Morgan v. Industrial Accident Board

321 P.2d 232, 133 Mont. 254, 1958 Mont. LEXIS 59
CourtMontana Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 15, 1958
Docket9811
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 321 P.2d 232 (Morgan v. Industrial Accident Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Montana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morgan v. Industrial Accident Board, 321 P.2d 232, 133 Mont. 254, 1958 Mont. LEXIS 59 (Mo. 1958).

Opinions

MR. JUSTICE CASTLES:

This is a workmen’s compensation claim, rejected by the Industrial Accident Board and denied on appeal by the district court. Claimant has again appealed. No question is raised as to the regularity of the official proceedings. Partial permanent disability is unquestioned.

Both the Board and the trial court found on the record that the injuries were sustained outside the scope of claimant’s employment.

Plan Two coverage is involved. The insurer is the defendant Fireman’s Fund Indemnity Company. The Board is first party defendant. Claimant’s union employer is not a party, nor is any union dispute involved.

The facts are not complicated. Claimant, by occupation a high speed welder, was employed by defendant, Conyes Construction Company with a crew laying a cross-country natural gas transmission pipe line. At the time, they were working in the vicinity of Forsyth, Montana. Some crew members lived in Miles City, others at Forsyth. They drove to and from the job and they moved from community to community as the work progressed. Claimant and his wife had temporary living quarters in Miles City. They resided in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Claimant had recently been nominated by his fellow union crew members and designated by the union’s eastern Montana business agent as job steward. The evening of June 7, 1950, after working hours, while driving from his living quarters in Miles City to attend a union business meeting in Forsyth and there deliver to the union’s business agent dues claimant had collected, along with applications for union membership procured by claimant as job steward from helpers who had been brought in to hasten the work, claimant ran off the road and [256]*256broke his neck. He was injured about 6 :30 p. m. The meeting was called for 7:30 p. m.

Claimant and other welders worked a daily shift from 7:00 a. m. to approximately 5:30 p. m. They were paid a total wage of $226.72 weekly, when employed full time. Under agreement between their union and the defendant pipe line company, and to hold such specialized workmen available through periods when weather prevented construction, they were paid $10 daily during bad weather to stand by. On such days they had no other pay or duties.

Claimant testified, almost six years after the accident occurred, that on the day he was injured he worked at the job from 7:00 a. m. until a rainstorm stopped work about 2:00 p. m. This is contradicted by affidavit of the office manager for Conyes Construction Company, made an equally long time after the accident occurred, but affirming on the company’s time records that the welding crew was not sent out to the job at any time on the day claimant was injured, and that on this day, because of inclement weather, claimant was on standby pay only. Whichever was the ease, the accident happened after claimant’s working hours and away from the job.

The wage agreement between the union and the construction company is not shown in the record. At a first hearing on the claim, occurring some fourteen months after the accident, the union’s business agent identified himself as representing the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local No. 30 of the United States Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Piping Industry of the United States and Canada. Claimant later testified that he himself was a member of the “Pipe Line Local out of Tulsa, Oklahoma.” The business agent testified that his territory included all of eastern Montana and that he “presumed” claimant had been a job steward at the date of the accident. But he added, “As I keep no records of the exact duties or anything referring to the job stewards, it is pretty hard for me to say. ’ ’ However, it is undisputed that at [257]*257the time claimant was injured, he was a designated union job steward under this business agent.

The business agent explained:

“The duties of our job steward is to keep the local union informed of the different journeymen coming in on the job. They make a report to me usually once a month as to the names of the journeymen, their card numbers, and whether they are in good standing with the different unions. * * *
“The shop steward receives his orders from the business agent, and his duties are to keep the local union informed of the conditions on the job and all new members reporting for work. He takes care of the dues and the clearance cards also.”

He further testified:

“Q. The job steward, however, represents the union on a particular job, is that correct? A. That’s right.
“Q. And in these matters in which the job steward exercises his own judgment and discretion, he is representing the union local on the job, was that the situation? A. He represents the journeymen and the local union.”

The record indicates that claimant’s designation as job steward came about in the following manner. He testified as follows:

“Q. Now, as to a job steward, tell us how a job steward is appointed? A. Well, the men picked me, the welder foreman and all the rest of the welders that belonged to the Union, the pipe foreman, they all picked me; well, I couldn’t hardly refuse so this business agent, he approved of it, and I was representing the men on that job.”

Nothing in the record indicates that the defendant pipe line construction company did not acquiesce in this designation, and it is agreed claimant’s pay would not have been docked by the amount of time he spent in such union activity during working hours.

Of his responsibilities as union job steward, claimant testified that he represented the individual employees, and testi[258]*258fied that a union job steward “is supposed to take care of the men and all situations that come up, of course, you know, if someone gets in a little beef about something, why there is supposed to be a man there representing the Union, and also the men that he is working with, to kind of get this straightened out.” On being asked “if the company were to be dissatisfied, who would they complain to?”, he replied, “To me.”

Apparently the defendant construction company had to accept whoever the union designated as job steward, for the claimant testified:

“Q. The business agent was the one that put the job steward on the job? .A. Yes, and he can pull him off.
“Q. And he was the only one that can pull him off? A. Yes.”

The claimant’s testimony states that all of the twelve or fourteen man crew were qualified for union membership but that “three or four” did not have union “clearance cards.” These apparently were the membership applications claimant had procured as job steward and was taking to turn over to the union’s business agent.

To relate his injuries to the scope of his employment, claimant swore that the union welders would have refused to work on the pipe line if the new helpers had not applied for union membership. So, by securing their applications for union membership, a day or two before the evening he was injured during his trip to carry these applications to the union’s business agent, claimant had removed the possibility of this threat of a strike by the union welders and thereby had served the interest of the defendant construction company.

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Morgan v. Industrial Accident Board
321 P.2d 232 (Montana Supreme Court, 1958)

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Bluebook (online)
321 P.2d 232, 133 Mont. 254, 1958 Mont. LEXIS 59, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morgan-v-industrial-accident-board-mont-1958.