51 N.E.2d 86 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1943
This appeal is from an award of the full Industrial Board. To the appellants' application for compensation the appellees addressed their special answer, alleging that the death of appellants' decedent was due to his commission of a misdemeanor, in that he violated a statute of this state which requires any person operating a vehicle who approaches a railroad crossing at grade, to stop when certain signals are warning of the approach of a train, and not proceed until he can do so safely. (§ 47-2114, Burns' 1940 Replacement). The board found that the proximate cause of the accidental injury causing the death of appellants' decedent was due to his commission of the misdemeanor and denied compensation.
The deceased at the time of his death was driving a tractor and trailer outfit along a public highway intersected by railroad tracks. An engine and train of cars was approaching with whistle blowing, bell ringing and automatic electric flasher signals operating at the intersection. The deceased failed to stop and the collision which caused his death resulted.
The appellants first contend that the board had no right to determine whether the deceased had committed *257
a misdemeanor, the determination of that question being 1-3. exclusively within the province of courts having criminal jurisdiction, and then only to be determined within the limits of constitutional and statutory provisions intended to safeguard the rights of one accused of crime. However, it is our opinion that the action of the board in hearing evidence under the special answer and determining the issue raised thereon was not violative of the constitutional provisions relied upon. Sections 13 and 19 of Article 1 of the Constitution of Indiana apply only to criminal prosecutions. The sixth amendment to the Constitution of the United States applies only to criminal prosecutions and regulates only procedure in the federal courts,Ensign v. Pennsylvania (1912),
Section 40-1208, Burns' 1940 Replacement provides that "No compensation shall be allowed for an injury or death due to the employee's . . . commission of a felony or misdemeanor." 4-6. It was within the province of the board to determine the issue presented by the special answer, Traub et al. v.Hance et al. (1939),
The uncontradicted evidence shows that the deceased parked his outfit at about three in the morning of the day of his death, about five blocks from the scene of the accident. He slept until five when he was awakened at his request by a lunch counter attendant, put on his shoes, talked a few minutes and drove away. It was about daybreak of a clear day. A block from the intersection of street and tracks the deceased guided the outfit around a corner onto the street intersected and proceeded at fifteen to twenty miles per hour onto the tracks regardless of whistle, bell or flasher signals, without turning the outfit in either direction and apparently without the application of brakes in any effort to avoid the collision.
The appellants insist that the deceased could not be guilty of a violation of the statute in question in the absence of criminal or guilty intent. In our opinion, the offense created by 7-13. the statute belongs to that class in which guilty intent is immaterial. The act itself is forbidden, without regard to intent or knowledge, and in such cases it is the act itself and not the intent, that determines the guilt. Groff v.The State of Indiana (1909),
It is contended that the finding of the board is insufficient in that it fails to negative every possible hypothesis consistent with innocence and every possible circumstance that 14, 15. would tend to show that the act of the deceased was not the proximate cause of the injuries causing his death. A failure of the board to find on an issue tendered by a special answer is equivalent to a finding against the pleader on the issues so presented, Traub et al. v. Hance et al. supra, but the finding in this case is a full and complete finding for the appellees on their special answer. The failure of the board to find the negative of all facts which within the realm of conjecture might have excused the deceased's conduct does not, in our opinion, render the finding defective.
As contended by the appellant, in a case by the railway company against him the conduct of the deceased might be considered to have been negligent conduct only. In this case it was 16. found to have constituted the commission of a misdemeanor, and there having been substantial evidence to sustain the finding of the board, we are not at liberty to disturb it.
Award affirmed.
NOTE. — Reported in