Czarnecki v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.

• Decision Date: 20 June 1979
• Docket Number: Nos. 78-54,78-354,s. 78-54
• Citation: 390 N.E.2d 1195,58 Ohio St.2d 413
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court
• Parties: , 12 O.O.3d 353 CZARNECKI, Appellee, v. JONES & LAUGHLIN STEEL CORPORATION, Appellant, et al. FARLEY, Appellee, v. WARNER & SWASEY COMPANY, Appellant, et al.

Page 413

58 Ohio St.2d 413

390 N.E.2d 1195, 12 O.O.3d 353

CZARNECKI, Appellee, v. JONES & LAUGHLIN STEEL CORPORATION, Appellant, et al.

FARLEY, Appellee, v. WARNER & SWASEY COMPANY, Appellant, et al.

Nos. 78-54, 78-354.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

June 20, 1979.

Syllabus by the Court

It is not necessary to prove that unusual circumstances preceded an injury for that injury to be compensable under R.C. 4123.01(C).

On July 1, 1970, the plaintiff-appellee, James L. Farley, was lifting a drum while in the employ of defendant-appellant, the Warner & Swasey Company, when he felt a sharp pain in his back and fell. (According to Farley, the lift truck he was placing the drum on moved unexpectedly and he slipped. Warner & Swasey denied that the lift truck moved unexpectedly or that Farley slipped.)

After the fall, Farley was taken to the hospital, examined and given medication. He subsequently filed a claim for compensation which was denied by the Deputy Administrator of the Bureau of Workers' Compensation and, on appeal, the Regional Board of Review affirmed. Farley then appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County which found that there was no need to determine if the lift truck moved to find compensable injury and granted Farley's motion for a directed verdict. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that there was "no need for the claimant to prove any unusual circumstances preceding the injury." The cause (case No. 78-354) is now before this court pursuant to a certification by the Court of Appeals finding that its judgment is in conflict with the judgment of the Court of Appeals for Allen County in Hamilton v. Keller, Admr. (1967), 11 Ohio App.2d 121, 229 N.E.2d 63.

On January 7, 1974, plaintiff-appellee, Joseph Czarnecki, allegedly injured his lower back while in the employ of defendant-appellant, Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. (Czarnecki contended that the weight shifted in one of the drums he was loading onto a truck causing the drum to lurch, "getting out of control." His employer denied that the drum lurched out of control.) The Deputy Administrator of the Bureau of Workers' Compensation allowed Czarnecki's workers' compensation claim, the Cleveland Regional Board of Review affirmed, and the Industrial Commission refused further appeal. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation then appealed the matter to the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Jones & Laughlin, and Czarnecki filed a motion for a new trial which the trial court granted. Jones & Laughlin appealed the grant of that motion to the Court of Appeals. That court found the central issue to be whether jury instructions making an unexpected circumstance (in this case a lurch) a prerequisite to compensation were correct, and determined that, pursuant to Malone v. Indus. Comm. (1942), 140 Ohio St. 292, 43 N.E.2d 266, the instructions were incorrect and the grant of a new trial should be affirmed. The cause (case No. 78-54) is now before this court upon an allowance of appellant's motion to certify the record.

The causes have been consolidated herein for purposes of review and final determination.

J. William Petro, Cleveland, for appellee Joseph Czarnecki.

Dachman & Dachman and Jerome M. Dachman, Cleveland, for appellee James L. Farley.

Crede Calhoun Co., L. P. A., Crede Calhoun and J. Michael Monteleone, Cleveland, for appellant Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (case No. 78-54) and appellant Warner & Swasey Co. (case No. 78-354).

WILLIAM B. BROWN, Justice.

The sole issue raised by the instant causes is whether, under R.C. 4123.01(C), a plaintiff must prove that unusual circumstances preceded his injury before that injury may be found compensable.

R.C. 4123.01(C) provides:

" 'Injury' includes any injury, whether caused by external accidental means or accidental in character and result, received in the course of and arising out of, the injured employee's employment."

The portion of the statute that raises the question of whether a plaintiff must prove that unusual circumstances preceded his injury in order to receive compensation is the phrase "whether caused by external accidental means or accidental in character and result * * *." It is established law in Ohio that the prime aim of statutory construction is to determine legislative intent. (Henry v. Central Natl. Bank (1968), 16 Ohio St.2d 16, 242 N.E.2d 342, paragraph two of the syllabus; 2A Sutherland Statutory Construction 15 (4 Ed.), Section 45.05 and cases cited therein.) That intent may be revealed by the clear language of the statute (Provident Bank v. Wood (1973), 36 Ohio St.2d 101, 106, 304 N.E.2d 378) and, where that language is not clear, by its legislative and judicial context (see Henry v. Central Natl. Bank, supra ). The meaning of the phrase "caused by external accidental means or accidental in character and result" is not clear. ¹ To determine the meaning of those alternative phrases, therefore, it is necessary to rely on the history behind the statute's enactment, the context in which the disputed phrases first appeared and the statutory mandate that workers' compensation statutes be "liberally construed in favor of employees and the dependents of deceased employees" (R.C. 4123.95).

The phrases "caused by external accidental means" and "accidental in character and result" are the products of court definitions of compensable injury. The concept that a compensable injury must be caused by "external accidental means" I. e., that it must be caused by unusual circumstances first appeared in Indus. Comm. v. Brown (1915), 92 Ohio St. 309, 316-317, 110 N.E. 744, and was firmly established by the time that this court denied compensation for a heart attack not preceded by "any extraordinary or unusual happening" in Indus. Comm. v. Franken (1933), 126 Ohio St. 299, 300-301, 185 N.E. 199. (See Bowman v. National Graphics Corp. (1978), 55 Ohio St.2d 222, dissenting opinion of Justice Sweeney at pages 228-229, 378 N.E.2d 1056.) The application of the doctrine of an "unusual happening" that the General Assembly probably had in mind when R.C. 4123.01(C) was drafted is found in Dripps v. Indus. Comm. (1956), 165 Ohio St. 407, 135 N.E.2d 873. (Bowman v. National Graphics Corp., supra, dissenting opinion at page 232, 378 N.E.2d 1056; Hearing v. Wylie (1962), 173 Ohio St. 221, 223, 180 N.E.2d 921.) In Dripps, this court held that injuries arising from exertion above that normally required in the course of work, but not produced or accompanied by an extraordinary or unusual happening, were not compensable. In the words of the Dripps opinion, 165 Ohio St. at pages 408-409, 135 N.E.2d at page 875:

"For an employee to receive compensation for an injury arising at a time when he was performing his duties as an employee, he must show that such injury is physical or traumatic in character, that it arose suddenly and was not intentionally self-inflicted, and that it Resulted by external means from some specific event or mishap occurring suddenly and unexpectedly and not in the usual course of events." (Emphasis added.)

The phrase "accidental in character and result" made its way into Ohio workers' compensation law in the first two paragraphs of the syllabus in Malone v. Indus. Comm. (1942), 140 Ohio St. 292, 43 N.E.2d 266. Those paragraphs define compensable injury as an injury which "comprehends a physical or traumatic damage or harm, accidental in the sense of being the result of a sudden mishap" and as an injury produced by or resulting from "something unforeseen, unexpected, and unusual." ²

An examination of only the first two paragraphs of the Malone syllabus might lead to the conclusion that the phrase "accidental in character and result," like the Dripps language concerning "external accidental means," requires an injury to be preceded by an unusual circumstance before it may be compensated. When the Malone opinion is viewed in its entirety, however, it is clear that neither the Malone court nor the General Assembly intended to give both phrases the same meaning. Even the syllabus itself confirms this conclusion. Paragraph four thereof reads as follows:

"Heat exhaustion suddenly and unexpectedly suffered * * * constitutes an accidental traumatic injury under the Workmen's Compensation Act of this state."

Since this portion of the Malone syllabus allows compensation for an injury not preceded by an unusual circumstance, it cannot be reconciled with the "external accidental means" doctrine of Dripps. (See, also, Judge Bell's concurrence in Davis v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (1959) 168 Ohio St. 482, 484, 155 N.E.2d 889.) Moreover, while it is established law in Ohio that a Supreme Court syllabus states the law of the case (Cassidy v. Glossip (1967), 12 Ohio St.2d 17, 231 N.E.2d 64, paragraph six of the syllabus), it is also established law that any Supreme Court syllabus must be interpreted with reference to the facts of and questions presented by the case (14 Ohio Jurisprudence 2d 683, Courts, Section 248, and cases cited therein). In the Malone case, no unusual circumstance preceded the injury. This court, nonetheless, granted compensation. That holding provides further support for the proposition that those portions of R.C. 4123.01(C) originating in the Malone opinion must not be construed to require an unusual circumstance as a prerequisite to compensation. ³ (The same conclusion was drawn by this court in Hearing v. Wylie, supra, 173 Ohio St. at page 224, 180 N.E.2d 921, when it found that, had the decedent's injury occurred after the passage of current R.C. 4123.01(C), claimant should have been compensated for death benefits for the ruptured appendix suffered while decedent was lifting, without a preceding unusual event, a 100-pound side of beef.)

The chronology of Malone, Dripps and R.C. 4123.01(C) also shows that the General Assembly did not intend for the Malone language in R.C. 4123.01(C) to require a preceding...