188 A. 368 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1936
Argued November 16, 1936. In this workmen's compensation case, the controlling question presented is whether John Beck met with accidental death in the course of his employment. The compensation authorities found that he did and made an award. On appeal, the court of common pleas affirmed the award. In our judgment, this action was correct.
Beck was the defendant's sales manager and had general supervision of her milk plant at Oakmont, receiving commissions, with a drawing salary of $55 per week. He had no regular time to report on or off duty; his working hours were largely determined by himself, but he was subject to call at any time of the day or night. It was testified that he received at his home both day and night telephone messages relating to his work.
In the discharge of his duties, which included taking customers to the plant or to the farm maintained by the defendant, it was necessary to use an automobile. It had been acquired by exchanging his old machine, for which a credit of $175 was allowed on the purchase price, and the remainder was paid by the defendant. The title to this car was in the name of the deceased and was driven by him on occasions for his personal purposes, but at times it was used by other employees in connection with their work. The employer furnished the gas, oil, tires, and paid repair bills.
On the morning of July 12, 1934, Mrs. Beck heard her husband make a telephone call. Ansert, the night man at the plant, testified that the deceased called on the `phone about 6 o'clock, as was his custom if he did not come to work at an earlier hour, and told him his car was out of order, that Tom Keefe, another employee, was the only one who could fix it and to send him over. Deceased had told Keefe the night before that his automobile had a defective rotor in the distributor. *310 The appellants contend that after the deceased telephoned the plant he returned to bed; but this is not borne out by the testimony of his wife. The telephone conversation evidently occurred after he had been to the garage and found he was unable to start his car. After talking to Ansert, he returned to the garage and resumed his efforts to get the car running. When Keefe reported for work he was told to go to Beck's garage and fix the car or bring Beck to the plant. George Beck, a brother of the deceased and an employee of the defendant, went along to obtain instructions from the deceased for the day's work. When they arrived at the garage they found the door open about 3 inches and the body of the deceased lying beside the car. The hood of the car was up, the motor was not running but the ignition switch was on, and tools and a flashlight were on the floor. The body was removed to the hospital where the deceased was pronounced dead as a result of carbon monoxide gas poisoning.
It can be fairly assumed that the employer, in paying the major part of the purchase price of the car and entirely maintaining it, recognized that it was an instrumentality required to transport the deceased to and from work at any hour of the day or night and to other places where he went on his employer's business. It was to the interest of both the employer and the deceased that he have this convenient means of travel and that it be in proper repair.
We do not question the general rule that, in the absence of special circumstances, preparing for, and going to or returning from work, do not constitute a furtherance of the employer's business: Palko v. Taylor-McCoy C. C. Co.,
In Krapf v. Arthur, supra, the claimant, employed as a bookkeeper and travelling salesman, went on a two-day selling trip and returned home, a town a few miles distant from his place of business, on the second night. The following morning he boarded a trolley car to report at the office, and was injured in a collision. We held that in such circumstances he was at the time of the accident engaged in the course of his employment.
In Green v. Hiestand,
Our decisions uniformly hold that if transportation to and from place of employment is supplied, the employer is responsible to the employee or his dependents for compensation where accidental death is caused by injury sustained while being transported by the employer.
In Knorr v. Central R.R. of N.J.,
In the recent case of Bock v. Reading,
In the case at bar, while the automobile was not transporting the deceased at the time of the accident, it was being used in the sense that he was working with it so that it might be made available for his transportation, which was to his employer's advantage.
A careful consideration of the record convinces us *313 that the evidence clearly established that the deceased was accidentally killed in the course of his employment.
Judgment affirmed.