Couch v. Harmon, 19218
| Decision Date | 08 April 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 19218,19218,2 |
| Citation | 129 Ind.App. 459,157 N.E.2d 303 |
| Parties | Franklin COUCH, Appellant, v. Margaret D. HARMON, Personal Representative of the Estate of John O. Harmon (John O. Harmon, Deceased), Appellee |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Sidney L. Berger, Evansville, for appellant.
Butt, Bowers & Anderson, Evansville, for appellee.
Appellant filed his application for compensation, alleging that he received personal injuries by reason of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment by John O. Harmon, now deceased. The appellee is the personal representative of said decedent.
The full board found that appellant sustained personal injuries by reason of an accident, which resulted in a 50% permanent partial impairment to the man as a whole, and that said injuries were received while appellant was performing services for the decedent as a domestic servant. Award for appellee followed.
Appellant challenges the award as being contrary to law on the ground that the undisputed evidence establishes as a matter of law that at the time of his injury appellant was not engaged in services as a domestic servant but was acting as a chauffeur for decedent.
The evidence discloses that the decedent was an oil producer; he maintained no office and his business was transacted at his home located on about three and one-half acres of ground in Evansville, Indiana; his wife, appellee Margaret D. Harmon, did his secretarial and office work there at the home. In the fall of 1955, appellant was employed by the decedent 'primarily' to 'work around the house'; 'to take care of the horses and lawn and things around the house, whatever needed doing, when Mr. Harmon was out of town, whatever duties I had around the house for him.' He 'fed the horses, he cleaned the stalls, he curried the horses, rode them, mowed the lawn, sprayed the trees, maintained the fences, cleaned the garage, in the winter time took care of the coal furnace.'
Appellant possessed a chauffeur's license. He drove decedent's Cadillac automobile. The evidence favorable to appellee reveals that appellant drove the car on errands for Mrs. Harmon; to get nails, boards, horse feed; and to take the dogs to the veterinarian. That appellant drove decedent to Louisville, Kentucky, in November, 1955; on December 1, 1955, he drove to Louisville to return decedent to Evansville; on December 20, 1955, he drove to St. Louis to return to Evansville some business associates of decedent; in April, 1956 he drove some horses to Chicago and again in July, 1956; on May 20, 1956, he flew to Chicago and drove the Cadillac back to Evansville; on July 1, 1956, he drove decedent to Chicago, and in August, 1956, he flew to Indianapolis and drove the Cadillac back to Evansville.
There is uncontradicted testimony by appellant that he drove to Owensboro, Kentucky, once or twice and went up to the Oil Rigs there; that he drove to Terre Haute, Indiana, two or three different times; that the occasion for the trip to Louisville was to catch a plane; that on one of the trips to Terre Haute, the decedent was going from there to Cleveland; that one of the trips to St. Louis was made to bring 'some fellows' in from 'I don't know the town in Texas', and bring them back to Owensboro in connection with decedent's oil work; that he drove from his home and picked up decedent at the Hulman Building, in Evansville, from a lawyer's office where he was on business 'something about some oil leases'.
Mrs. Harmon, widow of decedent and the appellee herein in capacity of personal representative, testified that decedent did go into oil transactions involving millisons of dollars; that he did quite a bit of oil operations in Kentucky and had business dealings in Chicago; that he would take various trips to various parts of the country; that decedent had no other employee during the time appellant worked for him; that appellant would do just about anything decedent asked him to do; that she could not be...
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Dooley v. Richard's Standard Service
...of judicial declarations forbidding us to do so, we are powerless to disturb the finding of the Board. See: Couch v. Harmon, etc. (1959), 129 Ind.App. 459, 463, 157 N.E.2d 303, 305. Under the evidence in the record before us, and the law applicable thereto, we are not in a position to state......
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Albee Hammond Homes, Inc. v. Bicknese
...cited therein.' This court, in Hudgins v. Deeds (1969), Ind.App., 251 N.E.2d 478, 18 Ind.Dec. 693, cited the case of Couch v. Harmon (1959), 129 Ind.App. 459, 157 N.E.2d 303, which was a review of an Industrial Board case, as "In this case it was a question of fact for the Board to determin......
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Stanley v. Riggs Equipment Co.
...of judicial declarations forbidding us so to do, we are powerless to disturb the finding of the Board'. See Couch v. Harmon etc. (1959) 129 Ind.App. 459, 463, 157 N.E.2d 303, 305. Under the evidence in the record before us and the law applicable thereto, we are not in a position to state, a......
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Hudgins v. Deeds, O-C
...and by the same token had the right to disbelieve such evidence as it did not find worthy." In the case of Couch v. Harmon, etc. (1959), 129 Ind.App. 459, 157 N.E.2d 303, the court 'In this case it was a question of fact for the Board to determine whether or not at the time of the accident ......