Davis v. W. T. Grant Co.

Decision Date25 June 1936
Citation185 A. 889
PartiesDAVIS v. W. T. GRANT CO.
CourtNew Hampshire Supreme Court

Transferred from Superior Court, Hillsborough County; Branch, Judge.

Proceeding under the Employers' Liability Act and the Workmen's Compensation Act by Mae E. Davis against the W. T. Grant Company, employer. On defendant's exception to the trial court's finding and ruling.

Petition dismissed.

Petition, for compensation under the Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Act (P.L. c. 178). The plaintiff was a saleswoman in the defendant's department store in Manchester. The court found these facts: "Her principal duties consisted in the selling of merchandise; but they also included sweeping in and around the counter, cleaning and polishing the counter, and frequently bringing down small quantities of goods from the stock room on the second floor of the building. * * * In the rear of the store there is a freight elevator which * * * serves * * * the defendant. It is used by the defendant to carry goods to and from the stock room on the second floor, and when so used is operated by the defendant's stock man. * * * The plaintiff, and other salesgirls, had frequently ridden on this elevator when making trips to the stock room," with the defendant's permission. It was found and ruled that "the plaintiff was doing work in proximity to hoisting apparatus, or machinery operated by mechanical power, in a place where five or more persons were engaged in manual or mechanical labor," and that therefore the plaintiff, injured in doing her work in the store, was entitled to compensation.

The defendant's exception to this finding and ruling, together with other exceptions, was transferred by Branch, J.

McLane, Davis & Carleton and R. W. Davis, all of Manchester, for plaintiff.

Wyman, Starr, Booth, Wadleigh & Langdell and Ralph E. Langdell, all of Manchester, for defendant.

ALLEN, Chief Justice.

Stated in its essentials, the question is whether the Workmen's Compensation Act applies to the ordinary employees of a store or mercantile establishment in which power-driven machinery, including hoisting apparatus, is in incidental use in the conduct of its business and is in proximity to the employees' Work. Although the act has been in force for twenty-five years, the question has not heretofore arisen here. And because of the differences in the scope and provisions of the legislation on the subject here and elsewhere, authority from other jurisdictions is scanty.

Specifically, the act is "only" for the benefit of "workmen engaged in manual or mechanical labor" in hazardous employment. P.L. c. 178, § 1. Of the kinds of employment enumerated, one is "work in any shop, mill, factory or other place" where hoisting apparatus or power-driven machinery is used and at least five workmen are employed. Id., section 1 (2). It is the plaintiff's contention that she was a worker engaged partly at least in manual labor, that her work was in a place where an elevator as hoisting apparatus, Was in operation, and that the requisite number of fellow servants was supplied. Relying upon the observance of the well-settled rule of liberal construction in determining the range and bounds of the act, she says that she is within them.

Liberal construction of a statute does not call for a meaning beyond or outside the legislative intent. To extend legislation beyond its intended field of operation is to amend it, as much as to harrow it within confines less than the field. The policy and objectives of the legislation are to be recognized with comprehensive force, and it is a part of them that there shall be no application of the legislation beyond its terms and provisions construed in the light of the policy and objectives. There is no intention of an act that its policy shall be adopted in cases and situations which its terms fairly construed do not cover and include. The policy aids in determining the extent of application, but the extent being determined, it is not to be enlarged by literal construction of the terms beyond their usual meaning. A construction adopting a meaning of the terms possibly but not probably intended carries the policy farther than was probably intended. Liberality of construction should effectuate, but not exceed, legislative intent. The main significance of the rule is the dismissal from consideration of the common-law jealousy of legislation disturbing its own policy, a jealousy leading to the formulation of rules of strict construction of legislation and in control and check of its operation. If the policy, spirit, and purpose of legislation are upheld in its construction, it is no denial of liberality of treatment to apply the rule that the language and phraseology of a statute are to be viewed in their ordinary and popular sense. "Reliance has been placed upon the beneficent purpose of the act. But, as often stated before (Lybolt v. W. H. Hinman, Inc., 85 N.H. 262, 157 A. 579, and cases cited), this attribute cannot alter the plain meaning of the language used." Manock v. Amos D. Bridge's Sons, 86 N.H. 104, 107, 164 A. 211, 212.

The Compensation Act is designed to benefit a special class of persons. "The Legislature intended * * * that one who is injured by accident while engaged in work in which the risks are great and difficult to avoid may be compensated * * * regardless of the cause of his injury." Boody v. K. & C. Mfg. Co., 77 N.H. 208, 209, 90 A. 859, 860, L.R.A. 1916A, 10, Ann.Cas. 1914D, 1280. This objective is a standard to be employed in construing the doubtful language of the specifications in further definement of the class. It is of and and guidance in stating the legislative meaning of language susceptible of more than one meaning. If the ordinary and usual meaning of the language meets the spirit and purpose of the act, a literal or special meaning is not to be found; but if the literal or special meaning is required to avoid a result not in conformity with the general intent, it will be adopted. One who may be classed within the application of the act only by giving the language its literal or a special meaning is not to be excluded if the general intent shows that he was to be included, but only if it so shows.

This no more than restates a principle of statutory construction long established. "The two rules of construction, that the object of a statute is to be regarded, and that the whole of it is to be taken together, are decisive of this case." Barker v. Warren, 46 N.H. 124, 125. "And when the meaning of the words used are doubtful, or they are susceptible of a double construction, that sense is to be adopted which best harmonizes with the context, and the apparent policy and objects of the legislature. Pike v. Jenkins, 12 N.H. 255." Opinion of Justices, 45 N.H. 590, 591; Upton v. Stoddard, 47 N.H. 167, 172. "What is within the legally proved intention of the legislature is within the statute, though not within the letter; and what is within the letter, but not within the intention, is not within the statute." Opinion of the Justices, 66 N.H. 629, 655, 33 A. 1076, 1090.

These methods and tests of construction are liberal. The general intent appearing and being followed, full scope of application is given play. To go farther and bring within the scope cases not within the intent, and brought in only by giving language a strained or technical meaning, would be a form of legislation. It is only when the terms of a statute which do not accord with the general intent are plainly expressed, that they prevail. Woodbury's Appeal, 78 N.H. 50, 51, 96 A. 299. While the Compensation Act is to be construed to effectuate its purposes, it is not to be given a meaning contrary to its terms (Lizotte v. Nashua Mfg. Co, 78 N.H. 354, 357, 100 A. 757; Lybolt v. W. H. Hinman, Inc., 85 N.H. 262, 264, 157 A. 579), or not within its terms (Manock v. Amos D. Bridge's Sons, 86 N. H. 104, 106, 164 A. 211; Tully v. Carter, 86 N.H. 301, 302, 167 A. 274), or outside its policy and purpose (Brown v. Conway Electric Light & Power Co, 82 N.H. 78, 79, 129 A. 633).

The act being thus considered in the light of its broad purpose of providing for compensation for personal injuries in hazardous employments, it is clear that a salesman in a store is not a "workman engaged in manual or mechanical labor," within a fair application of the act. The wide contrast between the factory and the store in the employee's exposure to danger is to be regarded. The factory presents dangers of an extrahazardous nature while the store has only those encountered in the ordinary paths and activities of life. The contrast receives practical recognition by a definition of workman in its customary and popular sense. Employees selling goods in a store are usually called clerks. Only in a literal sense are they workmen. The act has reference to "workmen engaged in manual or mechanical labor," thus emphasizing their calling as laborers, a term not in usage descriptive of salesmen in a store. If the salesman in a store performs some manual labor, he does not thereby become a workman in the sense in which the word is customarily used. The labor being incidental to the employment of selling goods, it is not enough to signify that the employment is of a workman. "When we speak of a person doing manual labor, the mind is instantly directed to some kind of toil in which the physical predominates the mental." Arizona Eastern R. Co. v. Matthews,...

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