Bell v. Denton

284 N.W. 751, 136 Neb. 23, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 59
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 17, 1939
DocketNo. 30559
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 284 N.W. 751 (Bell v. Denton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bell v. Denton, 284 N.W. 751, 136 Neb. 23, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 59 (Neb. 1939).

Opinion

Messmore, J.

This is an appeal from an order of the district court for Otoe county, entered July 23, 1938, setting aside an award made to the plaintiff in the workmen’s compensation court, for the reason that plaintiff failed to show with reasonable [25]*25certainty that his accidental injury arose out of and in the course of his employment, and that the plaintiff had failed to sustain the burden of proof required of him by law. From this order plaintiff appeals.

The question to be decided is whether or not the injuries received by plaintiff in an accident arose out of and in the course of his employment, within the meaning of the workmen’s compensation law.

Defendant Denton, owner of the Talmage Mills, dealing in flour and feed, had employed the plaintiff as a traveling salesman for 14 years, furnishing him with an automobile and paying all expenses incident to its maintenance and operation in the performance of plaintiff’s work. The plaintiff worked on a commission, and in addition was to receive $5 a week for making deliveries. The process of taking orders was made in triplicate in an account book, one slip for the customer, one for the mill, and one remaining in the book of the salesman. Deliveries ordinarily were made subsequent to the soliciting of orders, and when collections were made the money was delivered to defendant. The territory covered by plaintiff was within a radius of 60 to 75 miles from the mill and comprised towns in Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa. Before starting upon the territory each day, plaintiff and defendant would talk over and decide upon the territory to be covered. Plaintiff was apparently under the direction of the defendant. There was no specified time in which he was to complete each day’s work. The territory was covered in a 1936 Chevrolet pick-up truck, of 3,000-pounds capacity, and often additional merchandise was carried in the truck to supply any purchaser in the territory. The evidence as to the condition of the truck on the day the accident occurred is insufficient to disclose that defective mechanism of the truck caused the accident in question.

On May 10, 1937, 8 or 10 cases of pancake flour were loaded on the truck at the mill, and plaintiff started out to cover certain towns in his territory, arrived in Nebraska City between 4 and 5 o’clock p. m., called on customers [26]*26there, and then went to the Olympia Café for supper. He completed his supper shortly before 6 o’clock. While in the café he met Paul Winton, proprietor of the Pine Ridge Tavern. While there, a telephone call came for Mr. Winton, who told plaintiff that Mrs. Winton had called him about some Indians or Gypsies who wanted to camp at the farm. Plaintiff stated that he had been around Indians some place and he would like to go out and see them, and, in addition, he told Mr. Winton that if his son Bruce, who was in Omaha, came in, for him, Winton, to bring him out to the farm. Plaintiff went to the tavern, which was three and a half miles south of Nebraska City, and when he entered asked Mrs. Winton about the Indians. Subsequently he met a former customer from Cook, Nebraska, and they sat in a booth, drank beer and talked for about an hour, and at different times the plaintiff would dance with Mrs. Winton and with a girl who worked at the tavern. Plaintiff testified that he stayed at the tavern for about an hour. Mrs. Winton testified that he was there for about two hours. During this time he requested Mrs. Winton to call the Olympia Café in Nebraska City and ascertain if his son Bruce had arrived. Pursuant to this request, she did call and learned that Bruce had arrived. She suggested that his father desired him to come out to the tavern. Bruce having no means of conveyance, his father directed Mrs. Winton to say that he would come in and get him. Plaintiff is also reported to have stated that he would be back. The foregoing testimony is fairly well corroborated by four witnesses.

The plaintiff then left the tavern and started for Nebraska City. He testified that when about a mile and a half south of Nebraska City he went around another automobile, turned back into his side of the road, “and the car seemed to pull to one side, and I thought I had a flat tire or blow-out and it pulled up on the shoulder and went over the bank,” resulting in serious injury to plaintiff. He was removed to a hospital in Nebraska City in an ambulance about 8 o’clock in the evening.

[27]*27Plaintiff testified that on May 1, 1937, while in Nebraska City, he called at the Grand Hotel, which had been a customer for a year or so, for the purpose of selling pancake flour; that the chef told him that the next time he came to bring him a case. No written order was taken. Plaintiff was in Nebraska City on May 8 and for two hours on Monday, the 10th, prior to the time of the accident in question, but did not deliver the case of pancake flour to the Grand Hotel. He further testified that he would be through Nebraska City two or three times a week, going into other territory. The Pine Ridge Tavern was not a customer of his, and there was no particular reason, except for his own amusement, that he should go there. Nothing was said by plaintiff and the proprietors of the tavern that in any manner had to do with the business in which plaintiff represented the defendant. No business was transacted with the former customer.

After the plaintiff was injured his son Bruce worked for defendant for a period of three weeks, and he delivered a case of pancake flour to the Grand Hotel after having previously told the defendant of the statement, made to him by his father at the hospital, with reference to the sale. There is some evidence of pancake flour being found near the truck after the accident, — four or five 5-pound packages. Bruce testified that he had no arrangement to meet his father that night. At the hearing before the compensation commissioner, plaintiff testified that he had finished his business in Nebraska City. Plaintiff stated that his reason for stopping at the Pine Ridge Tavern was that he thought about the pancake flour and that he had not delivered it to the hotel; that he drove to the tavern “and turned around and come back out.” This statement is not corroborated, because he did stay in the tavern for a period of time, as shown by the great weight of the evidence.

Plaintiff’s injuries were a fractured vertebra in the neck and one in the back, three ribs broken, a cut over the back of his head, and ruptured blood vessels in his foot. His wages averaged a trifle over $100 a month.

[28]*28It is well established that the burden of proof is upon the claimant to prove that accidental injuries received by him arose out of and in the course of his employment. The rule, in substance, has been announced in Pensick v. Boehm, 124 Neb. 28, 244 N. W. 923; Kuhtnick v. Carey, 124 Neb. 762, 248 N. W. 89; Mullen v. City of Hastings, 125 Neb. 172, 249 N. W. 560; Saxton v. Sinclair Refining Co., 125 Neb. 468, 250 N. W. 655; Price v. Burlington Refrigerator Express Co., 131 Neb. 657, 269 N. W. 425; Porter v. Brinn-Jensen Co., 131 Neb. 611, 269 N. W. 96; O’Connor v. Abbott, 134 Neb. 471, 279 N. W. 207; McCall v. Hamilton County Farmers Telephone Ass’n, 135 Neb. 70, 280 N. W. 254.

It is likewise well established in this state that an injury to be compensable under the workmen’s compensation law must be received out of and in the course of the employment.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
284 N.W. 751, 136 Neb. 23, 1939 Neb. LEXIS 59, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bell-v-denton-neb-1939.