Kaiser Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

The petitioner seeks an annulment of the award of compensation to an employee who was injured during an altercation between an assistant foreman and a fellow employee.

The applicant, Mollie Pruitt, was a negro woman employed as a tank sealer at petitioner’s shipbuilding plant located at Richmond. She worked in a gang composed of two white women, one colored, and four others whose race and color were not identified. All members of the gang were instructed to take orders only from their leaderman. A white man, Pay Jones, was an assistant labor foreman of the plant, who was not connected with this gang and had no authority over it. On the day in question Jones, in a drunken condition, came to the place where the gang was working and engaged in making love to Daisy, one of the white women. He ordered Willa Mae, one of the colored women, to leave the place and work in some other part of the ship. She refused and an altercation arose. He then took Daisy to the hold of the ship where they remained for more than an hour.

In the meantime the two colored women and one of the white women went to the rest room where they discussed Jones’ order to Willa Mae. Unknown to them Mrs. Jones was…