## Facts

- Flavorland Industries, Inc. operated a meat-packing plant; Ervin Schumacker worked as assistant plant manager.
- Schumacker’s duties included cultivating business relationships with livestock buyers and sellers.
- He regularly attended a weekly livestock auction and then socialized with buyers and sellers at a nearby bar/restaurant.
- Flavorland expected him to socialize and pay for others’ food and drinks; it provided an expense account and a company car for that purpose.
- On the night of the accident, Schumacker drank more than usual at the bar after the auction-related gathering.
- After leaving, he hit a parked truck’s bumper without stopping, drove through town, then sped on the highway toward his home.
- Schumacker’s car left the roadway and crashed, killing him.
- A jury later found he was intoxicated, became intoxicated during the course of employment, and that intoxication proximately caused his death.

## Issues

1. Whether substantial evidence supported the jury’s finding that Schumacker was acting in the course of employment at the time of the fatal accident for industrial insurance coverage.
2. Whether the trial court erred by granting judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) and ruling, as a matter of law, that Schumacker was outside the course of employment.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the JNOV and reinstated the jury’s special verdict for the widow.
- The court held that the evidence permitted competing reasonable inferences on course of employment, making the question one for the fact-finder.
- The court rejected the view that intoxication and the hit-and-run necessarily converted the trip into a purely personal venture as a matter of law.
- Because substantial evidence supported the verdict when viewed favorably to the widow, JNOV was improper.

## Legal Principles

- Under Washington industrial insurance law, an injury is compensable if it occurs while the worker is acting in the course of employment, including activities necessarily incidental to the job.
- When evidence allows reasonable minds to differ on course-of-employment inferences, the issue is factual and should not be resolved by JNOV.
- Employer-directed or employer-funded client entertainment and off-premises relationship-building may fall within the course of employment.
- Intoxication during an employer-sanctioned, work-connected activity does not automatically sever the employment nexus; whether it does so may be a factual question.
- JNOV is proper only when, viewing the evidence most favorably to the nonmoving party, there is no substantial evidence or reasonable inference supporting the verdict.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated the jury’s finding that the employee’s employer-expected, employer-funded client socializing and the ensuing travel could remain within the course of employment, and that intoxication and related misconduct did not require judgment for the employer as a matter of law.


Flavorland Indus., Inc. v. Schumacker, 32 Wash. App. 428, 647 P.2d 1062 (Ct. App. 1982)