Walker v. Industrial Accident Commission
Before: Sloss
Synopsis
Workmen’s Compensation Act—Review op Commission’s Award— Questions op Pact — Jurisdiction op Supreme Court.—The authority of the supreme court on review of an award of the Industrial Accident Commission on questions of fact to annul such award is restricted .to eases where the finding of the commission is without any evidence whatever to support it. Where there is a conflict in the testimony, or where opposing inferences may reasonably be drawn, the commission is the final arbiter.
Id.—Lodging-house Keeper—Casual Employee—Liability por Injuries.—Evidence that a lodging-house keeper was in the habit of employing someone to help out the chambermaid in taking up carpets and matting, and cleaning walls, transoms, windows, and curtains, warranted the conclusion that the person employed was engaged in the usual course of business of the employer, covering the normal operations which formed part of the ordinary business carried on by the lodging-house keeper, and that the person so employed, though only casually employed, was not excluded from the benefits of the Workmen’s Compensation Act by section 14, which excludes from its benefits any person “whose employment is both casual and not in the usual course of the trade, business, profession, or occupation of his employer.”
Id.—Intermittent Character op Employment. — The intermittent character of the employment is not of itself sufficient to exclude it from the purview of the statute, since section 14 of the act does not except employments that are casual simply, but those that are both casual and not in the usual course of the business.
SLOSS, J.
The petitioner, Pearl P. Walker, conducted at Stockton a lodging-house containing seventeen rooms. The applicant, Louis J. Robinson, was employed by Miss Walker to do certain work in cleaning the house, and while so occupied met with an accidental injury which destroyed the sight of one of his eyes.
Section 14 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act excludes from the benefits of the law any person “whose employment is both casual and not in the usual course of the trade, business, profession or occupation of his employer.” The commission found that Robinson’s employment was casual, but that it was in the usual course of the business or occupation of the petitioner. It is contended, and this is the sole point made, that there was no evidence to support the latter part of this finding.
Our authority, with respect to the commission’s conclusions on questions of fact, goes no further than to permit the annulment of an award where the commission’s finding of a fact is without any evidence whatever to support it. Where there is a conflict in the testimony, or where opposing inferences may reasonably be drawn, the commission is the final arbiter.
The evidence embodied in the record indicates that it was a necessary part of petitioner’s business to keep the rooms and hallways of her lodging-house in a state of cleanliness and good order. A chambermaid was employed continuously. The maid was, however, not able to do all the work, and her
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efforts had to be supplemented by a man called in from time to time. The work for which Eobinson was engaged was the taking up of carpets or matting, and the cleaning of walls, transoms, windows, and curtains. Miss Walker herself testified that she was in the habit of employing someone to do that kind of work occasionally, and the chambermaid stated that ever since Eobinson’s injury another man had been doing similar work off and on. This testimony warranted the conclusion that the employment of Eobinson was in the “usual course of the business” of the petitioner. The case is not like those cited by petitioner, in which occasional repairs or overhauling were held not to be covered by this phrase. Various cases of this kind, involving a construction of the English act, were reviewed by us in
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