Southern Pac. Co. v. Indus. Accident Comm'n

The Industrial Accident Commission made an award in favor of the dependents of William T. Butler, who was killed while working as an electric lineman in the employ of petitioner, Southern Pacific Company. Said company operates a system of electric railway lines in Alameda County, its cars being used in both intrastate and interstate commerce. For the generation of electric power the company maintains at Fruitvale a main power-house, whence an alternating current of high voltage is transmitted through a main power line to substations. At the substations the current passes through converters and transformers, which convert it to a direct current and reduce its voltage. The direct current, thus reduced, passes to the trolley wires, and from them to the motors on the cars. When Butler sustained the fatal injury, which was caused by an electric shock, he was engaged in wiping insulators on the main power line between the Fruitvale power-house and the substations. *Page 22 This writ of review was issued to test the validity of the employer's claim that the commission was without jurisdiction to make an award, for the reason that Butler was engaged in interstate commerce, within the…

I dissent. The test is stated by the supreme court of the United States to be, "Was the employee at the time of the injury engaged in interstate transportation, or in work so closely related to it as to be practically a part of it?" The deceased was engaged in working upon an insulator that supported a wire that was actually in use in moving trains engaged in interstate commerce, and was killed by a fall resulting from a shock caused by an escape of some of the electric current so used. His *Page 25 connection with the actual movements of trains was so direct that had all the current short-circuited through his body, its effect on the trains in motion would have been instantaneous. The electricity in question was generated at a steam-generating plant at Fruitvale. That steam plant was just as truly operating the moving cars as though the steam had been generated in a locomotive attached to the train. The electric transmission line was merely a means of conducting that power to the train, and in no sense differs in legal contemplation from the system of transmission of power by cable to the cars of a cable railroad. It is merely a means to an end; an instrumentality for moving…

Rehearing denied. *Page 27