DeFreece v. Industrial Accident Commission

THE COURT.

Clark DeFreece died January 20, 1935, as the result of injuries received in December, 1933, while in the employ of a laundry company. The insurance carrier furnished all necessary medical aid and paid him compensation from the date of the injury until his death, at which time an additional sum was paid for funeral expenses. Thereafter the petitioners herein filed with the Industrial Accident Commission their joint application for compensation on account of his death, and after a hearing on the merits the application was denied. Petitioners then instituted this proceeding in

certiorari

for the purpose of having the commission’s decision reviewed and annulled.

The application filed with the commission was based upon the ground that at the time the decedent was injured and at the time of his death, petitioners were members in good faith of his family and household, and therefore were entitled to compensation under the provisions of subdivision e, section 14, of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The commission found against them, however, on that issue, and the determinative question here presented is whether, as petitioners contend, said finding is wholly unsupported by the evidence.

There is little dispute as to the facts, the controversy having arisen mainly over the conclusions drawn from those facts. It appears therefrom that Bessie DeFreece (who will be hereinafter referred to as petitioner) formerly lived in the

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státe of Washington. She was married to one Marion J. Lennox; and Donald and Theda Lennox (the other two petitioners) aged respectively twenty and eighteen years at the time of DeFreece’s death, were the issue of the Lennox marriage. In 1918 petitioner separated from Lennox in Washington, and in 1922 moved with her children to the home of her parents in San Jose, California, where on May 6, 1927, she obtained an interlocutory decree of divorce from Lennox. She had known DeFreece in Washington, and a few months subsequent to her arrival in San Jose he moved to that city. Contemplating marriage, they purchased a home in San J ose in their joint names, and early in September, 1928, which was more than one year after the entry of the interlocutory decree of divorce, and believing, so she claimed, that the final decree had been entered, they went to Reno, Nevada, to be married. They arrived there on the Sunday before Labor Day, and petitioner claimed that they were informed that the marriage license office was closed, and that a license to marry could not be obtained until Tuesday morning. She further claimed that DeFreece was obliged to be back at work in California on Tuesday morning, so they entered into an oral common-law marriage contract (which contracts were recognized as valid in the state of Nevada), went to an auto camp in Reno Sunday night, and registered and cohabited as husband and wife. The next day they returned to San Jose, announced to their relatives and friends that they had been married, and thereafter lived together as husband and wife until the death of DeFreece. Some of the time petitioner’s children lived with them. During such relationship they filed a homestead on their home, and acquired other property in their joint names, as husband and wife. In the meantime and shortly after DeFreece was injured they went to Oregon, one of the purposes of the trip being to have a marriage ceremony performed, but they abandoned the idea upon learning that in that state one of the prerequisites to marriage was the obtaining and presentation of a health certificate, which they feared DeFreece, on account of his injured condition, would be unable to secure, so they returned to San Jose, and as stated, lived together as husband and wife until DeFreece died. Immediately following DeFreece’s death, petitioner consulted an attorney in San Jose with the view to filing an application for compensation, and she learned