Bengston v. Greening ( 1950 )

Loring, Chide Justice.

Certiorari to review an order of the industrial commission awarding compensation for injuries.

Employer, A. W. Greening, operates a plumbing shop in Minneapolis. For more than a year, Esther Bengston, employe, had been his bookkeeper. She worked five days a week at a weekly compensation of $25. Except for the occasion here involved and an earlier one, she did no work for employer on Saturdays. The first time she worked on a Saturday morning she received an extra $3, and this time $2.50. On Friday afternoon, March 5, 1948, employer requested her to come to the office for a short time the following morning to get out the records and go over them with an accountant, who was preparing employer’s income tax report. In the morning, employe’s husband drove her to the shop. In about an hour she was through. Her husband had waited for her. They drove directly home. She got out of the car in front of their home, and the husband drove on. She crossed the public sidewalk, and about halfway between the sidewalk and the house — on premises owned by employe and her husband — she slipped and fell. For the injuries she sustained, the industrial commission, one member dissenting, awarded compensation on the basis that she had sustained an injury arising out of and in the course of her employment. The facts are not in dispute, and the legal conclusion alone is challenged.

In this state, the rule is clear that the employe is covered by the act while on a special errand for the employer, and the rule obviously must cover the return journey as well as the outgoing travel. The special-errand rule means nothing more than that when the employe is on a special mission for the employer he is in the course of his employment and is covered by the compensation act as to injuries arising out of it. It is a rule to assist the industrial commission in determining when the employment commences and ceases. It came into the law as an exception to the general rule that ordinarily injuries resulting from travel to and from work are not compensable. We think that in the case at bar the commission was justified in finding from the evidence that the injury arose out of hazards to which the employe was exposed while on the special mission. Nehring v. Minnesota M. & M. Co. 193 Minn. 169, 258 N. W. 307. Here, employe was at the return end of her mission, but logically as much within it as if she had fallen on her walk out to the car at its beginning. The fact that she had left the car, in which she rode, and walked to the house did not interrupt the coverage. The errand for the employer was the occasion of her leaving the house and returning to it. Her walk from the car to the house was occasioned by the errand. She was as much within the scope of her mission as if she had walked all the way to and from the office.

In Markoff v. Emeralite Surfacing Products Co. 190 Minn. 555, 252 N. W. 439, cited by relators, transportation was furnished by the employer. There, the employe was, under M. S. A. 176.01, subd. 11, covered “while being so transported.” In the case at bar, the employe was on a special errand or mission for her employer, and the rule in regard to that situation applied — not the rule with reference to transportation. We regard the finding of the commission that she was covered as supported by the evidence.

Order affirmed and writ discharged, with an allowance to employe of $250 attorney’s fees and costs in this court.