Cal-Nat Airways, Inc. v. Workmen's Compensation Appeals Board

Cal-Nat Airways, a Grass Valley firm, supplies pilots and borate tanker planes for forest fire fighting. This review turns on the question whether the workmen’s compensation insurance policy issued to Cal-Nat Airways by Argonaut Insurance Company covered Lewis Leach, a Cal-Nat pilot, at the time he crashed and was killed. The referee found coverage, but the Workmen’s Compensation Appeals Board reversed his decision and ordered payment of death benefits by the employer.

To reduce the cost of insuring such pilots, Allen T. Archer Company, a Los Angeles insurance broker, evolved a compensation…