146 A. 834 | Conn. | 1929
On August 13th, 1927, at about 5.30 o'clock in the afternoon, the plaintiff, while walking northerly on the west sidewalk of Windsor Street in Hartford at a point about five blocks north of the intersection of Main, Morgan and Windsor Streets, was struck from behind by a motortruck owned by the defendant and operated by one William Griggs and suffered serious personal injuries, caused solely by his negligence, for which she seeks to recover of the defendant damages. The vital question on the appeal is whether at the time of the accident Griggs was acting within the scope of his employment with the defendant. Errors predicated upon plaintiff's motion to correct are not well taken; if all of the claimed corrections were granted they would be ineffective in changing the conclusion reached by the trial court.
A summary of the facts is essential to the determination of the vital, indeed the only, substantial ground of this appeal. On July 31st, 1927, Griggs had been employed by the defendant as a substitute for the regular driver of defendant's delivery truck for a definite period of two weeks, which by their contract of hire terminated at noon on August 13th, 1927. Before noon of this day Griggs had been paid by defendant all wages owed him for his work for the period of his hiring. A few minutes before noon of this day Griggs returned to the defendant's warehouse with the truck and was ordered by the acting foreman of defendant to drive to the Y. D. garage on Windsor Avenue in Hartford where defendant kept the truck when it was *444 not in use, and to leave it there. Griggs was then told that he need not report further for duty since the regular driver would return on Monday. The defendant was not doing any business on this afternoon, and its place of business was not open during this time. The shortest route from the defendant's warehouse to the Y. D. garage, and the customary route taken by Griggs when he drove the truck from the warehouse to the garage, was: part of a block south on Windsor Street to Canton Street; thence westerly on Canton Street three blocks to Windsor Avenue, and thence southerly on Windsor Avenue half a block. Upon receiving his orders Griggs drove south on Windsor Street to Canton Street; thence westerly on Canton Street one block to Bellevue Street, and thence northerly on Bellevue Street about half a block north of Canton Street where he lived. When Griggs turned into Bellevue Street he deviated from the shortest and customary route to the garage and did so in violation of his express instructions, solely for purposes of his own which had nothing to do with his employer's business. Griggs went into his house to change his clothes and have dinner and then, at about one o'clock in the afternoon, with three friends drove his truck from his house to Windsor, for the purpose of getting his sister whom he did not find there, and thence he drove to Windsor Locks, in all a distance of twelve or thirteen miles. He then went down the east side of the Connecticut River to East Hartford and on to Hartford to the junction of Main and Morgan Streets. When Griggs arrived in Hartford he stopped at a point three and one half blocks from the defendant's garage and on a direct route to his own home on Bellevue Street. He was on his way at the time of the accident to the Y. D. garage intending to leave the truck there. From the time Griggs turned into Bellevue Street until the accident he was not using *445 the truck for any purpose of benefit to defendant and was not its agent during this time.
The plaintiff claimed upon the trial, as matter of law, that although Griggs had deviated from his employment and, while driving from his home and up to his return to Main and Morgan Streets, had continued such deviation, at the time of the accident he had returned to the scope of his employment, since he was then proceeding with the intention of returning the truck to the Y. D. garage pursuant to the express orders of the defendant. The rule governing the responsibility of a master for the negligent acts of his servant has never been more accurately or comprehensively stated, at least by this court, than in Stone v.Hills,
No definite and determinative test can be made other than to apply to each situation the standard, was the act of the servant reasonable in the light of his employment and the circumstances surrounding his *447
act? Ordinarily the application of this standard to the facts will be one of fact. The cessation of the relation of master and servant may be by the express or implied direction or consent of the master, for example, the master may grant his servant permission to engage in carrying out some purpose of his own. In such case the master is not liable for injuries or damage caused by the negligence of the servant while so engaged.Mastrilli v. Herz,
It may be, that if Griggs' work was to have continued after he had returned the truck to the garage and that his purpose when he reached the point where he stopped, three and a half blocks from the garage, was to take the truck to the garage, this would have satisfied the element that he was then within the zone of his employment and the further element, of his purpose to then resume his employment. The time of the absence of Griggs, if his employment had continued the length of his trip, while he was serving, exclusively, his own ends and acting in disobedience to his employer's directions, is impossible to be regarded as a mere temporary abandonment — the absence was too protracted and the journey too extensive. They evidence a relinquishment of his employment. It was a departure from his employment solely for his own purposes and wholly independent of his employer's business. His master's orders took him about four blocks; for his own purposes and his friends' pleasure — contrary to his master's orders — he traveled about twenty-five miles. No departure of that extent can be regarded as a temporary abandonment of a servant's employment. These elements do not portray all of the surrounding circumstances of Griggs' abandonment of his employment, and they must be examined in their entirety in determining whether the servant had made a mere deviation from or a temporary abandonment, or a permanent abandonment of his employment, when his master is charged with the responsibility of compensating one for injuries suffered through the negligence of his servant.
Griggs' contract of hiring ceased at noon of the day of the accident. Compliance with the master's orders to take the truck to the garage and leave it there would have taken a very few minutes. It was not quite noontime when he started with the truck for the garage. *450 Presumably there was about time to have reached the garage before his contract of hiring expired. When he left his home on Bellevue Street with his three friends, after he had changed his clothes and had his dinner, his contract of hiring was at an end, he was no longer in the employ of the defendant. In such a situation no question can arise as to the right of the servant to resume his employment. After that had ceased he had converted his former master's truck to his own uses and for no act of his during the period of the unlawful use of the truck could his former master be liable.
The court found that at the time of the accident Griggs was not the agent of the defendant. The finding of agency is one of fact and unreviewable since the subordinate facts are not only legally consistent with that finding but incontrovertibly support it. Russo v.McAviney,
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.