Appeal of Hotel Bond Co.

• Decision Date: 23 February 1915
• Citation: 89 Conn. 143,93 A. 245
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Appeal of HOTEL BOND CO.

93 A. 245

89 Conn. 143

Appeal of HOTEL BOND CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Feb. 23, 1915.

[Copyrighted material omitted.]

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; William L. Bennett, Judge.

Appeal to the superior court by the Hotel Bond Company from an award of the Compensation Commissioner under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Judgment dismissing the appeal, and respondent appeals. Affirmed.

Philip Pond, of New Haven, and Ralph O. Wells, of Hartford, for appellant. Charles Welles Gross, of Hartford, for appellee.

WHEELER, J. The respondent duly took its "appeal" to the superior court from a finding and award made by a commissioner under the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1913. Its appeal to this court from the judgment of the superior court raises the questions whether the trial court erred (1) in holding that it had no jurisdiction to retry issues of fact but only to revise errors of law or unlawful proceedings on the part of the commissioner; (2) in holding that the commissioner did not unlawfully find that the claimant was a partial dependent; (3) in holding that the commissioner acted lawfully in awarding weekly compensation of $5 for 312 weeks on account of the death of John J. Powers.

The first question, whether on appeal to the superior court the case is to be tried de novo, is one of very great consequence to the workman and to the employer. It is also of large consequence to the state, for we are told by counsel that, during the short period of the existence of the act, upwards of 18,000 cases of injury have been reported.

The act neither defines the scope of the appeal nor fixes its procedure. We must ascertain this from a construction of section 27, which gives the appeal, but that of necessity compels a search of all of the provisions of the act and an understanding of its spirit and an appreciation of its origin and purposes.

The modern theory of the law of torts makes the fault of the owner a prerequisite to a recovery of damages by an injured workman. Workmen's Compensation Acts, such as ours, are founded upon the theory of a contract existing between workman and employer, an Implied consideration of which is provision for compensation for injury to the workman arising in the course of his employment and not through his intentional or willful misconduct. Fault is the foundation of the tort action; compensation for the injury, regardless of the fault, of the compensation acts.

The principle of the act is new in our law. The statute is remedial in character, and its provisions are to be broadly construed in order to effectuate its purpose. Bentley's Case, 217 Mass. 79, 80, 104 N. E. 432; Panasuk's Case, 217 Mass. 589, 592, 105 N. E. 368. The originators of these acts also believed that they would lessen accident. Some of the considerations behind them were economic: The hardship and difficulty involved in proving the workman's case, the great waste in procuring a recovery, the delay in obtaining the relief, the uncertainty oftentimes in determining the cause of the accident, the vastly increased dangers, and the impossibility of personal supervision by the employer under modern conditions of employment, and the necessity of the workman accepting employment under conditions of increased danger, or suffering loss of livelihood. Some were moral: The prevention of the tendency of some workmen to press unfounded claims and of others to exaggerate just claims, and the tendency of some employers to defend by means of questionable fairness.

Thus the act by eliminating the proof of negligence, by minimizing the delay in the award, and by making it reasonably certain, seeks to avoid the great waste of the tort action, and to promote better feeling between workman and employer, and accepts, as an inevitable condition of industry, the happening of accident, and charges its cost to the industry. It imposes upon an employer, presumably, his share of a common loss in a common industry. The period of compensation is limited as a "concession," it is said, "to expediency," although logically the spirit and purpose of the act can only be met by having the period commensurate with the period of injury or dependence.

The act is elective rather than compulsory in form in order to avoid a claim of its unconstitutionality; in fact, it induces its acceptance by depriving an employer of more than five who refuses its terms of the three common-law defenses, contributory negligence, assumption of risk, and fellow servant. The deprivation of an employer under such circumstances of these defenses is said to be "merely a declaration by the Legislature of the public policy of the state in that regard." Deibeikis v. L. Belt Co., 261 Ill. 454, 464, 104 N. E. 211, 215. Neither employer nor workman unless he so choose, comes within the act. When both so elect, the act becomes a part of the contract of employment.

The certainty of the receipt of compensation for injury follows the act Its procedure contemplates a speedy investigation and hearing by a commissioner without the formalities of a court and without, as a general rule, the employment of an attorney. It attempts to improve the condition of the workman under modern methods of industry by giving him partial recompense for an injury, with a result more certain and speedy and less expensive than under the former method in tort litigation.

If the act permits each cause to be appealed and tried de novo in the superior court, its objects will be defeated, and more delay, less certainty, and more expense will ensue to the claimant than with the single trial of the old method.

We may not lightly presume that the Legislature intended to set up a new system, the result of long agitation, much study, and the fullest publicity, and then deliberately, in the very act creating its new system, pull down the work of its hands.

Compensation acts have had a common origin and a common history, and the great majority of the 24 thus far enacted in our states bear close resemblance to each other in essential features. In only 3 of the 24, we believe, is a retrial of issues of fact permitted on appeal from an award. And, unless the acts have expressly given a retrial, the courts have construed them to intend the contrary. Pigeon's Case, 216 Mass. 51, 52, 102 N. E. 932; Donovan's Case, 217 Mass. 76, 79, 104 N. E. 431; Herrick's Case, 217 Mass. 111, 112, 104 N. E. 432; Bentley's Case, 217 Mass. 79, 80, 104 N. E. 432; Main Colliery Co. v. Davies, 16 T. L. R. 460; Butterworth W. C. C. vol. 2, p. 108. Our act was undoubtedly passed with full knowledge of other similar acts of common purpose. A uniformity of construction of provisions similar to ours, and essential to its life, while not conclusive, is certainly a persuasive reason for similarly construing our act.

If the commissioner is a court, the Legislature can confer upon the superior court appellate jurisdiction of his findings and awards; but if he is an executive officer, engaged in administrative duties, it cannot confer appellate jurisdiction of his findings and awards. Moynihan's Appeal, 75 Conn. 358, 360, 53 Atl. 903.

If the commissioner is a court, his appointment by the Governor, and not by the General Assembly, was in violation of article 5 of our Constitution. State ex rel. v. Creamer, 85 Ohio St. 349, 400, 97 N. E. 602, 607, 39 L. R. A. (N. S.) 694.

Some of the duties devolving upon the commissioner are quasi judicial, and some are wholly executive or administrative. He determines facts upon the classes of evidence allowed, and applies the law to the facts found, and renders judgment which affects the property rights of litigants before him, and may be enforced by execution issued as of course out of the superior court. He may hear the applicant at his residence. He proceeds to hearing without pleadings and without regard to the ordinary rules of evidence. He may make his inquiry through oral or written and printed records best calculated to ascertain the substantial rights of the parties. He receives, files, and transmits all notices required by the act. He supervises agreements made between the employer and his workmen. He is the adviser of all and the umpire between the disputants. Such a tribunal clearly is not a court.

It may well be that the case tried before the commissioner may be a very different one from that tried before the court, if on appeal the case is retried on the facts. Evidence which may have satisfied the commissioner may not, under the rules of evidence, be admitted in the superior court. So that the conclusion of the commissioner may be reached upon an entirely different basis of fact from that the superior court could take. The procedure of each tribunal is greatly variant.

We may not believe that the General Assembly intended one form of...