Cook v. Highway Cas. Co.
| Decision Date | 05 October 1955 |
| Citation | 82 So.2d 679 |
| Parties | Jane T. COOK, Individually and as Executrix of the Estate of Kenneth Cook, deceased, Petitioner, v. HIGHWAY CASUALTY COMPANY and Florida Industrial Commission, Respondents. Walter T. ANDERSON, Petitioner, v. HIGHWAY CASUALTY COMPANY and Florida Industrial Commission, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
B. F. Paty, Jr., and Paty, Downey & Paty, West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
Goble D. Dean and Brown, Dean & Hill, Miami, Rodney Durrance and Burnis T. Coleman, Tallahassee, for respondents.
We here review on certiorari two workmen's compensation claims that arose out of the same accident and were heard together in the proceedings below. The Deputy Commissioner awarded compensation to the claimants, but his orders were reversed by the Full Commission and the claims dismissed. The claimants have brought the record here for review pursuant to Section 440.27, Fla.Stat.1953, F.S.A.
The claimants are Walter T. Anderson and Jane T. Cook, the widow of Kenneth Cook, deceased. Anderson and Cook were officers and stockholders of Anderson Cook Company, Inc., a corporation whose business was municipal bonds, mutual funds, sales and promotion. They also performed 'employee' services to the corporation as bond salesmen. Cook was killed and Anderson was injured when the automobile in which they were riding collided with a train while they were en route from their homes in West Palm Beach to the downtown area of that city. Their office was in Palm Beach. Anderson testified that, on the morning in question, he and Cook planned to go first to the office of their attorney in West Palm Beach to discuss a possible personal or corporate liability for a loss on bonds and to pick up some papers for use in a meeting in their own office in Palm Beach at 10:30 a. m. on the same matter. Their appointment at their attorney's office was set for 9:00 of 9:15 a. m. Anderson said that they also planned to go by the City Hall and the Courthouse in West Palm Beach to obtain information and pick up photostats in connection with their duties as bond salesmen. The accident occurred before they reached either destination.
The Deputy Commissioner found that their proposed visit to the attorney's office involved duties of an 'executive' nature, but that 'the trip to the business district of West Palm Beach also involved visits to the City Hall and the Palm Beach County Courthouse, in connection with their ordinary duties as bond salesmen, so that the trip was associated with the requirements of (their) work as * * * company employee(s).' He concluded that the accident arose out of and in the course of their employment and awarded compensation. In reversing the order the Deputy Commissioner, the Full Commission said:
'* * * We fail to see any substantial evidence pointing away from a conclusion that the trip was for the single purpose of visiting the lawyer. The mere possibility of doing other chores in town after the conference with the lawyer (a possibility remote in view of the limitations of time does not stamp the trip as one made with a dual purpose. Further, there is nothing in the record to indicate that the deceased and Anderson would have made the trip to the City Hall and the Court House regardless of whether he (sic) made the trip to the lawyer's office.'
This court has not had occasion heretofore to consider the question of the liability of an employer for workmen's compensation to an employee who is injured while on a 'dual purpose' trip, that is, one which serves both a business and a personal purpose. The rule applied by the Commission was apparently the one formulated by Judge Cardozo in Marks' Dependents v. Gray, 251 N.Y. 90, 167 N.E. 181, 183, a decision which has been frequently cited by courts of other jurisdictions in determining employer liability in such a situation. Judge Cardozo said:
* * *'
In applying the rule of the Marks' Dependents case, supra, to dual purpose trips, some courts have decide the question on the basis of which of the two purposes-business and private-is the primary or 'dominant' purpose of the trip. See Kaplan v. Alpha Epsilon Phi Sorority, 1950, 230 Minn. 547, 42 N.W.2d 342, for a discussion of the 'dominant purpose' rule. And in Pohler v. T. W. Snow Const. Co., 1948, 239 Iowa 1018, 33 N.W.2d 416, and Butler v. Nolde Bros., Inc., 1949, 189 Va. 932, 55 S.E.2d 36, an order of the fact-finding body denying compensation was affirmed by the appellate court on the ground that the business purpose of the trip was incidental and subordinate to the private purpose. Other courts, in considering this problem, have not stressed the relative importance of the two purposes and have held that if the business purpose of the trip is a 'concurrent cause' of the trip, the employer is liable for compensation.
Thus, in Brookhaven Steam Laundry v. Watts, 214 Miss. 569, 55 So.2d 381, 390, 59 So.2d 294, the employee of a dry cleaning establishment went to the home of a customer for a concurrent business and personal motive-to pick up clothes for dry cleaning and to socialize with the lady of the house in a manner actively disapproved of by the lady's husband. The employee's widow was awarded compensation, and the Mississippi Supreme Court sustained the award, saying:
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