Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

TAPPAAN, J.,

pro tem.

Petitioner by writ of

certiorari

seeks a review of an award made by respondent Industrial Accident Commission in favor of respondent Wilford Farrow, a newsboy, and prays that the award be annulled.

The injury for which compensation was awarded was sustained by respondent Farrow while engaged as a newsboy in the selling of newspapers upon the streets of the city of Los Angeles. Petitioner is the insurance carrier for the news

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paper held chargeable by the award with the payment of compensation. The evidence introduced at the hearing before the Commission, though conflicting as to some of its details, was to the effect that petitioner’s insured engaged the injured boy as a newsboy to sell its papers, and had the right to discharge him in the event it so desired. Petitioner stresses the fact that the newsboy in this case did not have the right to return the papers delivered to him for sale, but that in the event any such papers were unsold at the end of the day, the newsboy was required to pay for such papers.

The sole question presented to the Industrial Accident Commission and to this court is a question of law as to whether the injured newsboy came within the category of a compensable employee, within the meaning and intent of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, or at the time of his injury, he occupied the relation analogous to that of an independent contractor in the vending of the newspapers and so was not entitled to an award under the provisions of said act.

Petitioner cites and relies upon the case of

New York Indemnity Co.

v.

Industrial Acc. Com.,

213 Cal. 43 [1 Pac. (2d) 12]. The facts as presented by the record in the instant case, when compared with those in the above-cited case, differ to no material extent.' The following language used in that case is, except as to some minor details, fully sustained by the record presented here (p. 25) :