You Be The Judge by Jose Schorr

by Jose Schorr (Source unknown. From George W. Harper Collection) Juan enlivened his dull job of road repairing by wooing the wives who lived along the road. One day when Juan was whistling while he worked, an irate husband shot him.  Juan later sued his boss for a workmen’s compensation award to pay for his wounds. “If the boss hadn’t put me to repairing a road where all the women go past smiling,” Juan argued, “I never would have been shot for smiling back at one of them.” “The shooting had nothing to do with Juan’s job,” the boss replied. “He was chasing after another man’s wife, and got what was coming to him. Is a wrongdoer to be protected at his employer’s expense?”

If you were the judge, would you award Juan workmen’s compensation?

Amazingly, Juan received workmen’s compensation. The court agreed that he would not have been shot if he had not been working on the road at the time. “The work,” said the court, “subjected the employee to a peril that came from the fact that he was required to be in the place where and when it struck.” Based upon a 1952 Louisiana decision.