73 Pa. Super. 476 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1920
Opinion by
The appellee filed with the Workmen’s Compensation Board a claim for an award against the appellant, because of personal injuries received by him, as ho alleged, in the course of his employment. The referee of the board heard the testimony, made certain findings of fact from which he deduced conclusions of law on which he based an award in favor of the claimant. The defendant appealed to the board but that body made an order approving the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the referee and dismissed the appeal. Thereupon, defendant appealed to the court of common pleas of Philadelphia County, and that court, sustaining the views of the referee and the board, dismissed the- appeal and confirmed the award made to the claimant. By an appeal from that decision, the case reaches this court.
No complaint is made of any finding of fact, strictly so-called, of the referee. It is only his conclusions of law and his application of them to the facts actually found that furnish the basis of this appeal. The facts found may be thus briefly stated. The defendant was engaged in the automobile business and was the lessee of a building in the southern portion of the City of Philadelphia where second-hand cars were stored or repaired and material of various kinds had accumulated. The term of the lease had expired and the defendant had been engaged for several days in removing much material as was desirable in the further prosecution of her business
From this state of facts the referee deduces the legal conclusion that the defendant and the boys to whom she had given the junk were engaged in a joint enterprise in which all had an interest. The defendant was interested
It is to be noted that our statute, differing from those of some of the states, does not confine a claimant to a case where the injury arose out of the employment, but broadens the domain within which a recovery may be had by the use of the expression “by an accident in the course of his employment.” We are mindful that this language has been given a reasonably broad construction, so as to fairly' effectuate the beneficent purposes of the statute. To use the words of Mr. Justice Moschzisker in Haddock v. Steel Co., 263 Pa. 120: “In considering the legal aspect of the question, whether or not the underlying findings reported by the referee are sufficient to bring the case within the definition of the phrase ‘course of employment,’ contained in section 301, article III, of the compensation act, we have kept in mind the liberal construction placed upon the words of such statutory definition by this court in Dzikowska v. Superior Steel Co., 259 Pa. 578.” But, if we are to preserve the statute and retain the benefits it seeks to confer, its language cannot be stretched too far. It was not the design of the lawmaker to make the employer an insurer against the consequences of every accident that might happen to an employee during the time of his employment; or the period that would elapse from the first moment he was employed until the instant, a day or years hence, when he ceased "to work for the employer. Thus understood the expression, time of employment, might be properly held to include nights as well as days, Sundays as weekdays, periods of sickness, vacations, and the like, when the course of employment would be certainly, even if temporarily, suspended. The legislature has gone far when it requires the employer to pay for the consequences of an accident that was not caused by the performance of
Now, it is clear, the employer had a right to make a gift of this personal property. With’ the gift made and the property turned over to the possession of the donee, his interest in it, as it seems to us, had entirely disappeared. It was of no consequence to him where the defendants took the junk, to what dealer they sold it, what price they received for it. These matters were entirely within the control of the plaintiff and his fellows and were of interest only to them. But, if we stretch the proposition, that the employer was interested in having the junk removed from the garage, to the length of saying such interest continued until the truck reached the place of business of the first dealer, upon what possible consideration can it be said to have existed any longer? That dealer was willing to take the junk and pay a price for it. Had the plaintiff and his fellows accepted that price every possible interest of the employer in their mission would have been extinguished. Indeed, his interest, if any he had, would have been subserved had the offer of the first dealer been accepted, because the plaintiff would have returned to his work that much sooner in accordance with the request made by defendant’s manager when he gave permission to use the truck. Wholly for their own benefit however, as we view it, and Avithout any further possible interest of the employer in the expedition, the plaintiff and his fellows determined to try their fortune in another part of the city and in traveling there, by a route selected by themselves, prosecuting a journey wholly for their own profit, the accident occurred. In our opinion this determination worked a suspension
In view of the unquestioned facts of the case, with a desire to give to the statute as liberal a construction as the fair sense of its language will warrant, we all remain of the opinion that this plaintiff has not shown a case of injury sustained in the course of his employment, but rather of one suffered in the prosecution of his own private business in which the employer had no concern.
The order of the court below dismissing the defendant’s appeal and awarding the compensation allowed by the referee is reversed and set aside and the record is remitted to that court with direction to enter judgment on the appeal in favor of the defendant. The costs of this appeal to be paid by appellee.