Hall v. Puente Oil Co.

SHAW, J.

Defendants appeal from a judgment in favor, of plaintiff, awarded as damages for personal injuries.

Roberts was employed by his codefendant, whose place of business was in Los Angeles, as a traveling salesman of oil,

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and, in the performance of his duty, which required him to travel in Los Angeles and adjoining counties, the Oil Company provided him with an automobile and at all times furnished the oil and gasoline necessary in the operation thereof. His daily duties covered the period from 8 o’clock A. M. to 5 o’clock P. M. With the consent of his employer, Roberts used a garage at his home in Alhambra, wherein the car was kept at night and when not in use. In addition to his use of the car in traveling back and forth from his residence to the oil company’s place of business in Los Angeles he had the privilege, when not on duty to his employer, of using it for pleasure rides and purposes of his own. On the day of the accident he returned from Orange County to the yard of the Oil Company at approximately 5 o’clock P. M.; whereupon, his day’s work being at an end, he, in his car, came up town, in Los Angeles, where, at Fourth and Spring Streets, he had an appointment to meet a friend at 7 o’clock, who was to accompany him to a meeting of the lodge of Elks in Alhambra. During the time between his arrival uptown, at about a quarter after 5 o’clock, and 7 o’clock, at which hour he met his friend, he wandered around town, “loafing and taking a drink here and there.” At 7 o’clock he left Fourth and Spring Streets, Los Angeles, for the lodge-rooms at Alhambra, and at First Street the automobile operated by Roberts collided with plaintiff, who was thereby injured.

Upon these facts the trial court found that it was untrue, as alleged in the answer of defendant Puente Oil Company, that John J. Roberts, at the time of said accident, was operating the car on and about a mission of his own and not within the course or scope of his employment as an employee of said Oil Company, or in the performance of any act for or on behalf of said Oil Company; and also found that “the defendant John J. Roberts, while engaged within the general scope of his said employment, carelessly and negligently drove and operated the said Ford automobile, then and there the property of the said Puente Oil Company.”