State Compensation Insurance Fund v. Workmen's Compensation Appeals Board

Herein we review an order of respondent Workmen’s Compensation Appeals Board granting an award of compensation to an inmate of the Los Angeles County jail who was injured while working as a member of a road gang in the Malibu area of Los Angeles County. The sole question raised in the petition for writ of review is whether the inmate was an employee of the Sheriff’s Department of the County of Los Angeles at the time of the injury within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act.

The facts in this case are developed primarily through the testimony of the applicant, David Carl Childs, given at the hearings on May 16, 1969, and August 28, 1969.

Applicant had been in jail for about two and one-half months prior to the date of his injury which occurred on November 3, 1966. On that day he was helping to haul equipment needed to lay a sewer pipe along a highway when he was struck with a shovel by another inmate because he would not give him cigarettes. He had worked daily on various projects for about two months, and on this specific job for about a week before the injury. He worked eight hours a day. He was transported to and from the job site by a sheriff’s department…