W. R. Rideout Co. v. Pillsbury

MELVIN, J.

Certiorari to review the action of the Industrial Accident Commission in awarding compensation for the death of one Francisco Coelho who, on June 27, 1914, fell from a barge which was being towed up the Oakland estuary and was drowned.

[133]

Coelho was a deckhand on a barge operated by the W. R. Rideout Company. His duties consisted in helping to load and unload the barge. On the day in question he went to work in San Francisco at 6 o’clock and shortly after that hour the barge was started on its trip to Oakland. Coelho had no duties to perform during the voyage. There was a house provided for the men on board the barge, and the evidence tended to show that some of them were in that place amusing themselves by playing cards during the trip. There was testimony to the fact that a breeze was blowing, but nothing to indicate that the weather was unusually stormy. Some of the witnesses said that the bay and the estuary were “a little rough,” but explained that the disturbance of the water was about that which might result from the passing of a steamer. Set into the deck were six or seven posts each three and one-half feet high and twelve or fifteen inches from the edge of the barge. After the barge had entered the estuary, one of the men went out on deck to get the lunch baskets for himself and his fellow-workmen. He observed Coelho leaning against one of the posts. He was, as this man testified, “inside of the post,” meaning doubtless on the side of the post farthest from the edge of the barge. Coelho was apparently asleep. The man, Rodrigues, pulled Coelho’s coat and said: “Frank, you crazy! Come on inside.” To which Coelho answered: “No. Leave me alone.” Rodrigues then left him and he was never again seen alive. His body was afterward washed ashore at a point near the place where the conversation between Rodrigues and Coelho took place.

The majority of the Industrial Accident Commission found that Coelho’s death was accidental; that it happened while he was performing a service growing out of, incidental to, and in the course of his employment, and was not caused by the willful misconduct or intoxication of the employee.

There was an attempt at the hearing before the commission to prove that Coelho was intoxicated, but it was without success, and the finding that death was not due to intoxication was the only one proper under the circumstances.