Diestelhorst

Petitioner seeks the annulment of an award made by said commission to said applicant for an injury received by the latter while employed by the petitioner to act as a general helper around a gold dredger. It is claimed that the accident was due to the “willful misconduct of said Bert Bollinger, and therefore the commission was without jurisdiction to make the award. ” It is admitted that if no other rational conclusion as to the attributable cause of the accident can be drawn from the evidence, then, in the exercise of its statutory authority, the court should vacate and annul said award. It is, however, the claim of respondents that there is sufficient justification for the finding that the injury was not due to the willful misconduct of the applicant, and that the commission therefore cannot be properly chargeable with an adjudication in excess of its legal authority.

Indeed, the attack and the defense relate not only to the evidence, but to the sufficiency of the finding itself to support the conclusion of the commission. It is the contention of petitioner that the facts found are compatible only with the position that the applicant was guilty of willful misconduct, and that…