Wiseman v. Industrial Accident Commission

297 P.2d 649, 46 Cal. 2d 570, 1956 Cal. LEXIS 211

• Court: California Supreme Court
• Decided: May 29, 1956
• Docket: S. F. 19470
• Status: Published

Opinions

TRAYNOR, J.

Decedent, Lloyd A. Wiseman, a vice president of a San Francisco bank, died of asphyxiation and burns in a hotel room in New York City. He was in that city on bank business, and his traveling expenses, including his hotel bills, were paid by the bank. A woman, not his wife but registered as such, was found unconscious in his room and died shortly thereafter. There was evidence that they had been drinking. Sometime between 4 and 5 in the morning of his death, Wiseman telephoned the hotel manager for help because of a fire in his room. After calling the fire department, the manager went to the room but was unable to open the door with his passkey. Firemen arrived shortly thereafter and broke into the room but were too late to save the occupants. It was the opinion of the assistant fire marshal that the fire was caused by careless smoking by either one or both of the occupants.

Petitioners, the widow and minor daughter of the employee, filed claims as his dependents with the Industrial Accident Commission for death benefits. The referee made an award in favor of petitioners, but a panel of the commission granted the employer’s petition for reconsideration, vacated the referee’s award and findings, and denied petitioner’s claim. Their petition for reconsideration was denied, and they brought this proceeding to review the award.

The commission’s jurisdiction is not questioned. (See Lab. Code, § 5305;

* Alaska, Packers Assn. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 294 U.S. 532 [55 S.Ct. 518, 79 L.Ed. 1044].)

“As a general rule a commercial traveler is regarded as acting within the course of his employment during the entire period of his travel upon his employer’s business. His acts in traveling, procuring food and shelter are all incidents of the employment, and where injuries are sustained during the course of such activities, the Workmen’s Compensation Act applies.” (Dalgleish v. Holt, 108 Cal.App.2d 561, 566 [237 P.2d 553]; California C. I. Exchange v. Industrial Acc. Com., 5 Cal.2d 185, 186 [53 P.2d 758].) Respondents contend, however, that this rule is inapplicable in this case on the grounds that the employee was occupying the hotel room for an immoral and unlawful purpose (N.Y. Pen. Code, §§100-102) and that petitioners failed to prove that the fire was owing to the negligence of the employee rather than his companion.

Whether or not the employee was occupying the room for an immoral and unlawful purpose of his own, he was also occupying it as a necessary incident of his employment, which required him to he away from home in New York. “ The established rule was repeated in Ryan v. Farrell, 208 Cal. 200, 204 [280 P. 945], viz.: That where the employee is combining his own business with that of his employer, or attending to 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. [Citations.] ” (Lockheed Aircraft Corp. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 28 Cal.2d 756, 758-759 [172 P.2d 1].) The fact that the employee had a guest in his room while he was off duty in no way detracted from the fact that he was also there on his employer’s business, and since the employee’s fault is irrelevant if the requirements of the law are met, it is immaterial that the employee’s personal purpose in having a guest in his room was immoral and unlawful. (See Cal. Const., art. XX, § 21; Lab. Code, § 4551; State Comp. Ins. Fund v. Industrial Acc. Com., 38 Cal.2d 659, 660-661 [242 P.2d 311]; State Emp. etc. System v. Industrial Acc. Com., 97 Cal.App.2d 380, 383 [217 P.2d 992].)

Similarly, we do not believe that the fact that the fire may have been started by the careless smoking of the employee’s companion justifies the conclusion that petitioners failed to prove that the death arose out of and was proximately caused by the employment. (Lab. Code, § 3600.) In Madin v. Industrial Acc. Com., ante, p. 90 [292 P.2d 892], we pointed out that “If we look for a causal connection between the employment and injury, such connection need not be the sole cause; it is sufficient if it is a contributory cause” (ante, p. 92), and that “Where the injury occurs on the employer’s premises, while the employee is in the course of the employment, the injury arises out of the employment unless the connection is so remote from the employment that it is not an incident of it.” (Ante, at 94-95.) Injuries caused by careless smoking while the employee is in the course of his employment are not so remotely connected with the employment that they do not arise out of it (Whiting-Mead Coml. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 178 Cal. 505, 507-508 [173 P. 1105, 5 A.L.R. 1518]), and in this respect no reasonable distinction may be drawn between careless smoking on the part of the employee and careless smoking on the part of others. Thus there is nothing unusual in the fact that a traveling employee may entertain guests in his room who smoke, and the risk that such a guest may start a fire and injure the employee is just as much a risk of the employee’s presence in the room on his employer’s business as the risk that he will himself start a fire by his own careless smoking. Moreover, in the absence of some direct connection between the immoral and unlawful purpose and the risk of fire, the existence of such purpose cannot justify the conclusion that the connection between the injury and the employment “is so remote from the employment that it is not an incident of it.” The risk of fire was in no way increased, or any more or less related to his employment, because the employee brought his companion to his room for an immoral and unlawful rather than for a moral and lawful purpose. Accordingly, we conclude that the employee’s purpose was so unrelated and collateral to the risk of fire that caused his death that it did not destroy the necessary causal connection between the employment and the death.

The award is annulled.

Gibson, C. J., Carter, J., Schauer, J., and McComb, J., concurred.

"The commission has jurisdiction over all controversies arising out of injuries suffered without the territorial limits of this State in those cases where the injured employee is a resident of this State at the time of the injury and the contract of hire was made in this State. Any such employee or his dependents shall be entitled to the compensation benefits provided by this division.”