Peterson v. Moran

HANSON, J. pro tem.

The question brought here for determination is whether the relation of master and servant between the parties here involved terminated instantly upon the discharge of the servant on the premises of the employer or whether the relation with respect to any injuries thereafter sustained by the servant continued until he left the premises, even though he did not proceed to leave them as quickly as he could have done. The answer, we think, depends entirely upon whether the servant’s delay in quitting the premises was unreasonably prolonged. If it was not, then the injury the respondent sustained was compensable, as we view it, under the Workmen’s Compensation Act only and not by any action in court, such as was instituted, and which resulted in a verdict and judgment in his favor.

On the date of his discharge the plaintiff was employed as a carpenter by the defendant Hermann, a building contractor doing business as the Hermann Company. At the close of his day’s work the employee placed his personal tools in his carpenter kit as was his custom and privilege and started for a gate which was the only exit from the fenced premises. A short distance from the gate he met his employer’s timekeeper who handed him two checks for his labor up to and

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including the day in question, although it was not payday, and then demanded his employee identification button. The employee promptly accepted the checks and handed over the button, but thereupon inquired why he was being discharged. The timekeeper replied he would have to ask the foreman, who at the moment was on the premises only some 20 feet away. The plaintiff thereupon walked over to the foreman and put the same question to him. The answer of the foreman that he was “ho damn good” brought on a short running argument between the parties which led to an assault and battery by the foreman upon the plaintiff, after the latter had picked up his tool kit and dinner pail and started to resume his trip toward the exit. The sharp evidential controversy directed to the point whether the plaintiff turned back to speak to the foreman or otherwise detoured in his progress toward the gate we regard as of no materiality.

Under the express language of the Workmen’s Compensation Act its provisions “shall be liberally construed by the courts with the purpose of extending their benefits for the protection of persons injured in the course of their employment.” (Lab. Code, § 3202.) This statutory injunction necessarily implies and requires that the courts shall conclude where the question is reasonably debatable that injuries sustained by persons injured in the course of their employment fall within and not without the purview of the statute. The wishes or desires of either the employee or employer are a false quantity and are not to be regarded. As was aptly stated in