Opinion
40652.
DECIDED MAY 8, 1964.
Workmen's compensation. Clayton Superior Court. Before Judge Banke.
Richard W. Best, Best, Chambers Mabry, for plaintiff in error.
Smith, Ringel, Martin, Ansley Carr, Charles L. Drew, contra.
Where there was evidence that the claimant's deceased husband was injured some 10 or 12 miles from the area in which he was supposed to have been working at that time, while en route to his father's house for the purpose of delivering a personal purchase made from his employer, defendant Williams Brothers Lumber Company, in the defendant company's truck, the use of which was without the knowledge or permission required by the employer, the finding of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation that the accident did not arise out of and in the course of his employment and the award denying compensation to the claimant were authorized by the evidence; therefore the court did not err in affirming the board's award.
Judgment affirmed. Frankum and Pannell, JJ., concur.
DECIDED MAY 8, 1964.
The following evidence was adduced at the hearing before the deputy director: It was stipulated that claimant's decedent-husband, Julius Williams, was an employee of the defendant lumber company earning an average weekly wage of $53.20 and that he sustained an injury on September 29, 1962, which resulted in his death on December 21, 1962. The claimant, Dora Mae Williams, testified that her decedent-husband had worked as a truck driver for the defendant lumber company for 14 or 15 years; that on the date of the injury decedent left the house around the usual time of 6:40 a. m.; that he normally worked until 12 on Saturdays. Arthur M. Smith, the defendant employer's office and credit manager, testified that he had approved a $60.77 credit sale of two rolls of hog wire to the decedent on or before September 29, 1962, the terms of which being deduction by the employer of $10 per week from decedent's earnings, beginning the next week after the purchase; that he understood the wire was to be used by decedent to build a place to keep his hogs; that the company policy on credit sales to employees was to charge the list price, or the price paid by other customers on a credit sale, but that such was not considered a sale to a customer; that the matter of whether the decedent's purchase was to be delivered or whether he was to make his own arrangements for taking it home with him was out of the witness's jurisdiction; that the company does not permit the use of its vehicles for the employees' personal use unless special permission is granted, which is seldom; that employees who make purchases from the company's hardware store are not permitted to take whatever they buy in a company vehicle and carry it to some place they might desire to have it; that the company repossessed the wire after the wreck; that the decedent didn't have a wreck on the day the goods were sold to him because that was on Saturday; that the decedent did have a wreck on the day the goods were sold to him. Troy Floyd, the defendant employer's assistant foreman of the lumber yard, testified that he was in charge of the decedent on the day of the wreck; that the decedent's time card for that day showed that he arrived at 6:59 and started working at 7:30 a. m.; that shortly after 11 he told the decedent to unload his truck and pick up a load at the "truss shop," which was a quarter of a block away, before 11; that decedent unloaded the truck and left it parked on a parking lot up by the office and never picked up the load at the truss shop and that he hadn't seen him since that time; that the decedent was driving a truck other than the one assigned to him at the time of the wreck; that it is necessary for an employee to have permission from a foreman to use a truck for personal missions; that the decedent had not obtained his authority or permission to be driving the truck in which he had the wreck; that the decedent had no business of his employer in the vicinity at which he wrecked; that the decedent had not worked often on Saturdays, but that he had been called in specifically to get his truck loaded up at the truss shop on September 29th; that this job required only 30 to 40 minutes to complete and the decedent was told about it between 11 and 11:30; that the company had a rule requiring all drivers making deliveries from the warehouse to come back to the yard, check out with him, and move a button to indicate their leaving, none of which the decedent had done. Frank McCrackin, the defendant employer's assistant superintendent, testified that he exercised direct control over the decedent when he was there, and that when he was not there, as he was not on the day of the wreck, Mr. Floyd was in charge of him; that the company had a rule against employees using company trucks for their own personal use without the company's expressed permission; that he had not given the decedent permission to use the truck to haul hog wire and had no knowledge of such use; that the company had another rule requiring drivers delivering goods sold by the company to go through either him or Mr. Floyd before leaving the yard at any time.