Southern Pac. Co. v. Indus. Accident Comm'n

The Industrial Accident Commission made an award in favor of the dependents of William T. Butler, who was killed while working as an electric lineman in the employ of petitioner, Southern Pacific Company. Said company operates a system of electric railway lines in Alameda County, its cars being used in both intrastate and interstate commerce. For the generation of electric power the company maintains at Fruitvale a main power-house, whence an alternating current of high voltage is transmitted through a main power line to substations. At the substations the current passes through converters and transformers, which convert it to a direct current and reduce its voltage. The direct current, thus reduced, passes to the trolley wires, and from them to the motors on the cars.

When Butler sustained the fatal injury, which was caused by an electric shock, he was engaged in wiping insulators on the main power line between the Fruitvale power-house and the substations. *Page 22

This writ of review was issued to test the validity of the employer's claim that the commission was without jurisdiction to make an award, for the reason that Butler was engaged in interstate commerce, within the purview of the act of Congress of April 22, 1908. In its findings the commission, after setting forth in some detail the circumstances surrounding the employee's injury, declares "that while said employee was working as aforesaid between said power-house and said substation, the electricity which caused said electric shock had not reached its point of distribution to said electric cars, and he was employed in work preliminary to the running of said electric cars, and that, therefore, he was not employed in interstate commerce."

Upon the question whether a given employment falls within the scope of the federal act we must look to the decisions of the courts of the United States as of controlling force. InShanks v. Delaware, L. W. R. R. Co., 239 U.S. 556, [L. R. A. 1916C, 797, 60 L.Ed. 436, 36 Sup. Ct. Rep. 188], the court said: "The true test of employment in such commerce in the sense intended is, Was the employee at the time of the injury engaged in interstate transportation or in work so closely related to it as to be practically a part of it?" The commission was, no doubt, seeking to apply this test, and we take it that the word "preliminary," though perhaps not an altogether appropriate term, was used by it in its finding to express the idea that the work in which Butler was engaged was not so closely related to interstate transportation as to be a part of it.

The opinion in the Shanks case refers to a number of earlier cases in which, upon varying facts, the federal statute had been held to be applicable or inapplicable. Upon examination of these decisions, it will be found that each case turned upon the peculiar facts of the employment in question. It may be said, however, that the decisive consideration is always the closeness or remoteness of the particular work, as related to interstate transportation. In this court it has been held that a mechanic engaged in repairing a switch-engine which was used in the transportation of commerce, interstate and intrastate, was engaged in interstate commerce within the meaning of the act (Southern Pac. Co. v. Pillsbury, 170 Cal. 782, [L. R. A. 1916E, 916, 151 P. 277]); that a watchman on a main steam line was engaged in interstate commerce *Page 23 (Southern Pac. Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 174 Cal. 8, [L. R. A. 1917E, 262, 161 P. 1139]); as was a lineman who was removing a telephone wire which had fallen on the trolley wire of the same lines involved in this proceeding. (SouthernPac. Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 174 Cal. 19, [161 P. 1143].)