## Facts

- Mrs. Ready worked for Joe Ready’s Shell Station & Cafe as a bookkeeper and performed her bookkeeping duties at home with her employer’s approval and the insurer’s knowledge for about five years.
- Her regular home work area was a living room couch and small table where she sat to do the books.
- A station employee brought a 16-gauge Browning automatic shotgun (owned by Mrs. Ready’s husband) from the station to Mrs. Ready’s home and left it on the couch when no one was home.
- After finishing her on-site duties at the station, Mrs. Ready returned home, completed personal activities, and went to the living room intending to begin her bookkeeping for the evening.
- Finding the shotgun on the couch where she needed to sit, she picked it up to move it to the closet where it was normally kept.
- The gun accidentally discharged, injuring her hand and resulting in amputation of her left thumb.
- A referee awarded workers’ compensation benefits; the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation Commission and the circuit court affirmed; the employer and insurer appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether an injury suffered at home while moving a household firearm to clear the employee’s usual work station, immediately before commencing employer-authorized bookkeeping, “arose out of and in the course of” employment under the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation Act.

## Decision

- The Mississippi Supreme Court was evenly divided (4–4), resulting in an affirmance of the circuit court judgment that upheld the compensation award.
- The effect of the affirmance was to leave intact a determination that the injury was compensable as work-connected.
- The affirming justices reasoned that the home had become an authorized place of employment for bookkeeping, the injury occurred while the employee was about to begin work, and fault or negligence did not control compensability.
- The opposing justices viewed the gun-related accident as a domestic, personal-risk event and the act of moving the gun as an intervening personal activity rather than part of the employment.

## Legal Principles

- Compensability turns on whether there was a work-connected injury; negligence and fault generally do not affect the result in workers’ compensation.
- An injury “arises out of and in the course of” employment when it occurs at an authorized work location and during work or immediate work-related preparation.
- An employer-approved home work arrangement can treat areas of the home used for assigned duties as part of the employment premises for purposes of the statutory test.
- When a state supreme court is evenly divided, the lower court’s judgment is affirmed by operation of procedure, leaving the underlying award in place without a controlling majority rationale.

## Conclusion

Because the Mississippi Supreme Court divided evenly, it affirmed the judgment upholding the workers’ compensation award, effectively treating the employee’s home work area as an authorized worksite and the injury as sufficiently connected to commencing assigned bookkeeping duties to satisfy the “arising out of and in the course of” requirement.


Ready’s Shell Station & Cafe v. Ready, 65 So. 2d 268 (Miss. 1953)