Leroux v. Industrial Accident Commission

THOMPSON, J. This is a review of an order of the Industrial Accident Commission refusing to make an award of compensation against an insurance company for injuries feceived by the petitioner in the course of his employment while he was engaged in performing farm labor for his brother, W. G. Leroux.

The only question involved in this proceeding is whether the Aetna Life Insurance Company, which was the insurer of the petitioner’s employer, is exempt from liability for the injuries sustained on account of the clause which was attached to the policy in the following language:

“It is agreed that, anything in this Policy to the contrary notwithstanding, this Policy does not insure: As respects injuries (or death resulting therefrom) sustained by any of the following relatives of the employer or of his wife, i. e., . . . brother, . . . when any of the said relatives are living on the premises occupied by the employer and/or in the household of the employer, unless such relative is specifically named in the declarations or in endorsement attached to this Policy."

The petitioner is a widower fifty years of age. He served in France as an American soldier during the World War. His wife and child are dead. For several years after returning from the war he lived alone in the city of Sacramento, where he engaged in the furniture business, as a salesman of stocks and bonds and as a collector of bills. After 192'9, when employment became difficult to secure, he worked as a farm-hand for various orehardists in the vicinity of Sacramento. He did not own a home or household furniture, but rented rooms in different apartments in Sacramento, which he vacated while he was employed elsewhere outside the city. For more than ten years prior to the accident he registered for the purpose of voting and maintained a postoffi.ee box in Sacramento. He testified in that regard: “My permanent address is Sacramento.” He did [571]say in the course of his cross-examination, “My home is any place where my hat is.” This statement is clearly contrary to his repeated declarations and evident intention. His brother, W. G. Leroux, owned a prune ranch in Alexander Valley near Healdsburg, upon which he had resided with his family for many years. In September, 1931, the petitioner went from Sacramento to visit his mother, who lived at Healdsburg. While he was there he telephoned his brother asking him for employment as a farm-hand. The brother hired him for the balance of the prune-picking season, which was about two months’ duration, at the agreed wages of $4 a day, from which he was to repay his brother $1 a day for room and board. He was directed to load prune boxes on a truck. There is evidence indicating that the petitioner might have been retained after the prune crop was harvested, provided other service on the ranch was required. This subsequent employment was conditional, uncertain and lacked specific agreement of any sort.