Court Opinion

ID: 9620499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:43:04.590031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:24.845979
License: Public Domain

Thompson, J.,
dissenting:
I dissent.
The lower court found that Heidtman was within the course of his employment and covered by the Industrial Insurance Act while en route to Sutcliffe and until the time he entered the archery meet. The commission concedes that finding to be correct under the circumstances of this case. With such finding and concession before us, I believe that the conclusion reached by the court below and the majority here is incorrect as a matter of law. Heidtman’s business was to sell cars. Yet, the conclusion reached in this case announces that he was within the course of his employment when he had no possibility of making a sale, i.e., while driving alone from Reno to Sutcliffe, but that upon arrival at the appointed place to meet his customer and attempt to sell him a car he stepped out of bounds. The opportunity to sell a car to Waddell was at the archery meet where he was in participation. If Heidtman was within the course of his employment while driving to the appointed place for business, he must be considered to have been within the course of his employment while at such place attempting to make the sale. “Where the employee is combining his own business with that of his employer, or attending *35to both at substantially the same time, no nice inquiry will be made as to which business he was actually engaged in at the time of injury unless it clearly appears that neither directly or indirectly could he have been serving his employer.” Ryan v. Farrell, 208 Cal. 200, 280 P. 945; Wiseman v. Industrial Accident Commission, 46 Cal.2d 570, 297 P.2d 649.
The lower court determined that Heidtman deviated from the course of his employment when he entered the archery meet. This is, of course, a conclusion of law drawn from the evidence. The majority seek to support such conclusion by reciting “evidence in the record which supports a finding that a deviation occurred” and by a further recitation of “facts relevant to deviation.” However, from an examination of the facts therein referred to, it does not appear that Heidtman had departed from the place where he had arranged to carry on his business with Waddell. Nor does it appear that he left his prospective customer to go elsewhere. To the contrary. He remained at Sutcliffe and even attempted to discuss business xoith Waddell during the archery meet. This is of paramount significance because the claimed deviation must be identifiable, before the employee is removed from the course of his employment. 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation, sec. 19.00. Every case, without exception, cited by the commission in its brief, or referred to by the majority herein, wherein it was held that a deviation occurred, involved an identifiable deviation; indeed, in each instance the employee was not at the place where his business was to be carried on, nor was he, if a salesman, with his prospective customer. See each case cited by the majority at paragraphs 21 and 23 of its opinion. Absent such facts, an identifiable deviation does not appear from the record before us.
It is, therefore, my view that we are dealing only with the dual purpose trip problem, and not with the question of an identifiable deviation from the course of employment. The most that can be made of Heidtman’s participation in the archery meet is that he was serving two purposes at once, his pleasure, and the business of his employer. All authorities agree that this circumstance, *36of itself, does not remove him from the coverage of the Industrial Insurance Act.
Benjamin Cardozo, when Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of New York, wrote the landmark opinion, Marks v. Gray, 251 N.Y. 90, 167 N.E. 181. He stated, inter alia: “We do not say that service to the employer must be the sole cause of the journey, but at least it must be a concurrent cause. To establish liability the inference must be permissible that the trip would have been made though the private errand had been canceled. * * * The test in brief is this: If the work of the employee creates the necessity for travel, he is in the course of his employment, though he is serving at the same time some purpose of his own. * * * If, however, the work has had no part in creating the necessity for travel, if the journey would have gone forward though the business errand had been dropped, and would have been canceled upon failure of the private purpose, though the business errand was undone, the travel is then personal, and personal the risk.”
Let us apply such test to the case before us. The commission conceded that Heidtman was within the course of his employment while traveling to' Sutcliffe! The lower court found such to be the fact. We know, therefore, that service to his employer was, at least, a concurrent cause of his trip. We know that the inference was permissible that the trip would have been made though his private errand, participation in the archery meet, was canceled. We know that his work had a part in creating the necessity for his trip. Therefore, absent an identifiable deviation thereafter, which does not appear for the reasons heretofore mentioned, Heidtman must, as a matter of law, be considered to have been within the course of his employment when injured.
In Fisher v. Fisher, 226 Minn. 171, 32 N.W.2d 424, a salesman made an appointment with a prospective customer to discuss home insulation. He was to meet his customer during the evening at a public playground where the customer was to umpire a baseball game. He spoke with his customer and was advised that the game would be through in a few minutes and to wait for him. *37Following this conversation, the salesman walked from behind an iron fence where he had spoken with his customer and joined with other spectators who were sitting on a side bank watching the ball game. Shortly thereafter he was struck when a youngster threw part of a broken bottle. The injury resulted in the loss of his right eye. The industrial commission conceded that the salesman was at the ball park for the purpose of seeing a business prospect and that, while watching the ball game, he was merely waiting for an opportunity to further negotiate with his sales prospect. However, it contended that, by watching the ball game a deviation or temporary departure from his employment occurred, with the result that he could not enjoy the benefits of industrial insurance. In holding that the salesman was within the course of his employment at the time of the accident, and therefore entitled to the benefits of industrial insurance, the court, among other things, stated “In affirming the ruling of the industrial commission to the effect that the injury occurred in the course of the employment, we do not mean to say that a salesman could not, while waiting for a prospect, so far depart from his employer’s business on an enterprise of his own as to put him outside the coverage of the act. We only hold that here there was no such departure. To adopt a contrary view would lead to the absurd result that the employee would have had to remain rooted to the spot where he last spoke with Feiring in order to retain coverage under the act while waiting.” The claimed deviation in Fisher v. Fisher, supra, was not an identifiable one. The salesman was at the place where his business was to be carried on. He was merely waiting for the opportunity to discuss it with the prospect. One cannot help but conjecture as to what the lower court’s view would have been in the instant case had Heidtman injured himself while just “walking around” rather than while walking during participation in the archery meet.
The cases of Fintzel v. Stoddard Tractor, 219 Iowa 1263, 260 N.W. 725, and Sawtell v. Stern Bros. & Co., 226 Mo.App. 485, 44 S.W.2d 264, support my view, though in the latter case the salesman did depart *38momentarily from the place where he was to meet his customer, and the court determined such departure to be insignificant.
For the reasons mentioned, I would conclude that Heidtman sustained an injury by accident, arising out of and in the course of his employment. NRS 616.270 (1).