Cherokee Brick Co. v. Bishop

• Decision Date: 21 November 1927
• Citation: 299 S.W. 770,156 Tenn. 168
• Parties: CHEROKEE BRICK CO. ET AL. v. BISHOP ET AL.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

299 S.W. 770

156 Tenn. 168

CHEROKEE BRICK CO. ET AL. v. BISHOP ET AL.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

November 21, 1927

Appealed in Error from Circuit Court, Knox County; A. C. Grimm, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Addie Clayton Bishop and others, opposed by the Cherokee Brick Company and others. Compensation was awarded to Dorothy Hilton and another, grandchildren of the deceased workman, and the Cherokee Brick Company and others appeal in error. Affirmed.

Jos. F Denney and James B. Wright, both of Knoxville, for plaintiffs in error.

Frantz McConnell & Seymour, of Knoxville, for defendants in error.

SWIGGART J.

The issue presented for our determination by this appeal is whether Dorothy Hilton and J. H. Hilton, aged five years and seven years, respectively, grandchildren of Robert Bishop deceased, and at the time of the latter's death members of his household, and wholly dependent upon him for their support and maintenance, may be awarded compensation under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Law (Acts 1919, c. 123), on account of the death of their grandfather which was occasioned by an industrial accident rendering his employer liable to pay compensation under said statute.

The grandchildren of the deceased employee were the children of his daughter, and were taken into the home of the grandfather following the divorce of their parents, since which event they have received no support from either parent; the whereabouts of their father being unknown.

By the provisions of the statute, compensation may be awarded only to the classes of dependents of a deceased workman described and set out herein.

Our conclusion in the present case is controlled by the proper construction to be given to section 30, subsec. 3, which is as follows:

"Wife, child, husband, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, sister, brother, mother-in-law and father-in-law who were wholly supported by the deceased workman at the time of his death and for a reasonable period of time immediately prior thereto shall be considered his actual dependents, and payment of compensation shall be made to them in the order named."

For the grandchildren it is contended that the word "child," as used in this subsection, was intended by the Legislature to include a grandchild, wholly supported by the grandfather at the time of his death; that this intention appears from the context, in that grandparents, sisters, and brothers of the deceased workman are expressly classified as dependents, when actual dependency is shown, and these classes of dependents stand in the same degree of relationship to the deceased workman as his grandchildren.

It is also contended that the legislative intent to include a grandchild within the term "child" further appears from the fact that a father-in-law or mother-in-law, actually dependent upon the deceased workman, is included in the list of dependents who may be awarded compensation, and, unless absolutely necessary, the language used will not be so construed as to impute to the Legislature an intention to exclude from the benefits of the statute dependent grandchildren who may be infants and wholly incapable of self-support, or even of seeking charity on their own account, while at the same time including within the benefits of the statute adult dependents of no blood kin to the deceased workman.

On the other hand, it is contended for the employer and its insurer that the enumeration of the several classes of dependents in subsection 3 evinces a legislative intention to exclude any persons, although dependent in fact, who do not fall within any of the enumerated classes. The employer invokes the application of the rule of construction, "expressio unius est exclusio alterius."

Learned counsel for the employer contend that the word "child" is a word of common use, without ambiguity; and it is urged that the court should follow the general rule of construction that such words found in a statute are to be taken in their natural and ordinary sense, without extending their meaning by a forced construction. O'Neil v. State, 115 Tenn. 427, 90 S.W. 627, 3 L. R. A. (N. S.) 762; Doty v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 123 Tenn. 329, 130 S.W. 1053, Ann. Cas. 1912C, 167.

While the rule of construction last referred to is of sound and practical value, we do not have before us the task of ascertaining the meaning of a single word, standing alone, but of ascertaining the meaning of the Legislature in the enactment of the statute as a whole, and particularly that section in which the several classes of dependents, to whom compensation may be awarded, are defined.

In Johnson Coffee Co. v. McDonald, 143 Tenn. 505, 226 S.W. 215, one of the early cases construing the Workmen's Compensation Law, the court said:

"The purpose of the Workmen's Compensation Law is to provide for the dependents of the employee who accidentally meets with injury or death in the employment, and, to accomplish the beneficent purpose intended, the law should be given a broad rather than a narrow construction."

The policy of giving to the workmen's compensation statute a liberal construction, in order to accomplish the purpose which the Legislature obviously had in mind, has been consistently followed by this court.

The purpose of the compensation statute was stated by this court in Bohlen-Huse Coal & Ice Co. v. McDaniel, 148 Tenn. 628, 257 S.W. 848, to be "to require industry to provide for its own casualties and to relieve society of that burden."

In the Alabama compensation statute (Laws 1919, p. 206) the several classes of dependents to whom compensation may be awarded are defined substantially as in our statute, with an additional provision that the word "child" includes posthumous children, stepchildren who were members of the family of the deceased and dependent upon him for support, "and all other children entitled by law to inherit as children of the deceased."

Giving effect particularly to the definition of the word found in the statute, the Supreme Court of Alabama, in Ex parte Cline 213 Ala. 599, 105 So. 686, awarded compensation to a grandchild who had been taken into the home of the deceased workman upon the death of the child's parents. While some consideration was given by the Supreme Court of Alabama to the fact that the parents of the child were dead, the reasons by which the court was impelled to the conclusion that the grandchild was a dependent child of the deceased workman, within the meaning of the statute, appear in the following...