Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

The petitioners seek to annul the award of the Industrial Accident Commission in favor of the respondent Murphy and against petitioner Pacific Indemnity Company, the insurance carrier of Butler-Veitch. It is contended that the finding that Murphy, while employed as a salesman of Butler-Veitch, sustained injury “occurring in the course and arising out of his employment” is not supported by the evidence.

Murphy was an employee of Butler-Veitch acting as a city salesman of automobiles on a commission basis. Murphy had certain freedom of action, as is customary with such salesmen, but Butler-Veitch generally directed and controlled his activities by requiring definite hours of floor duty and reports on his time spent on work other than floor duty. Murphy worked every third Sunday and was on call at all times. Admittedly, Murphy was an employee and would have been entitled to compensation for injuries received in the performance of his customary duties as city sales man. However, he met with the accident here involved under somewhat unusual circumstances.

Butler-Veitch, as Northern California distributors of Marmon and Roosevelt automobiles, sold cars to H. F. Burke, the local retail…