State Dept. of Revenue v. McCray

• Decision Date: 18 March 1960
• Docket Number: No. 37710,No. 1,37710,1
• Citation: 101 Ga.App. 348,114 S.E.2d 64
• Parties: STATE DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE v. McCRAY et al
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 64

114 S.E.2d 64

101 Ga.App. 348

STATE DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE v. McCRAY et al.

No. 37710.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 1.

March 18, 1960.

Rehearing Denied March 24, 1960.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The motion to dismiss the writ of error is denied.

2. The court erred in affirming the award of compensation to the claimant as against the Georgia State Department of Revenue.

Robert McCray filed his claim with the State Board of Workmen's Compensation alleging that he suffered accidental injury to his back while unloading cases of liquor from a railroad siding at the warehouse of the Georgia State Department of Revenue in Albany, Georgia. The liquor was consigned to the Georgia Crown Distributing Company and claimant was helping to load it onto this company's truck at the time of his injury. The board found that the Georgia Crown Distributing Company and the State Department of Revenue were both employers of the claimant and directed that they jointly pay him compensation in specified amounts. On appeal to the Superior Court of Dougherty County the award of the board was 'approved in all respects.' The State Department of Revenue assigns error upon this ruling.

Eugene Cook, Atty. Gen., John L. York, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ben Johnson, Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.

Smith, Gardner & Kelley, B. C. Gardner, Jr., D. C. Campbell, Jr., H. G. Rawls, Albany, for defendants in error.

FELTON, Chief Judge.

1. The motion to dismiss the writ of error is denied. State Department of Revenue v. McCray, 215 Ga. 678, 113 S.E.2d 132.

2. It is contended by the State Department of Revenue that the evidence is insufficient to support the award of compensation against it. The principle that the award of the board will not be disturbed by this court if there is any evidence to support it is now too well established to require citation. Construed most favorably to the claimant, the evidence discloses that there existed an arrangement between the State warehouse and the Georgia Crown Distributing Company whereby the company's whiskey was stamped and unloaded directly from the boxcar into its truck for direct transportation to its storage facilities and that this arrangement was to the mutual benefit of both parties, since it eliminated the necessity of unloading from the boxcar into the State warehouse at State expense and thence to the truck at company expense. This is not a case of two State employees assisting two company employees in the unloading operation, since the uncontradicted evidence discloses that each party paid one half of the wages of all four employees and that all arrangements as to obtaining extra workers, transporting them to the boxcar, and seeing that the cases of whisky were loaded onto the truck were in charge of certain regular employees of the Georgia Crown Distributing Corporation. Under these circumstances there was no more...