Schofield's Case

PIERCE, J. When injured the claimant was employed by Wilson and Company, and had been employed by them for about four or five months as a salesman in the business of selling machinery to the oil industry filling stations, in territory covered by Connecticut, Western Massachusetts and New York State. By the terms of his employment he was required to have and to use a car in the business which he was to do and was to receive a salary and commission. On September 28, 1929, in New Haven, Connecticut, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, he met his wife at the railroad station and in her company drove his car toward Boston in anticipation of attending there a sales meeting of his employer at 9:30 p. m., which he had been ordered to attend. In Massachusetts, while driving 'on Framingham-Milford Road, Washington Street, Holliston,' his car collided with a truck; as a result his arm was broken and he otherwise received bruises, cuts and lacerations. The state roadway at the place of the collision was wide with room for three cars to pass abreast. The truck, without rear lights, was stalled on the extreme right edge and probably off the road. The claimant's car was lighted, and when he first noticed the truck he was 'probably twenty feet' away and going 'between forty and forty-five miles an hour. He tried to stop his car,' was not able to do so, and 'struck the rear-end of the truck.' The claimant testified, in substance, that it was between 8 and 8:30 p. m. when he struck the truck; that his car was lighted and he was looking ahead; that he was quite sure he could have seen the truck if its rear light had been on; that he noticed there was a truck on the left side of the road; that he always thought one truck was parked on the right-hand side as he was going and the other truck on the left, although he had learned since the accident that they were about two hundred feet apart; that there was room to pass between them and the reason why he did not do so was that a car came head-on toward him and he thought he hit the truck to avoid hitting the car; that as he came along he thought he had a clear road straight ahead, thought he was the man who should go through there, 'but the other car came between him and evidently thought they were entitled' to precedence.