While engaged in loading vegetables on the employer's truck under the supervision of checker Roy Downey, Bridges sustained personal injury when Downey assaulted him.2
The assault followed Downey repeatedly addressing Bridges as "Shorty," which Bridges resented.3 Bridges responded by calling Downey a vile name, after which Downey struck him on the right side of the face with his fist. The blow caused a laceration of the right eyebrow and a fracture of the right maxilla. Bridges did not strike or attempt to strike Downey, and Downey was the aggressor.4
For about two months before the incident, Downey and Bridges had engaged while at work in friendly banter concerning the respective merits of their watches. This banter was renewed on the morning of the injury.5 The record shows no private or personal relations between them outside the workplace.6
The deputy commissioner of the United States Employees' Compensation Commission found that the injury had its origin in the employment and arose out of and in the course of the employment. He issued a compensation order favoring Bridges.7
Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, the employer's insurance carrier, filed a complaint in the District Court against deputy commissioner Frank A. Cardillo and Bridges to enjoin enforcement of the compensation order. The District Court dismissed the complaint, after which Hartford appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.8
Whether the claimant's injury resulting from an assault by a co-worker during workplace interactions arose out of his employment under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act?9
Under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, an injury arises out of employment when the work brings the employee within the orbit of perils from the working environment, including associations, frictions, and emotional flare-ups among co-workers, even if the immediate precipitating incident is personal or involves fault short of the statutory bars; recovery is denied only if the injury was occasioned solely by the intoxication of the employee or by the willful intention of the employee to injure or kill himself or another, and the statute creates a presumption of compensability absent substantial evidence to the contrary.10
Yes. The work of loading vegetables on the employer's truck placed Bridges and Downey together in the produce warehouse under Downey's supervision, where Downey repeatedly addressed Bridges as Shorty in the course of giving orders and the two renewed their two-month workplace banter about watches, with no private relations shown outside the job.11 These conditions inherent in the working environment produced the resentment, the vile name-calling, and Downey's assault, in which Bridges was not the aggressor and engaged in no conduct meeting the statutory exceptions of intoxication or willful intent to injure.
The injury arose out of the employment, the compensation order is valid, and the District Court properly dismissed the complaint seeking to enjoin its enforcement.12
Related opinions on this issue
Associate Justice Stephens concurred in the result of affirming the District Court's dismissal of the complaint seeking to enjoin the compensation order.13 His concurrence in the result alone signals agreement that the deputy commissioner's finding of compensability should stand and that Bridges' injury arose out of the employment.14 Justice Stephens did not join the majority opinion or articulate any separate analysis regarding the principles governing workplace assaults, the rejection of an immediate-relevancy test for causation, or the statutory presumption favoring compensability.15
The absence of a separate writing means his position adds no distinct grounds beyond endorsing the outcome reached by the court.16