Dempsey v. Chevrolet Division, General Motors, 38513

• Decision Date: 20 September 1960
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 38513,38513,1
• Parties: J. H. DEMPSEY v. CHEVROLET DIVISION, GENERAL MOTORS
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 509

116 S.E.2d 509

102 Ga.App. 408

J. H. DEMPSEY v. CHEVROLET DIVISION, GENERAL MOTORS.

No. 38513.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 1.

Sept. 20, 1960.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The State Board of Workmen's Compensation has no power to reopen or rehear a case, after a prior award, on its merits or for purposes of modification except upon application for a hearing on a change of condition under Code § 114-709, or where an application for review has been made within seven days of the notice of award under Code § 114-708. Neither of these exceptions applies to the present case.

On August 20, 1959, the claimant, James H. Dempsey, filed a written motion with the State Board of Worken's Compensation requesting that the board alter an award rendered in favor of the claimant against the defendant on October 16, 1958. This motion contended that the finding of facts by the board and the award made thereunder were inconsistent and that the board should correct its award to conform with the facts as found. After a hearing on the motion, the State Board of Workmen's Compensation concluded that it had no jurisdiction to review the award of October 16, 1958, since no application for review had been filed within seven days, as provided by law. Within thirty days thereafter, the claimant appealed to the Superior Court of Fulton County. The superior court affirmed the award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation. To this judgment the plaintiff excepted.

D. B. Phillips, Norcross, for plaintiff in error.

Spalding, Sibley, Troutman, Meadow & Smith, M. H. Blackshear, Jr., Atlanta, for defendant in error.

BELL, Judge.

The sole question presented by this appeal is whether or not the State Board of Workmen's Compensation has jurisdiction to alter or amend an award in response to a motion therefor filed ten months and one day after the award was handed down. The record shows that the single director made the award on October 16, 1958. The award was appealed to the superior court, where the appeal was dismissed by the claimant-plaintiff on December 22, 1958, the dismissal resulting in the award's becoming final.

The plaintiff's contentions, in brief, are that the State Board of Workmen's Compensation is governed by the statutes prescribed for the courts of this State, and that under Code § 24-104 has power to amend its award. The defendant's contention is that the State Board of Workmen's Compensation is not a court within the meaning of the statutes, and that its awards become final unless there is an application for review filed within seven days from the notice of the single director's award.

The leading case on this problem is Gravitt v. Georgia Casualty Co., 158 Ga. 613, 123 S.E. 897. There the Industrial Commission, the predecessor to the present State Board of Workmen's Compensation, had entered an order seven months prior to a motion to reopen the case, finding that the employee in question was a farm worker and, therefore, exempt from the Georgia Workmen's Compensation Act. The Supreme Court held that the Commission neither upon its own motion nor upon the application of the employer or the claimant had the power or the authority to pass an order reopening the case and granting another hearing for the taking of evidence and to reconsider the case upon its merits. The Supreme Court pointed out that the Georgia Workmen's Compensation Act created the Industrial Commission for the administration of the act (Ga.L.1920, [102 Ga.App. 410] p. 167, § 50), and stated: 'It is therefore an administrative body, and there is no provision in the act for temporary orders.' Ibid., 158 Ga. at page 718, 123 S.E. at page 899. 'The Georgia Industrial Commission is not a court of general jurisdiction, nor even of limited common-law jurisdiction, but it is an industrial commission made so by express terms of the act of the Legislature to administer its provisions as provided therein. As such administrative commission it possesses only such jurisdiction, powers, and authority as are conferred upon it by the Legislature, or such as arise therefrom by necessary implication to carry out the full and complete exercise of the powers granted * * * No power of reopening or rehearing a case on its merits, in which a decree has been entered, and of determining anew the liability or nonliability of the employer, is granted by the act of 1920, except as provided by section 45, which, as pointed out, does not apply to a case like the present.' Ibid., 158 Ga. at page 618, 123 S.E. at page 899. Section 45 of the Acts of 1920, now Code § 114-709 (Ga.L.1920, p. 191) has been amended four times. The only amendment, still effective, affecting this section of the original act, other than to delete the words, 'Industrial Commission,' and to insert the words, 'State Board of...