tory time but which still have a reasonable time left for prosecution before the statutory time expires.

A third rule is to construe the statute as affecting existing causes of action but as commencing to run at the time when the statute takes effect, so that pre-existing causes of action not already barred are treated as if accruing at the time of the enactment of the new statute.

The last rule is that adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States. Lewis vs. Lewis, 7 How. 776, 12 L. Ed. 909; Sohn vs. Waterson, 17 Wall. 596, 21 L. Ed. 737. See also 1 Wood, Limitations (4th Ed.) p. 76; 25 Cyc. 994; Ann. Cas. 1912A, 1041, note.

The first rule is, however, the rule adopted in this state. State ex rel. Anderson vs. General A. F. & L. A. Corp., 134 Minn, 21, 158 N. W. 715, and cases there cited.

The rules are inconsistent. We cannot adopt any two. adhere to the rule already firmly established in this state. Order affirmed.

We

SUPREME COURT OF MINNESOTA.

'STATE EX REL. RAU

VS.

DISTRICT COURT, RAMSEY COUNTY, ET AL. (No. 20535.)*

1. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT-SUNSTROKE AN AC

CIDENT.

"Sunstroke" is a personal injury caused by accident within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act.

2. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT-ARISING OUT OF EMPLOYMENT.

Where employee is exposed to the happening of an event causing the accident by the working conditions of the plant, there is no longer a risk to which all are exposed and the result is an accident arising out of employment.

Certiorari in Supreme Court by the State, on relation of Lena Rau, against the District Court of Ramsey County and others, to review a judgment denying compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act to relator, the widow of George Rau, an employee of the Respondent City Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

of St. Paul.

*

Kueffner & Marks, of St. Paul, for Relator.

O. H. Paul, for Respondents.

Decision rendered, Nov. 2, 1917. 164 N. W. Rep. 916.

QUINN, J. Certiorari to review a judgment of the district court of Ramsey County, denying compensation, under the Workmen's Compensation Act, to the relator, Lena Rau, widow of the decedent, George Rau, who was an employee of the respondent city.

For a number of years George Rau had been employed by the city of St. Paul, doing manual labor on its streets at $2 a day, under the direction of a foreman, during which time he and the defendant were bound by and subject to the provisions of part 2 of chapter 467, Laws of Minnesota for 1913, and amendments thereto. On July 1, 1916, while so employed, he was working on East Robie street. The day was hot. He was working in the open, with no protection from the rays of the sun. The street was sandy. It had rained the night before, and the sand was moist. During the early part of the afternoon decedent and his fellow workmen rested for a time in the shade near by. They resumed work about 3 o'clock. Shortly thereafter Rau was at work near the middle of the street. A workman saw him stagger and went to his assistance. The foreman gave him a drink of water and then took him to the hospital, arriving there at about 4:30. Rau was in an unconscious condition; temperature, 110; pulse, 110. He regained consciousness at about 11 o'clock that evening. The doctor in charge stated that Rau was suffering from sunstroke. On the following day he was conscious and took liquid diet. He left the hospital on the afternoon of the 3d; and on the 4th Dr. Endress was called to the Rau home, and found Rau's temperature 102 and pulse 100. On the 5th he was improved, but died on the morning of the 7th. The trial court found that the cause of death was sunstroke.

The record contains none of the testimony offered upon the trial, and the case must be considered solely upon the findings of the trial court and determined upon deductions therefrom.

[1] The question here for determination is: Did Rau come to his death by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, within the meaning of the Compensation Act? If he did, then the relator is entitled to recover compensation, and the judgment of the district court should be reversed; otherwise, affirmed.

The term "accident," as used in the Compensation Act and as therein defined, shall-"be construed to mean an unexpected or unforeseen event, happening suddenly and violently, with or without human fault and producing at the time, injury to the physical structure of the body." G. S. 1913, § 8230.

The first inquiry is: What is sunstroke? It is stated, in effect, in Hare's Practice of Medicine, 1915, that sunstroke, more properly called heat stroke, is a condition of the body produced by great heat; that the chief factor is the presence of great heat, associated, as a rule, with marked humidity and physical exertion; and that heat stroke may occur at night as well as day, provided

the atmosphere is hot and moist. Webster's New International Dictionary defines sunstroke as:—

"An affection often fatal, due to exposure to the sun or excessive heat and marked by sudden prostration, with symptoms like those of apoplexy."

The Encyclopedia Americana article on the subject begins:"Sunstroke; prostration due to exposure to intense external heat. Such exposure may be due to the direct and indirect rays of a tropical sun or to the excessive heat of an engine room. In either case heat and physical exertion combine to bring about the results. A high degree of humidity of the atmosphere is one of the most important features, since this hinders free evaporation from the body."

The conditions surrounding decedent at the time of his injury exposed him to an unusual danger, different from that to which the masses engaged in like employment were subjected. It had rained the night before; the sand was wet; the sun's rays direct, thereby enhancing liability to sunstroke. Decedent was exposed to the direct rays of the sun, in addition to the humid atmosphere emanating from the wet street.

That the injury was sustained in the course of the employment is not denied; that it was an unexpected and unforeseen event" is not questioned; and we have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that it was an event "producing at the time injury to the physical structure of the body happening suddenly and violently." It is undisputed that the day was extremely hot. The men had rested for three-quarters of an hour in the shade and

had returned

middle of th

foreman

immed

was

rema

to their labor. Decedent was at work near the He had be ere street, when, all at once, he was seen to stagger. epen overcome; had suffered a sunstroke. This was a violent inc jury produced by an external power, not natural. The came to his assistance, gave him a drink of water, and ately removed him to a hospital, where his temperature ound to be 110 and pulse 110. He was unconscious, and ned in that state until 11 o'clock that evening. The intense hea t of the sun, associated with the humidity of the atmosphere hanating from the wet sand, as an external cause, was a violent gency, in the sense that it worked upon decedent so as to cause fis injury and death. The conclusion that his death was caused by violent and external means is inevitable. That a death is unnatural imports a violent agency as the cause. Paul vs. Travelers' Ins. Co., 112 N. Y. 472, 20 N.E. 347, 3 L. R. A. 443, 8 Am. St. Rep. 758; Pickett vs. Pacific Ins. Ins. Co., 144 Pa. 79, 22 Atl. 871, 13 L. R. A. 661, 27 Am. St. Rep. 618.

em

In the cases of Ismay vs. Williamson [1908] A. C. 437, Morgan vs. Owners of Steamship Zenaida, 2 B. W. C. C. 19, and Davies vs. Gillespie, 5 B. W. C. C. 64, death by heat stroke was held to be an accident within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act. In the Ismay Case a In the Ismay Case a workman, in a weak and

emaciated condition, while raking ashes from under the boiler in a stokehole of a steamer, received a heat stroke from the effect of which he died. In affirming a recovery in that case, Lord Loreburn stated:

or not.

"To my mind the weakness of the deceased which predisposed him to this form of attack is immaterial. The fact that a man who has died from a heat stroke was by physical debility more likely than others so to suffer can have nothing to do with the question whether what befell him is to be regarded as an accident died from an * * In my mind this man accident. What killed him was a heat stroke coming suddenly and unexpectedly upon him while at work. Such a stroke is an unusual effect of a known cause, often, no doubt, threatened, but generally averted by precautions which experience in this instance had not taught. It was an unlooked-for mishap in the course of his employment. In common language, it was a case of accidental death."

Concurring in this opinion, Lord Ashbourne remarked :—

"Was this an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment? With great deference to those who hold a contrary opinion, I can myself e no room for serious doubt on the subject. Everything was in the course of his employment and dund the heat stroke, and the arising out of it. But for the boiler a he have been no accident. speedy exhaustion is caused, there would he led a disease, it is in

* * Although a heat stroke may be cane sed by an accident this case, in my opinion, a disease directly cau tnent, particularly arising out of or in the course of an employn he weak state of dangerous to Williamson, in consequence of his

health."

Lan ordinary

In the Morgan Case the workman was engaged as adhip was at seaman on board the steamship Zenaida, while the sh the side port off the Mexican coast. He was ordered to go overoned with to paint the vessel. The heat was excessive, he was seize was of sunstroke, and his health was impaired. The trial court arose the opinion that he was suffering from an accident which thomout of and in the course of his employment, and awarded ce, eld pensation. Upon review the award was sustained, it being h that the case was governed by the decision in the Ismay Case.at There is a marked contrast between the sudden and violen effect of a sunstroke and the drinking of water infected with typhoid germs, as it requires days of time after the infection for the disease to develop, as held in State ex rel. Faribault Woolen Mills Co. vs. District Court of Rice County, 164 N. W. 810.

[2] Where the work and the conditions of the place where it is carried on expose the employee to the happening of an event causing the accident, there is no longer a risk to which all are exposed, and the result is an accident arising out of the employment. Andrews vs. Failsworth Society, 20 Times R. R. 429; State ex rel. Virginia & Rainy Lake Co. vs. District Court of St.

Louis County, 164 N. W. 585, and cases cited. Was decedent exposed to something more than the normal risk to which men, in general, engaged in manual labor upon the streets, are subjected in hot weather? If he was, then he was exposed to an extra danger arising out of his employment; and if that contributed to the accident, then the accident arose out of the employment. We are of the opinion that there was a substantial abnormally increased risk, owing to the character of the street coupled with its moist condition, which contributed to the cause of the accident.

Reversed and remanded for further proceedings in accordance with the views herein expressed.

SUPREME COURT OF MINNESOTA.

STATE EX REL. NELSON

VS.

DISTRICT COURT, RAMSEY COUNTY, ET AL. (No. 20662.)

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION-“ARISING OUT OF EMPLOYMENT" FREEZING.

The evidence is held to sustain a finding that the injury to the relator, a janitor, who was frozen in severely cold weather while shoveling snow from the sidewalks about a building, was an accidental injury "arising out of his employment" within the Workmen's Compensation Act (Gen. St. 1913, c. 84a).

aga

Certiorari in Supreme Court by the State, on relation of C. N. Nelson, Linst the District Court, Ramsey County, and others, to review a judgment denying relator compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Judgment reversed.

John I. Levin, of St. Paul, for Relator.

E. A. Prendergast, of Minneapolis, for Respondents.

DIBELL, C.

Certiorari to the Ramsey County district court to review a judgment denying the relator compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

The relator was employed by the Northwestern Telephone Exchange Company. While so employed he froze his big toe and the freezing resulted in the amputation of his leg. The injury was sustained in the course of his employment. The court

* Decision rendered, Nov. 2, 1917. 164 N. W. Rep. 917. Syllabus by the Court.

Vol. I-Comp. 7.