Olson v. Robinson, Straus & Co.
| Decision Date | 02 July 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 25416.,25416. |
| Citation | 168 Minn. 114,210 N.W. 64 |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
| Parties | OLSON v. ROBINSON, STRAUS & CO. et al. |
Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by claimant, Ida C. Olson, dependent mother of Elmer Olson, deceased, opposed by Robinson, Straus & Co., employer, and the Globe Indemnity Company, insurer. To review a decision of the Industrial Commission awarding compensation, the employer and insurer bring certiorari. Affirmed.
Durham & Lystad, of Minneapolis, and F. A. McKennett, of St. Paul, for relators.
Hugo Hendricks, of St. Paul, for respondent.
Certiorari to review the decision of the Industrial Commission awarding compensation to the respondent for the death of her minor son, Elmer Olson.
Elmer, not quite 15 years of age, had been employed for several months by Robinson, Straus & Co., and at the time of the accident was a stock boy in the hat department on the third floor. The receiving and shipping room was in the basement and in charge of the receiving and shipping clerk, who had two assistants at the time in question. It was their duty to sort and check the goods received and convey them to the proper floors of the six-story building by means of a freight elevator provided for that purpose. The express, as it is termed in the record — meaning the goods received by express — usually arrived about 10 o'clock in the forenoon and was distributed at once. On March 25, 1925, Elmer brought up the express for the hat department on the freight elevator, and placed it in the back room of that department. Shortly thereafter his body was found at the level of the first floor, crushed between the platform of the elevator and the shaft. He evidently had undertaken to return the elevator to the basement, but no one saw what he did or knew how the accident happened.
The relators contend that Elmer was doing an act wholly outside the scope of his employment at the time of the accident; and that the finding of the commission that the accident arose out of and in the course of his employment is not sustained by the evidence.
It was not a part of the duty of the stock boys on the third floor to bring up goods from the receiving room, and they were forbidden to use or operate the elevator. Nevertheless, they occasionally went after the express for their department and brought it up to their floor on the elevator. That they occasionally used and operated the elevator for this purpose was evidently known to the receiving clerk, who had charge of it, but seems not to have been known to the president of the company, who was also the managing officer in charge of the third floor. At the time Elmer took up the express, the receiving clerk's assistants whose duty it was to take it up were both absent. Elmer had been in that department only 2 or 3 weeks and, although he had doubtless assisted in taking up the express previously, this, so far as appears, was the first time that he had taken it up alone. But William Schwendig, with whom he worked, and who had been a stock boy in that department for several years, had gone after the express and brought it up alone at various times for a year or more preceding the accident.
The Compensation Act (Laws 1921, c. 82) is to be liberally construed to secure to employees the benefits intended in enacting it. State ex rel. v. District Court, 129 Minn. 176, 151 N. W. 912; State ex rel. v. District Court, 133 Minn. 439, 158 N. W. 700; State ex rel. v. District Court, 141 Minn. 83, 169 N. W. 488; State ex rel. v. District Court, 142 Minn. 410, 172 N. W. 310; Harris v. Kaul, 149 Minn. 428, 183 N. W. 828.
That the employee may have been acting in disobedience of orders at the time of the injury does not necessarily place him outside the protection of the act. Frint Motor Co. v. Industrial Commission, 168 Wis. 436, 170 N. W. 285; Schneider's Workmen's Compensation Law, 624 et seq.
The accident to Elmer happened in the course of his employment (Novack v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 158 Minn. 495, 198 N. W. 290), and while he was engaged in furthering the business of his employer. The question is whether he had departed from the work he was employed to do to such an extent that it cannot be said to have arisen out of the employment.
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