Haddock v. Edgewater Steel Co.

Citations

• 263 Pa. 120
• 106 A. 196
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 382

Syllabus

<p>Workmen’s compensation — Gourse of employment — Act of June 2, 1915, P. L. 786 — Findings of facts — Circumstantial evidence.</p> <p>1. Where a mechanical engineer employed on a salary, with no fixed hours of service, is instructed by his employer to go to a distant city 'to gather information for use in his employer’s steel plant, and on his return arrives at his station in a city at about eleven-thirty p. m., and while going from the station to his home is fatally injured by an automobile at a street crossing, the deceased will be deemed to have been injured in the course of his employment within the meaning of the Act of June 2, 1915, P. L. 736.</p> <p>2. Since, in such a case, the deceased was compelled to return to the city when he could not at once communicate with his superior, and had to stay somewhere until he could report, he cannot be charged with a departure from his employer’s service because, when hurt, he was going to his home for a lodging, rather than to an hotel.</p> <p>3. Under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, the compensation authorities whose duly it is to find the facts, may find them'either from direct proof, circumstantial evidence, or by inference from other facts.</p>