Goodhew v. Industrial Accident Commission

RICHARDS, J. pro tem.

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Petitioner, Geneva Goodhew, widow of the deceased employee, James H. Goodhew, Jr., who was president of the respondent-employer, Goodhew Ambulance Service, Inc., seeks annulment of that part of a

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decision after reconsideration made by the respondent Industrial Accident Commission which denied her the increased compensation provided by Labor Code, section 4554, recoverable upon an employer’s wilful failure to secure payment of compensation by insurance or otherwise.

James H. Goodhew, Jr., the deceased, died on August 20, 1955, as the result of an automobile accident and the respondent commission found that the injury proximately causing his death arose out of and occurred in the course of his employment and ordered payment of the normal death benefits by the employer to the widow and minor child. The commission also found that at the time of the injury, the employer was uninsured as to the decedent, but not wilfully so, and that both the employer and employee were subject to the provisions of the workmen’s compensation laws.

The question presented in this proceeding is whether the commission’s conclusional finding and determination on reconsideration that the employer was not “wilfully” uninsured and therefore not liable for increased compensation pursuant to the provisions of section 4554, are based upon a tenable concept of the law.

Labor Code, section 4554, in pertinent part, provides as follows: “In ease of the wilful failure by an employer to secure the payment of compensation, the amotint of compensation otherwise recoverable for injury or death as provided in this division shall be increased ten per cent . . . Failure of the employer to secure the payment of compensation ... is prima facie evidence of wilfulness on his part.”

The only evidence relating to the matter of compensation coverage and bearing on the question of the wilfulness of the employer in failing to provide coverage as to its officers was uneontradicted and is substantially as follows: The employer had originally arranged through an insurance broker some four or five years previously for workmen’s compensation insurance coverage; said coverage so arranged for had been kept in effect since that time by annual renewals of the policy; at the time the coverage was originally arranged, the broker discussed with the decedent, who was president of Goodhew Ambulance Service, Inc., and Mr. W. I. Goodhew, its secretary, the matter of compensation coverage for the corporate officers; the broker explained to the decedent and to Mr. W. I. Goodhew that the law required coverage on all employees, including the corporate officers, but that coverage excluding the corporate officers would be less expensive and