Gittelman v. Hoover Company
| Decision Date | 02 January 1940 |
| Docket Number | 258 |
| Citation | 337 Pa. 242,10 A.2d 411 |
| Parties | Gittelman, Appellant, v. Hoover Company |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued November 30, 1939
Appeal, No. 258, Jan. T., 1939, from judgment of C.P. No. 5 (tried in C.P. No. 4) Phila. Co., June T., 1936, No. 4772, in case of Major A. Gittelman v. The Hoover Company. Judgment affirmed.
Trespass for personal injuries and property damage. Before HEILIGMAN J.
The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.
Compulsory nonsuit entered. Motion to take off nonsuit dismissed. Plaintiff appealed.
Error assigned was refusal to take off compulsory nonsuit.
Judgment affirmed.
I. Jerome Stern, for appellant.
J. B. H. Carter, with him Guy W. Rogers, Jr., for appellee.
Before SCHAFFER, MAXEY, DREW, LINN, STERN and BARNES, JJ.
Defendant corporation is engaged in the sale of vacuum cleaners and maintains branch offices in several cities in this and adjoining states. James H. Hoberdier was employed as its office manager in Philadelphia, his principal duty being that of sales promotion, which required that he travel in the surrounding territory and occasionally to the other branch offices. Whenever he went out of town on defendant's business it reimbursed him for his expenses, whatever they were, irrespective of the manner in which he chose to travel, the means of transportation he selected being a matter of indifference to defendant. He had an automobile of his own, and used it in connection with his duties about fifty per cent of the time, but without any instructions from defendant as to such use. His hours of work at the office started at eight o'clock in the morning and there was no definite quitting hour. In the early evening of April 21, 1936, he drove his automobile to a restaurant two blocks from the office, and parked it while eating his dinner. When he left the restaurant it was with the intention of returning to the office, picking up some papers there (the nature and purpose of which were not explained in the testimony), and then proceeding to West Chester to visit one of defendant's dealers. As he started to drive away from the restaurant, his car struck plaintiff and the latter brought the present suit for damages. The court below entered a nonsuit on the ground that Hoberdier was not acting within the scope of his employment and in furtherance of defendant's business at the time of the accident.
In its general aspects this case is governed by the decisions in Wesolowski v. Hancock Insurance Co., 308 Pa. 117; Heinrich v. Pictorial Review Company, Inc., 326 Pa. 470, and Holdsworth v. Pennsylvania Power & Light Co., 337 Pa. 235. If, in the course of his work, an employe travels as a passenger in a train, trolley car or taxicab, he does not expose his employer to the risk of financial responsibility for accidents to other persons, and if the employe, merely for his own convenience, chooses to transport himself in his own automobile, his employer, who has not hired him to drive a car, should not be subjected to such potential liability. Therefore, unless the employee is directed by the employer to...
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