Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Co. v. Norton
| Decision Date | 28 April 1930 |
| Docket Number | No. 5043.,5043. |
| Citation | 40 F.2d 530 |
| Parties | BALTIMORE & PHILADELPHIA STEAMBOAT CO. et al. v. NORTON et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
Louis Wagner, of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.
Calvin S. Boyer, U. S. Atty., of Doylestown, Pa., for Deputy Commissioner.
G. C. Krewson, of Philadelphia, Pa., for Gube.
This case arises under the act of Congress extending the principle of injured workmen's compensation to those in longshoremen's employment. 33 USCA §§ 901-950. These laws have two main objectives. One is to provide a prompt, speedy, simple, and inexpensive method of adjusting compensation; the other to preserve to every one affected by the award made all his legal rights. To reach the first objective in the practical working of the system reliance is placed upon the Deputy Commissioner; to achieve the second recourse is given to the courts. The Deputy Commissioner has computed the compensation period in the instant case at 146 weeks, and the wage earning capacity of the injured workman at $36.06. The plaintiff complains of the former as longer than the law prescribes, and the latter as in fact too high.
The experienced counsel for the plaintiff, whose familiarity with this legislation has given him a firm grasp of the whole subject, has made an analysis of the act of Congress, which we adopt and follow. The measure of compensation has the dual basis of injury to the workman and his wage earning capacity. The injury is translated into terms of disability. The disability is measured by its extent and duration. We thus have disabilities which are total or partial, permanent or temporary. A third feature is likewise recognized by the act. Every injury, whatever its extent, requires what is called "a healing time." During this period the disability is total. We thus have in terms of disability five classes of injuries. They are (1) total, (2) partial, (3) permanent, (4) temporary, and (5) total for a time and partial thereafter. Injuries, of course, vary in their nature, extent, duration, and required "healing time." The law seeks as best it can to measure compensation by the severity of the injury viewed as a disability by classifying injuries, fixing compensation periods and a healing time, and graduating allowances by fixed percentages. The disability in the instant case was total during the healing time and partial thereafter, and is permanent. The scheduled compensation time applicable is 312 weeks; the percentage 40 per cent., and the allowed healing time 32 weeks. The actual healing time of course varies with the nature and extent of the injury. The law recognizes this by providing for cases in which the actual healing time exceeds the schedule time by extending the compensation time accordingly. The actual healing time here was 34 weeks, and the excess thus 2 weeks. The elements in the compensation computation thus become, as figured by the Commissioner: (1) Actual healing time, 34 weeks; (2) allowed compensation time, 314 weeks; (4) total disability period, 34 weeks; (5) remaining partial disability period, 280 weeks, and (6) percentage, 40 per cent. He accordingly figures the compensation period at 146 weeks, as follows:
1. Schedule healing period 32 weeks
Excess of actual period 2 weeks
Actual healing and total ___
disability time 34 weeks
2. Schedule compensation time 312
Excess allowed 2
___
Total compensation time 314
Less disability time as
above 34
___
Partial disability time 280
40% allowed compensation
time 112 weeks
___
Total compensation time 146 weeks
The plaintiff figures thus:
Schedule compensation time 312 weeks
Excess allowed 2 weeks
___
40 per cent. of total 314 125.6 weeks
It will be observed that the difference in these computations is that the Commissioner has allowed for total disability as long as it lasted and for permanent partial disability for the remainder of the compensation, while the plaintiff allows only for permanent partial disability, but allows it for the whole compensation period.
For the soundness of the construction of the act of Congress upon which the 125.6 weeks computation is based, the plaintiff relies upon Texas Employers' Ins. Ass'n v. Sheppeard (D. C.) 32 F.(2d) 300; a regulation of the Commission which followed the ruling and a number of rulings of the New York state courts construing a New York statute of like verbiage with the act of Congress.
We are quite in accord with counsel for defendants that the rights of the injured employee under the act of Congress are as the United States statute, as construed by the courts of the United States, defines them, and that neither the Commission nor the courts of New York nor both can dictate the meaning of the statute. This, however, is not the thought conveyed in the opinion of Judge Hutcheson. If a phrase, through judicial interpretation, has come to have a definite fixed meaning when it is bodily incorporated into a statute, it will be given that meaning in the statute which it was before interpreted to have. This means no more than that the Legislature has used the phrase in its accepted sense. This...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
In re McConnell, 1797
...to his arm. Thereafter, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the judgment of the court of appeals in the Norton case. About the time that case was argued in the court last resort, the case of Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Ltd. v. Monahan, decided by the ......
-
Follett v. Voris
... ... The leading and controlling case is Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamship Co. v. Norton, 284 U.S. 408, 409, 52 S.Ct. 187, ... 772, 135 S.E. 103. Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Co. v. Norton, 284 U.S. 408, 52 S. Ct. 187, 76 L.Ed. 366; Id., 3 Cir., 48 ... ...