Douglas Aircraft Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

The Industrial Accident Commission awarded a death benefit to the minor children of a mother who was killed in an industrial accident. Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc., the mother’s employer, by writ of review, now challenges the commission’s jurisdiction to make the award, and the question for decision concerns the construction of section 3501(b) of the Labor Code which declares that, under stated conditions, a minor child shall he conclusively presumed to have been wholly dependent upon a parent.

There is no dispute as to the facts. In 1942, Nathan Meehan and Hazel N. Meehan, his wife, with…