Can the nondependent heirs of a deceased person bring a claim for damages against the employer of the deceased?

The question of whether nondependent heirs could bring a suit for damages against the employer of their decedent at law was decided in a relatively early case. In Treat v. Los Angeles Gas etc. Corp., supra, 82 Cal.App. 610, 256 P. 447, the parents of an 18-year-old minor who was killed as a result of job-caused injuries sued the employer for wrongful death. The court cited the explicit provisions of section 6 of the 1917 statute (the predecessor of sections 3600, 3601 & 3602) in rejecting their claim. It recounted the "conditions of compensation" specified in the Act: that an injury occur; that the person injured was an employee; that at the time of injury, both the employee and the employer were subject to the Act; that the employee was performing a [193 Cal.App.3d 977] service arising out of and in the course and scope of employment; and that the injury was not due to the employee's intoxication or self-infliction. "If these facts exist, the conditions of compensation are present, and the identity of the person who may attempt to make a claim based upon the injury to the employee, or his relation to the latter, cannot in any way affect the application of the provisions of the act, or remove the case from the class where the 'conditions of compensation' exist." (Id. at p. 617, 256 P. 447.)