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58 N.M. 183

268 P.2d 579

Walker v. Woldridge

New Mexico Supreme Court

Decided February 17, 1954

New Mexico Supreme Court · decided 1954-02-17

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1954-02-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently February 2009 · most notably Frederick v. Younger Van Lines (1964), Brundage v. KL House Construction Company (1964)

43 state decisions

170195419601970198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

SADLER, Justice

¶1(concurring specially).

¶2The opinion by Mr. Justice COMPTON reaches a correct result. In my view, however, a recovery is barred, not simply, or at all, because the claimant violated instructions as such, but because that violation in this particular case took the accident it caused out of the category of one “arising out of and in the course of” his employment and, hence, outside the protection afforded by the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Furthermore, under the facts here present as found by the trial court, the accident was of such a nature that it placed the injury suffered; even if deemed to “arise out of and in the course of” his employment beyond premissible recovery because one “wilfully .suffered.” 1941 Comp., § 57-90P

¶3If is not every- departure from specific instructions that will bar a recovery. See annotations in 23 A.L.R. 1161; 26 A.L.R. 166; 58 A.L.R. 197; 83 A.L.R. 1211 and 119 A.L.R. 1409. It is so. only when the departure is of such a nature as to deny any accident consequent on its character as one “arising out of and' in the course of his employment”, within the purview of 1941 Comp., § 57-902. This violation of instructions places the ensuing accident outside the purview of the section just mentioned and bars recovery. Furthermore, because the violation was of a character to classify the injury as one “wilfully suffered” within 1941 Comp., § 57-908, as found by the trial court, even if the claimant had en"joy.ed the protection of the act, a recovery-would have to he denied. The case •is a tragic one. A youth at the threshold 'of young manhood is blinded for life but the facts- are unbending and will not support a recovery. The opinion of Mr. Justice COMPTON so holds.

¶4Accordingly, I- concur in the result declared.

McGHEE, C. J., agrees with SAD-LER, J.
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