International Harvester Co. v. Industrial Board

118 N.E. 711, 282 Ill. 489
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 20, 1918
DocketNo. 11592
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 118 N.E. 711 (International Harvester Co. v. Industrial Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
International Harvester Co. v. Industrial Board, 118 N.E. 711, 282 Ill. 489 (Ill. 1918).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Craig

delivered the opinion of the court:

James F. Bishop, as administrator of the estate of William C. Sain, deceased, filed his petition with the Industrial Board of this State for compensation for accidental injuries sustained by his intestate which resulted in his death while in the employ of plaintiff in. error, engaged in assembling farm machines in the State of Michigan. The accident occurred by the jitney bus in which the deceased was riding from Grand Blanc to the neighboring town of Flint to take a train for Detroit being struck by a train at a railroad crossing about seven miles from Grand Blanc. The Industrial Board allowed compensation. On certiorari to the circuit court of Cook county the order of the Industrial Board was affirmed; On motion of plaintiff in error a certificate that the cause was a proper one to be reviewed by this court was granted, and the present writ of error has been sued out pursuant to such certificate.

There is practically no controversy as to the facts. The deceased was- an employee of plaintiff in error in its factory located in the city of Chicago, where it manufactures various kinds of agricultural machinery. . The machines were not assembled at the plant but were shipped to the local dealer “knocked down” and were set up by employees sent out by plaintiff in error. In April, 1915, arrangements were made by the International Harvester Company of America, a Wisconsin corporation affiliated with plaintiff in error, with offices at Detroit, Michigan, by which, during slack times, employees from plaintiff in error’s factory would be lent to it for the purpose of assembling and setting up the various kinds of farm machinery sold to local dealers in the State of Michigan. The salaries of such employees were paid by plaintiff in error and their expenses while in Michigan by the Wisconsin corporation. The headquarters of the latter company were maintained at Detroit, and deceased’s employment was in towns within a radius of from 75 to 80 miles of that city. He received $70 a month and his expenses. He would be sent to the local implement dealers in the various towns in that territory, with others, to assemble the machines so they would be ready for operation in the fields. It is admitted that all employees of plaintiff in error, including the deceased, in the plant in Illinois are under the Workmen’s Compensation act of this State. On Saturday, November 11, 1915, deceased was engaged in assembling corn binders at Grand Blanc, Michigan, where he had been sent by the Detroit office. Three binders were at that place for assembling. Two of them had been assembled by about three o’clock in the afternoon, when the deceased went into the store of the local dealer to whom the machines had been consigned and told him he was going to Detroit to spend Sunday and would return on Monday and finish the job. His tools were left at Grand Blanc and he took a jitney bus for the neighboring town of Flint to take a train for Detroit. As the bus was crossing a railroad track about seven miles from Grand Blanc it was struck by a train and Sain and two other passengers were killed.

The Industrial Board found that the general rule was for the employees engaged in that kind of work to report when a job was finished, and that it was the custom of the employees engaged in such work to come into Detroit every Saturday evening and remain over Sunday and that their expenses on such trips were paid by the company; that the deceased had charged up his railroad fare and supper the evening of the day of the accident in his regular expense account, and that the charge for his jitney bus was added to his expense account by someone at the Detroit office after his death; also, that no complaint was made of the custom of the employees returning to and staying over Sunday in Detroit. It further appears that the deceased was a member of the Employees’ Benefit Association, an organization maintained by plaintiff in error and its employees for the benefit of such of its employees as sustain injuries not covered by the Workmen’s Compensation act of the State. Under the rules and regulations of the association its beneficiaries were only entitled to benefits out of such fund for such accidents as did not arise out of and in the course of the employment. Deceased was twenty-seven years of age, unmarried, and left him surviving as his sole beneficiaries his father and his mother, who received $1552.82 out of this fund and executed a release discharging the company from all further liability.

It is assigned as error that the Industrial Board erred in not crediting the above amount on the award allowed by it. This assignment of error, however, is not argued in the briefs filed in this court and is therefore deemed waived. Glos v. Davis, 216 Ill. 532; City of Springfield v. Coe, 166 id. 22.

The other grounds urged for a reversal of the judgment are: First, that the Workmen’s Compensation act of this State does not apply to accidental injuries or deaths occurring outside of the State; second, that the accident in which the deceased was killed- was not one arising out of and in the course of his employment. If either of these grounds is good the judgment of the circuit court sustaining the decision of the Industrial Board should be set aside.

The evidence heard by the Industrial Board is in the record, and an examination of this evidence discloses that the only testimony relied upon to sustain the finding of the Industrial Board is that of William Schulte, who was also in the employ of plaintiff in error and engaged in the same kind of work and under similar conditions as the deceased. He testified, in part, as follows: “There was no regular time for reporting to the Detroit office unless you were finished at a certain town. Sometimes we would report over the ’phone and other times we would go into Detroit. We generally managed to finish on Saturday and come in and spend Sunday at Detroit and report at the office some time late Sunday evening or Monday morning. Sometimes we reported oftener than once a week. We got our orders from the Detroit office. * * * When we were sent out on a job we were expected to finish the job before we reported. If the local dealer wanted them all finished we would finish up and when we finished we would report. Sometimes we would go to a place and the local dealer would want a certain amount of machines set up. If he had a dozen machines sitting on his premises and wanted half of them set up we would set up that many and then report, and if he wanted the rest set up that would be done at some later time. On a job ioo miles from Detroit where there were three machines to set up like here and I got two of them set up about the middle of a Saturday afternoon, leaving one to be set up, we would go back to Detroit unless the office kicked. The office had not given any specific directions what to do in that kind of a case, so that when I came in from a job to Detroit to spend Sunday I came on my own responsibility. I had never had any talk with Mr. Bordeau, the general agent at Detroit, about getting in on Sundays. Our work around Detroit was within a radius of 80 miles.”

Henry A. Bordeau, the general agent at Detroit, who had supervision of the deceased and other employees similarly engaged, testified that the instructions to the deceased and other employees doing like work were to go to those places where machines were to be assembled and assist the dealers to set up the machines and when through to report at the office.

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Bluebook (online)
118 N.E. 711, 282 Ill. 489, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/international-harvester-co-v-industrial-board-ill-1918.