## Facts

- Glenn Growers Cooperative, Inc. operated a rice drier adjacent to facilities owned by Eibe & Huffman Warehouse Company, Inc.
- Frank Pitt served as manager for both the Cooperative and the Warehouse Company under an oral arrangement between the entities.
- The Cooperative paid all of Pitt’s wages and paid workers’ compensation premiums on his wages.
- The Warehouse Company did not pay Pitt; instead, it provided the Cooperative access to its scales and part of its premises (including warehouse space) in exchange for Pitt’s managerial services for the Warehouse Company.
- Pitt’s duties for the two businesses were intertwined and performed in the shared facilities.
- Pitt was injured while performing rice-handling work connected to the Cooperative’s operations, in an area associated with the Warehouse Company’s premises.
- The Industrial Accident Commission awarded workers’ compensation against National Automobile & Casualty Insurance Company, the Cooperative’s workers’ compensation carrier.
- The insurer sought appellate review to annul the award, disputing course-of-employment, employer identity (including joint employment), and policy coverage.

## Issues

1. Whether substantial evidence supported the Commission’s finding that Pitt was acting solely in the course of his employment with the Cooperative at the time of injury, rather than solely for the Warehouse Company or as a joint employee of both entities.
2. Whether Pitt’s injury was covered under the Cooperative’s workers’ compensation policy issued by the insurer.

## Decision

- The court denied the petition for writ of review and affirmed the Commission’s award against the insurer.
- The court held the Commission could reasonably find Pitt’s injury occurred solely in the course of his employment with the Cooperative.
- The court rejected the insurer’s joint-employment/proportional-liability theory because the Commission’s contrary factual determination was supported by the record.
- The court held Pitt was covered by the insurer’s workers’ compensation policy issued to the Cooperative.

## Legal Principles

- The characterization of an employment relationship in a dual-service setting is primarily a factual determination for the Industrial Accident Commission; appellate review is limited to whether substantial evidence supports the findings.
- Payment of all wages and workers’ compensation premiums by one entity, coupled with an arrangement where the other entity receives the worker’s services only in exchange for providing facilities to the paying entity, supports a finding that the paying entity is the worker’s employer for compensation purposes.
- Physical location on another entity’s premises does not defeat course-of-employment where the work performed there is part of the insured employer’s business arrangement and operations.
- Once the Commission properly finds an injury arose out of and in the course of employment with the insured employer, the injury is within the workers’ compensation policy absent a clearly applicable exclusion.

## Conclusion

The court upheld an administrative award requiring the Cooperative’s insurer to pay benefits, concluding that substantial evidence supported the Commission’s finding that the manager’s injury occurred solely in the course of his employment with the Cooperative and that the Cooperative’s workers’ compensation policy covered the claim.


Nat'l Auto. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Indus. Accident Comm'n, 182 P.2d 634 (Cal. Ct. App. 1947)