Downes v. Industrial Commission

In Downes v. Industrial Commission, 113 Ariz. 90, 546 P.2d 826 (1976), an employee was killed when the company vehicle he was driving was run over by a 150-ton ore truck. Because the cause of the injury was apparent, the supreme court only needed to decide whether the employee had been within the course of his employment at the time of the accident. Without mentioning the term "death presumption," but citing the first Martin case, our supreme court found that certain presumptions applied to the course of employment requirement: There is a presumption that if an employee is injured while on company property during working hours, he is injured while within the scope and course of his employment . . . . There is a further presumption that when a workman is killed on the job he was, at the time of the fatal accident, within the scope and course of his employment . . . .Downes, 113 Ariz. at 92-93, 546 P.2d at 828-29. The court determined that the employee's heirs had raised a rebuttable presumption that he had died in the course of his employment and set aside the award denying them death benefits. Id. at 94, 546 P.2d at 830.