Barrencotto v. Cocker Saw Co.

• Decision Date: 31 December 1934
• Citation: 266 N.Y. 139,194 N.E. 61
• Parties: BARRENCOTTO v. COCKER SAW CO., Inc.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

266 N.Y. 139

194 N.E. 61

BARRENCOTTO

v.COCKER SAW CO., Inc.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 31, 1934.

Action by James Barrencotto against the Cocker Saw Company, Inc. From an order of the Appellate Division (241 App. Div. 795, 271 N. Y. S. 986), affirming an order of the Special Term denying defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint, defendant appeals, and the Appellate Division certifies the question whether the complaint states facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action.

Order affirmed, and certified question answered in the affirmative.Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Philip A. Sullivan, for appellant.

Warner F. Thompson, for respondent.

William L. Clay, of Rochester, and Philip Halpern, of Buffalo, amicus curiae.

LEHMAN, Judge.

The complaint in this action alleges that the plaintiff is an employee of the defendant; that in the course of him employment in the defendant's factory he inhaled dust and other impurities which caused him to contract a disease; that the plaintiff's exposure to the conditions which resulted in the disease was due to the defendant's failure to exercise reasonable care and to perform its statutory duties in the operation of its factory. It further alleges that the disease from which the plaintiff is suffering is not an occupational disease for which compensation is payable under the Workmen's Compensation Law (Consol. Laws, c. 67). A motion by the defendant to dismiss the complaint under rules 106 and 107 of the Rules of Civil Practice has been denied.

The Workmen's Compensation Law provides: ‘Every employer subject to this chapter shall in accordance with this chapter secure compensation to his employees and pay or provide compensation for their disability or death from injury arising out of and in the course of the employment, without regard to fault as a cause of the injury. * * *’ Section 10 (Laws 1922, c. 615). It further provides: ‘The liability of an employer prescribed by the last preceding section shall be exclusive and in place of any other liability whatsoever, to such employee, his personal representatives, husband, parents, dependents or next of kin, or anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages, at common law or otherwise on account of such injury or death. * * *’ Section 11. Exception is made where an employer has failed to secure the payment of compensation, but here it is conceded that the defendant has secured such compensation.

By the Workmen's Compensation Law, ‘a new system was substituted in its entirety for an outgrown and objectionable one.’ Shanahan v. Monarch Engineering Co., 219 N. Y. 469, 478,114 N. E. 795, 798. The Legislature has provided a system of compensation to an employee for disability or death from injury arising out of and in the course of the employment without regard to fault as a cause of the injury. It thus imposes upon the employer a new liability not known to the common law or enforceable by common-law action. At the same time it provides that the new liability shall be exclusive, and thus destroys any right which the employee or any other person may have to recover damages for ‘such injury or death.’ The defendant maintains that by the substitution so decreed the plaintiff's alleged cause of action has been destroyed.

Undoubtedly, no common-law right of action against an employer survives for damages consequent on an ‘injury’ to an employee arising out of and in the course of the employment, but the statute itself defines the word ‘injury.’ “Injury' and ‘personal injury’ mean only accidental injuries arising out of and in the course of employment and such disease or infection as may naturally and unavoidably result therefrom.' Section 2, subd. 7. In common parlance, an injury has broader meaning. The Legislature has chosen to make its own definition, and, in construing the statute, we must accept the legislative definition.

The power of the Legislature to create a new and exclusive system of compensation for injuries sustained by an employee is broad. Reasonable exercise of that power is not restricted by the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. New York Central R. R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188, 37 S. Ct. 247, 61 L. Ed. 667, L. R. A. 1917D, 1, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 629. Argument that the Constitution of the state in any manner limits the power of the Legislature is foreclosed by the amendment to the Constitution adopted for that sole end. Article 1, § 19. Indeed, the same reasons which called for the exercise of the legislative power to provide a new system of compensation for ‘accidental injuries' might be urged for the extension of that system to every injury resulting from employment, regardless of whether the injury be accident, or, like an occupational disease, be the natural and unavoidable result of the conditions of the employment.

The Legislature nevertheless remains the sole judge of how and when it shall exercise its powers. It determined, in its wisdom, that, at the outset, it would restrict the operation of the new system of compensation to accidental injuries. Even so, the field of the operation embraced most of the cases in which, at common law, the employee had a remedy, though inadequate, for injuries resulting from the employment. For injuries not accidental, but the natural and unavoidable result, or even a result which might reasonably be anticipated, from the conditions of the employment, there was seldom any effective remedy at common law, even where the injury was due to disregard of a duty of care imposed by law on the employer; for usually the application of the doctrine of assumption of risk would bar recovery in such case. There the Workmen's Compensation Law, in its original form, imposed no new liability upon the employer. It did, by sections added, thereafter, in some degree enlarge the operation of the new system of compensation. Section 38 provides that ‘the disablement of an employee resulting from an occupational disease described in subdivision two of section three shall be treated as the happening of an accident within the meaning of this chapter,’ and subdivision 2 of section 3 provides that ‘compensation shall be payable...