## Facts

- Ray Bridges worked as a helper in a produce warehouse, loading vegetables onto his employer’s truck.
- While Bridges was performing this work, a coworker/supervisor (a “checker”) directed his tasks and repeatedly addressed him by the nickname “Shorty.”
- Bridges resented the nickname and, after it continued, insulted the supervisor.
- The supervisor then struck Bridges in the face, causing a laceration to the right eyebrow and a fracture of the right maxilla.
- The deputy commissioner found Bridges did not strike or attempt to strike the supervisor and that the supervisor was the aggressor.
- The deputy commissioner concluded the injury had its origin in the employment and arose out of and in the course of employment, and entered a compensation order under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (as applied in the District of Columbia).
- The employer’s carrier sought to enjoin enforcement of the compensation order, conceding the injury occurred in the course of employment but arguing it did not arise out of employment because it stemmed from a purely personal quarrel.

## Issues

1. Whether a workplace assault triggered by teasing and an exchange of insults during supervisory direction can be found to “arise out of” employment under the LHWCA.
2. Whether a court may set aside the deputy commissioner’s “arising out of” finding where the record contains evidence supporting a work-related origin for the dispute.

## Decision

- The court affirmed dismissal of the carrier’s injunction action and left the compensation order in force.
- It held there was evidence supporting the deputy commissioner’s finding that the assault-related injury arose out of employment.
- It rejected the carrier’s attempt to recharacterize the incident as a purely personal quarrel requiring judicial reweighing of facts.

## Legal Principles

- An injury is compensable under the LHWCA if it arises out of and in the course of employment.
- In reviewing a compensation order, courts do not retry facts; they ask whether the deputy commissioner’s findings are supported by evidence and are within statutory authority.
- Workplace assaults may arise out of employment when the employment relationship, duties, and supervisory interactions create the conditions and relations leading to the altercation, even if the immediate trigger is verbal friction.
- A claimant’s verbal insult, without physical aggression by the claimant, does not by itself defeat compensability where the fact-finder reasonably attributes the dispute’s origin to work-related interactions.

## Conclusion

The court sustained the compensation award because the deputy commissioner could reasonably find that the assault grew out of workplace supervision and on-the-job relations, and judicial review was limited to whether that finding had evidentiary support rather than whether the court would draw different factual inferences.


Hartford Accident & Indem. Co. v. Cardillo, 112 F.2d 11 (D.C. Cir. 1940)