State ex rel. Niessen v. District Court of Ramsey County

• Decision Date: 02 May 1919
• Docket Number: 21,268
• Citation: 172 N.W. 133,142 Minn. 335
• Parties: STATE EX REL. MARIE NIESSEN AND ANOTHER v. DISTRICT COURT OF RAMSEY COUNTY AND ANOTHER
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

172 N.W. 133

142 Minn. 335

STATE EX REL. MARIE NIESSEN AND ANOTHER v. DISTRICT COURT OF RAMSEY COUNTY AND ANOTHER

No. 21,268

Supreme Court of Minnesota

May 2, 1919

Upon the relation of Marie Niessen the supreme court granted its writ of certiorari directed to the district court for Ramsey county and the Honorable James C. Michael, one of the judges thereof, to review proceedings in that court brought under the Workman's Compensation Act by the relator, mother of Harold J. Niessen, as employee, against the members of the firm of R.H. Merriam & Company, as employer. Affirmed.

SYLLABUS

Workman's Compensation Act -- findings of fact reviewable on certiorari.

1. The findings of fact made by the trial court in proceedings under the Workman's Compensation Act, are not conclusive, but will be reviewed on certiorari to the extent of determining whether they are supported by sufficient competent evidence.

Workmen's Compensation Act -- scope of review -- when a question of law.

2. The question presented on such review is one of law, and in the decision thereof the court will be guided by the general rule that a question of law arises on the evidence, where an impartial consideration thereof, together with permissible inferences from facts shown, will lead reasonable minds to but one conclusion.

Workmen's Compensation Act -- scope of review -- when a question of fact.

3. If reasonable minds may reach different conclusions, the question of the sufficiency of the evidence becomes one of fact, and the findings of the trial court thereon will be sustained.

Workmen's Compensation Act -- decedent not engaged in the course of his employment.

4. Findings of the trial court that decedent met his death when not engaged in the course of his employment, and at a time when he was engaged in furthering personal interests, held applying the rule stated, sustained by the evidence.

E. A Waters, for relator.

F. M. Catlin, for respondents.

OPINION

BROWN, C.J.

Certiorari to review a judgment of the district court of Ramsey county denying relief in proceedings under the Workman's Compensation Act.

It appears from the record that for some time prior to his death Harold J. Niessen was in the employ of R.H. Merriam & Company, a copartnership doing business in the city of St. Paul, as a traveling salesman at a fixed compensation per month. He was assigned to a particular territory which he covered sometimes by train and sometimes by automobile. He owned an automobile, and when he used it in his employment the company allowed him $25 per week for the expense of operation. At about 8 o'clock p.m. on May 28, 1918, near the village of Killkenny, while traveling with his automobile from Waterville to St. Paul, his place of residence, he met with an accident and was killed by the overturning of the machine; the cause of the accident does not appear. He left surviving as partial dependents his mother, a sister and brother, in whose behalf the mother brought this proceeding under the Workman's Compensation Act. The trial court rejected the claim for compensation and as a basis for that conclusion found as facts that:

"On May 27 and 28, 1918, deceased was engaged regularly in the line of his employment, up to the time he completed his work at Waterville in the afternoon of May 28, 1918, whereupon the deceased in the evening of May 28 departed from Waterville to return to St. Paul by way of Montgomery in violation of instructions of his employers and upon an errand wholly personal to himself, and in so doing met with said accident which resulted in his death. That at the time and place of said accident the deceased was not in the course of his said employment or in the line of his duties as an employee of the defendants, and his said accident and death did not arise out of or in the course of his said employment."

The only question presented to this court is whether the findings embraced within the quotation are sustained by the evidence. The question must be answered and disposed of as a question of law, and not of fact or mixed law and fact, for, as urged by counsel for respondent, review in this court in such proceedings is so limited by the express terms of the compensation act. Section 8225, G.S. 1913. A similar limitation is found in the compensation acts of other states and the rule stated is generally applied, though some of the courts hold that the findings of the trial court, or of the industrial commission which administers the law in some jurisdictions, are conclusive upon all questions of fact. 1 Honold, Workman's Compensation, § 242, where a collection of the authorities may be found. See also L.R.A. 1916A, at page 266.

The findings are not regarded as conclusive in this state, for we here review them for the purpose of determining whether they are supported by sufficient competent evidence. In this we apply the rule that a question of law arises on the evidence in a particular case, where an impartial consideration thereof, together with all reasonable and fair inferences, will lead reasonable...