Court Opinion

ID: 9624103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:51:08.237706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:38.904783
License: Public Domain

LA PRADE, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot bring myself to agree with the conclusion that this case is not compensa-ble. It seems to me that its basic facts are on all fours with the facts in Serrano v. Industrial Commission, 1953, 75 Ariz. 326, 256 P.2d 709, 710. In both cases the terms of the employment contract had been agreed to by the union and the employer. In the Serrano case the contract provided for a specified hourly wage and “ ‘an allowance for travel and subsistence expense * * *.’ ” In the instant case the amended contract provided-: “On jobs outside the free zone employees will receive as travel expense the sum of * * * $4.00 per work day for any job in Zone 3.” (Emphasis supplied.)
This amended contract had three chronological phases.
1. It provided originally that for jobs outside the free zone “employees shall receive as travel expenses a sum- equal to straight time at employees’ regular rate to and from the job from the1 free' zone’5.
2. It was then amended^ to read “On jobs outside the free zone employees¡ will receive as travel expense the sum of * * $4.00 per work day for any job in zone 3 * * ‘ 1 ’ ‘1
3; Then with reference to this, .-amended provision the contracting parties' -ponelnded that this last provision as amended -should be by them interpreted. A ’joint .-negotiating committee with reference thereto vpiro-vided their interpretation as' follows.;- “-The negotiating committee intended that- the present travel expense clause was out-of-pocket expense to the employee and we intend to get entirely away from-the idea of travel time.”
It was made to appear by evidence before the Commission that at the time this amended contract was adopted the parties had discussed possible liability under the original contract of employment under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and to third persons by virtue of an' employee’s acci*95dent or negligence while travelling from jobsite to home or from home to jobsite. Under this amended contract each employee would receive approximately $100 per month which was free from withholding tax. Likewise under the contract the employer freed himself of the obligation to pay the workmen’s compensation premiums which was no small item when there were approximately fifty electricians who would receive this extra compensation of $100 per month. Likewise the employer would escape paying social security tax thereon. The temporary advantage to the employee was that he would receive the $100 per month free of the withholding tax but. the. disadvantage was that he left hipiself and dependents “high and dry” if he. was, injured or killed. The state’s interest .in the employment status is that dependents shall not become a public charge.
In the Serrano cáse it was determined that the effect of the employer allowing travel expense brought the employee within an exception to the “going and coming rule”, and extended to the employee the benefits of the Act.
In each of- the contracts the subject of transportation is singled out because the travel involved a considerable distance, 32-35 miles in each case, there being no living accommodations at the jobsite. In the Serrano case the employee was allowed a flat $1.77 for the trip which amount was equal to one hour’s pay, but could not be considered as an allowance for time, for the reason that the roundtrip could not have been covered in one hour. Many cases demonstrate that when the distance element is involved and expense payments are made to recompense the employee that the employment field is enlarged to encompass the travel. Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 1947, 330 U.S. 469, 67 S.Ct. 801, 91 L.Ed. 1028; Dooley v. Smith’s Transfer Co., 1948, 57 A.2d 554, 26 N.J. Misc. 129, a commuting trip from Nantucket, N. J. to Newark, N. J. in the employee’s car with expenses paid by employer; Williams v. Traveler’s Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn., La.App.1944, 19 So.2d 586, an expense paid journey of 30 miles; Puett v. Bahnson Co., 1950, 231 N.C. 711, 58 S.E.2d 633; Maryland Casualty Co. v. Mason, 5 Cir., 1946, 158 F.2d 244; see I Larson’s Workmen’s Compensation Law, Section 16.30.
. The inherent demands of this employer’s business required something more than is given by the employee who is subject to the going and coming rule. The time and money expended by petitioner’s decedent was substantial for which he was compensated in a sum in excess of $100 per month. I can’t see that it makes any difference whether such a payment is labeled as a payment for time or a payment for expense; the employee furnishes both.
From the evidence it appeared that the employees, including the decedent, ordinarily travelled in car pools and $1.00 per *96day per man defrayed this expense. Decedent’s rate of pay was $2.90 per hour. The roundtrip consumed approximately two hours. If the field of employment was expanded to include this conglomerate of time and expense, then the status of employment existed at the time of the accident. If the status of employer and employee existed and the injuries arose out of and in the scope of the employment, as the Serrano holding would indicate, the case was then compensable.
The parties were wholly without authority to contract in advance or after an accident to the effect, that regardless of the fact of employment and injury arising out of and in the course of the employment, the provisions of the Act would be considered waived or not applicable. The Workmen’s Compensation Act is mandatory on both employer and employee and may not be waived or contracted away. This court, in Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Arizona, 1927, 32 Ariz. 275, 257 P. 644, said, at page 646:
“ * * * This act, so far at least as the employer is concerned, is compulsory in its nature; he has no option as to whether he shall accept or reject it, and the whole language both of the constitutional amendment authorizing it and of the act itself shows clearly that they were based, not on
the old theory of contract between the parties, but upon the inherent right of the state, recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States in the cases above cited, by virtue of its police power to establish certain rules regulating the status of employer and employee. We therefore hold that the present Arizona Workmen’s Compensation Act is neither elective nor contractual in its nature, but, on the contrary, that it rests upon the police power to regulate the status of employer and employee within the state of Arizona, and that no contract, express or implied, made within or without the state of Arizona, unless expressly so authorized by our law, can of itself affect the rights and duties of such status. It is governed, so far as this subject is concerned, solely by the provisions of the Arizona statutes, and nothing else. * * * ”
For other cases in which the existence of a contract was not allowed to avoid the application of workmen’s compensation laws see: Industrial Commission v. Meddock, 1947, 65 Ariz. 324, 180 P.2d 580; Industrial Commission of Arizona v. J. & J. Const. Co., 1951, 72 Ariz. 139, 231 P.2d 762.
The award should be affirmed.
STRUCKMEYER, J., concurs in this dissent.