Court Opinion

ID: 9712011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:44:19.667371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:09.128554
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
Per Curiam.
While we do not approve of the reasoning of the Appellate Court in its opinion as it appears in 153 N. E. 2d 140, we do, however, concur in the result reached in that court.
The evidence shows that Ethel Biel, President of Biel, Inc., the defendant below and appellant on appeal, was in the habit of taking an automobile belonging to the corporation home at night and driving it back to work each morning and leaving it on the parking lot of the corporation. On the particular morning in question as she was returning to work, she turned left at an intersection where a collision occurred with Robert Kirsch, who was riding a motorcycle. It is alleged that she was guilty of negligence at the time, which resulted in injury to the appellee. The action was dismissed as to Ethel H. Biel and maintained alone against Biel, Inc. An essential part of the proof necessary to hold the appellant corporation liable was that Ethel H. Biel, at the time and place of the accident, was the appellant’s corporate agent, acting within the scope of her employment and authority for and on behalf of the corporation as her principal; otherwise no negligence may be imputed to the appellant corporation.
*73The appellee points out that Mrs. Biel was President of the corporation, owned all of the stock in the corporation except one share; that the corporation owned five passenger cars, including the one Mrs. Biel drove to and from work, and a delivery-truck; that the company paid for the oil and gas, taxes and upkeep of all the vehicles, and maintained two parking lots for the accommodation of automobiles of the corporation. It is insisted that since the corporation had no garage, it got the benefit of having the car which Mrs. Biel used placed at night in her private garage where it was better protected from the weather.
Such incidental benefits, if any, cannot change a relationship of bailment to one of agency. There is no evidence that at the time of the accident Mrs. Biel was acting within the scope of her employment for the defendant corporation and as its agent. She was on no errand for the corporation, but on the contrary was on her way to her work.
Her employment by the corporation had not yet started for the day, so far as the evidence reveals. It is well settled that an employee on his way to work is normally not in the employment of the corporation.
See Annotation, 52 A.L.R. 2d 350, p. 354.
In this jurisdiction the well considered opinion of Judge Crumpacker in Frick v. Bickel (1944), 115 Ind. App. 114, 54 N. E. 2d 436 is controlling. The evidence was not sufficient to establish liability on the employer.
The petition for rehearing is dismissed.
Note. — Concurring opinion denying petition to transfer reported in 159 N. E. 2d 575.
Petition for rehearing reported in 161 N. E. 2d 617.