Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Indus. Accident Comm'n
| Decision Date | 26 June 1947 |
| Docket Number | S. F. No. 17417.,S. F. No. 17418.,S. F. No. 17419.,S. F. No. 17420.,S. F. No. 17421.,S. F. No. 17422.,S. F. No. 17423.,S. F. No. 17424.,S. F. No. 17425.,S. F. No. 17426.,S. F. No. 17427.,S. F. No. 17428.,S. F. No. 17429. |
| Citation | 30 Cal. 2d 388 |
| Parties | AETNA CASUALTY AND SURETY COMPANY (a Corporation) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and WILLIAM CHARLESWORTH, Respondents. FIREMEN'S FUND INDEMNITY COMPANY (a Corporation) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and SIMON O. MacDONALD, Respondents. PACIFIC EMPLOYERS INSURANCE COMPANY (a Corporation) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and CLARA WYNKOOP, Respondents. INDUSTRIAL INDEMNITY EXCHANGE (an Inter-insurance Exchange) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and R. C. KILLEN, Respondents. CALIFORNIA COMPENSATION INSURANCE COMPANY (a Corporation) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and FRANK KIDD, Respondents. INDUSTRIAL INDEMNITY EXCHANGE (an Inter-insurance Exchange) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and HARVEY ALLISON, Respondents. STATE COMPENSATION INSURANCE FUND et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT, COMMISSION and ROBERT DENTON FLEMING, Respondents. STATE COMPENSATION INSURANCE FUND, et al., Petitioners v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and ELWYN ROBERTS, Respondents. STATE COMPENSATION INSURANCE FUND et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and ROBERT L. RICHARDSON, Respondents. HARTFORD ACCIDENT AND INDEMNITY COMPANY (a Corporation) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and BURNS D. LAMB, Respondents. WESTERN NATIONAL INDEMNITY COMPANY (a Corporation) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and JOHN W. JANSON, Respondents. LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY (a Corporation) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and GERALD REED, Respondents. INDUSTRIAL INDEMNITY EXCHANGE (an Inter-insurance Exchange) et al., Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION and JOE MARTINEZ, Respondents. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, Moses Lasky, Leonard, Hanna & Brophy, Maurice E. Harrison, Keith, Creede & Sedgwick, Donald Gallagher, John H. Black, Edward R. Kay, Claude F. Weingand, George R. Haswell, Thomas F. McGrath, Herlihy & Herlihy, S. Norman Hays and F. Carlton Myers for PetitionersR. C. McKellips, John A. Rowe, Jr., Joseph Sheehan and T. Groezinger for Respondents.
Robert W. Kenny, Attorney General, Clarence A. Linn, Assistant Attorney General, Charles A. Son, Charles J. Janigian, Charles P. Scully, George Olshausen, John K. Hagopian and Gladstein, Anderson, Resner & Sawyer as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents.
This is a proceeding to review an award of compensation made by the Industrial Accident Commission in favor of an injured employee. At the time the employee sustained his admittedly compensable injury, section 4661 of the Labor Code provided that "Where an injury causes both temporary and permanent disability, the injured employee is not entitled to both a temporary and permanent disability payment, but only to the greater of the two." By an amendment effective as of September 15, 1945, the following proviso was added to section 4661: "except that where the temporary disability payment exceeds 25 per cent of the permanent disability payment the injured employee shall be paid 75 per cent of such permanent disability payment in addition to the temporary disability payment." Thereafter the commission made its award allowing compensation pursuant to the terms of the amended statute, with the result that the award was greater than it would have been had the commission applied section 4661 as it read at the date of injury. Twelve additional cases arising from similar factual situations have been consolidated with this proceeding.
The two-fold question to be determined in this proceeding is whether the commission gave retrospective operation to the amended statute by applying it in a case where the injury occurred prior to the amendment and, if so, whether such retrospective application was proper.
[1] "A retrospective law is one which affects rights, obligations, acts, transactions and conditions which are performed or exist prior to the adoption of the statute." (American States W. S. Co. v. Johnson, 31 Cal. App. 2d 606, 613 ; Ware v. Heller, 63 Cal. App. 2d 817, 821 ; 23 Cal.Jur. 628.) [2] Respondent commission contends, however, that in making its award in accordance with section 4661 as amended, it gave only prospective operation to the amendment. It is argued that the statute deals with the subjectof disability to which the injury is a mere antecedent fact, that there was no right to or correlative obligation for permanent disability compensation at the time of injury but that such right or obligation arose only after the disability was manifest and its existence determined by the commission, and that consequently no existing rights or obligations were affected by application of the amendment even though the injury occurred before its adoption. With this reasoning we cannot agree.
The prior industrial injury was not a mere antecedent fact relating to the permanent disability ensuing therefrom; on the contrary, it was the basis of the right to be compensated for such disability. This is recognized by the amendment itself which begins with the recital "Where an injury causes both temporary and permanent disability." Moreover, it is elementary that an industrial injury is the foundation of rights and liabilities under workmen's compensation laws. (See Lab. Code, § 3600.) It may be true that, with respect to certain procedural matters, proceedings for permanent disability compensation are viewed as separate and distinct from proceedings for temporary disability compensation. (See Gobel v. Industrial Acc. Com., 1 Cal. 2d 100 ; Cowell L. & C. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 211 Cal. 154 [294 P. 703, 72 A.L.R. 1118].) It does not follow, however, that the "cause of action" for permanent disability is separate and distinct from the original industrial injury. (Lab. Code, § 5303.) The employee was entitled to compensation not merely because he became permanently disabled, but because that disability resulted from an injury in the course of and arising out of his employment.
[3] Since the industrial injury is the basis for any compensation award, the law in force at the time of the injury is to be taken as the measure of the injured person's right of recovery. [4a] The 1945 amendment of section 4661 increased the amount of compensation above what was payable at the date of the injury, and to that extent it enlarged the employee's existing rights and the employer's corresponding obligations. The amendment is therefore clearly substantive in character, and the commission, by applying it in the present proceedings, gave it a retrospective operation.
The authorities support the conclusion that a statute changing the measure or method of computing compensation for disability or death is given retrospective effect when appliedto disability or death resulting from an injury sustained before the effective date of the statute. (Holmberg v. City of Oakland, 55 Cal. App. 270, 272 ; United Iron Works v. Smethers, 159 Okla. 105 ; Lynch v. State, 19 Wn.2d 802 ; Virden v. Smith, 46 Nev. 208 ; Polk v. Western Bedding Co., 145 Pa. Super. 142 ; Quilty v. Connecticut Co., 96 Conn. 124 ; Stanswsky v. Industrial Commission, 344 Ill. 436 ; see Hendrickson v. Industrial Acc. Com., 215 Cal. 82, 84 ; Hyman Bros. B. & L. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com., 180 Cal. 423, 424 ; Chaney v. Los Angeles County Retirement Bd., 59 Cal. App. 2d 413 .) The only case cited in support of the contrary view is Talbot v. Industrial Ins. Com., 108 Wash. 231 [183 P. 84, 187 P. 410]. It is sufficient to note that in a subsequent case the same court which decided it stated that the Talbot case "did not say that the allowance of the increased payment was in 'no sense' a retroactive application of the amendatory act, but simply said that so to apply the amendment did not amount to giving it a retroactive effect contrary to the intention of the legislature." (Lynch v. State, 19 Wn.2d 802 .)
[5] It is an established canon of interpretation that statutes are not to be given a retrospective operation unless it is clearly made to appear that such was the legislative intent. (Jones v. Union Oil Co., 218 Cal. 775 ; In re Cate, 207 Cal. 443 ; Pignaz v. Burnett, 119 Cal. 157 .) It is contended upon behalf of respondents that this rule of statutory construction has no application to procedural statutes, and that section 4661 relates solely to matters of procedure or remedy. Feckenscher v. Gamble, 12 Cal. 2d 482 , City of Los Angeles v. Oliver, 102 Cal. App. 299 , San Bernardino County v. Industrial Acc. Com., 217 Cal. 618 , and Davis & McMillan v. Industrial Acc. Com., 198 Cal. 631 [246 P. 1046, 46 A.L.R. 1095], are relied upon in support of the contention. In those cases, with one exception, it was held that the language of the statutes showed that the Legislature intended them to be applied retroactively, and the court was concerned mainly with the question of whether the Legislature has power to give those laws such retroactive effect. Since the question of the constitutionality of retroactive legislationand the question of the applicability of a rule of statutory construction are distinct (Ware v. Heller, 63 Cal. App. 2d 817, 821 ), these cases are not in point.
Davis & McMillan v. Industrial Acc. Com., supra at page 638, contains language, quoted from 36 Cyclopedia of Law, page 1201, to the effect that the presumption against retrospective construction does not apply to statutes relating merely to remedies and modes of procedure. (See, also, Crawford, The Construction of Statutes, p. 581.) A different theory is offered to reach the same result in Morris v. Pacific Electric Ry. Co., 2 Cal. 2d 764, 768 , wherein this...
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