194 P. 1 | Cal. | 1920
This is a proceeding to review the action of the Industrial Accident Commission in awarding compensation to the respondent Kenneth Frank Fruit, a minor, fifteen years of age, under the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1917, [Stats. 1917, p. 831], on account of the accidental death of his father, John A. Fruit.
The commission awarded the maximum amount for total dependency, being three times the annual earnings of the father. The only points in controversy arise upon the question of dependency of the minor upon his father. It is urged that dependency was not shown, either actual or presumptive.
The undisputed facts disclose that the mother of the minor had, on May 16, 1908, procured a decree of divorce from John A. Fruit for extreme cruelty and habitual intemperance, and the custody of the minor son was therein awarded to the mother on the finding that she was a fit and proper person to have such custody and that the father was not.
About two years later the mother placed the boy, the respondent here, in an orphanage in Portland, Oregon, where they resided when the decree of divorce was obtained, and then disappeared, and since that time neither the directors of the orphanage nor members of her family have had any information or knowledge of her existence or whereabouts.
About the time of the divorce the father also disappeared and it was not until some ten years later that the son had *464 any knowledge of or connection with him. In 1918, through a letter from an uncle, the son located his father, who was then employed with a dredging company near Trinity Center, Trinity County, California. As a result of correspondence between them the father sent Kenneth a present of a watch and contributed money to him on several occasions. Subsequently, about April, 1918, the father outfitted the boy with clothing and sent him money for his traveling expenses from Oregon to Trinity County, where he joined his father in May, 1919. They lived together in a cabin on the properties of the dredging company during May, June, and July of 1919, the father providing the boy with his board, clothing, and spending money. From the conversations and relations between them it was apparent that the father manifested his intentions of resuming parental relations with his son and affording him support and education. It was tentatively agreed between them that the father would give up his present employment and move to the town of West-wood, in Lassen County, where he would obtain work and send the boy to school. Before any change of location was made, and three or four days before the father's death, Kenneth, apparently with his father's consent, left the cabin where they were living and went to Trinity Center, some two or three miles distant, where he entered the home of a Mrs. Miles, with the understanding that he was to work for his board, and at the beginning of the school term go to school. He was also to receive one dollar per day for extra work that Mrs. Miles had in contemplation. No definite duration for this arrangement with Mrs. Miles was agreed upon.
This was the situation of the parties when the father met with the accident resulting in his death.
[1] It is probably clear that the decree giving the custody of the boy to the mother relieved the father from all legal responsibility for support of his son and removed all relation of dependency, at least for the time being. Section
[3] The requirement of section
[4] Conceding, in this case, that the minor was not a dependent upon his father during the period he remained in the custody of his mother, there was nothing in the legal status of the parties at the time Kenneth joined his father in California to prevent the latter from voluntarily resuming responsibility for his son's support. It has been repeatedly held by this court that on the death of the mother, to whom the custody of a child has been given in divorce proceedings, the right to such custody reverts to the father. (Schammel v. Schammel,
The mother abandoned him two years after her divorce by leaving him in an orphan asylum, where he remained several years without provision for his support. She is presumptively dead, not having been heard from for more than seven years. (Code Civ. Proc., sec. 1963, subd. 26.) The evidence on this point is not very full, but Kenneth testified that both he and his mother's other relatives had made persistent search and inquiry for her without avail.
It is clear that the boy was without means of support and had no legal guardian. Whatever the father's rights were to his son's custody, his duty to provide for him was clear, both legally and morally. The commissioners were justified by the evidence on this point in concluding that the father had voluntarily resumed his parental relations and obligations and had taken the boy to live with him and assumed the burden of his maintenance, education, and support. This being the fact, the relations of parent and child had been restored. The condition of dependency existed at the time of the father's death as though it had never been disturbed, unless it was again suspended by the fact that the boy had taken up a fortuitous residence and employment outside the father's home some three or four days before the latter's death.
In considering the relations of the parties at the time of the father's death, if we accept the fact that the duty of support and maintenance had been restored, we must treat the situation precisely as if this relation had never been disturbed. Would it, under the usual relationship between a father and his fifteen year old son, be considered for a moment that the status of dependency had been destroyed or interrupted by the fact of such a casual outside employment as is shown here? In any event, the provisions of the Compensation Act are conclusive on this point. Section 14 of the Employers' Liability Act provides: "(a) The following *468 shall be conclusively presumed to be wholly dependent for support upon a deceased employee: . . . (2) A child or children under the age of eighteen years, . . . upon the parent with whom he or they are living at the time of the death of such parent or for whose maintenance such parent was legally liable at the time of death, there being no surviving dependent parent."
[5] Assuming that the first condition of this conclusive presumption is avoided by the temporary residence and employment of Kenneth with Mrs. Miles, we have left the alternative condition, that of a minor under eighteen years of age, whose father at the time of his death was liable for the minor's maintenance, with no other dependent parent. We are of the opinion that the fact of the child being left without any other means of support, whether by abandonment by or death of his mother, restored him to his right of dependency upon the father; and that, in any event, the Industrial Accident Commission was justified in reaching a conclusion favorable to the minor from the evidence showing a voluntary resumption of his parental obligations by the father. The only issue presented here is on the question of dependency, and the findings of the commission expressly cover that issue.
The award is affirmed.
Lennon, J., Wilbur, J., Olney, J., Shaw, J., Lawlor, J., and Angellotti, C. J., concurred.
Rehearing denied.
*469All the Justices concurred.