Donahue v. R. A. Sherman's Sons Co.

• Decision Date: 05 July 1916
• Docket Number: No. 348.,348.
• Citation: 98 A. 109
• Parties: DONAHUE v. R. A. SHERMAN'S SONS CO.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

98 A. 109

DONAHUE

v. R. A. SHERMAN'S SONS CO.

No. 348.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 5, 1916.

Appeal from Superior Court, Washington County; Chester W. Barrows, Judge.

Petition to recover compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Thomas L. Donahue against the R. A. Sherman's Sons Company. From final decree for petitioner, respondent appeals. Appeal denied, final decree affirmed, and cause remanded.

Harry B. Agard, of Westerly, for appellant. A. B. Crafts, of Providence, and George R. McKenna, of Westerly, for appellee.

SWEETLAND, J. This matter is before us upon the respondent's appeal from a final decree of the superior court entered upon a petition filed under the Workmen's Compensation Act (Pub. Laws 1911-12, c. 831). The petitioner seeks to recover compensation from the respondent for injuries alleged in the petition to have been sustained by the petitioner by reason of accident arising out of and in the course of his employment by the respondent. Mr. Justice Barrows of the superior court, who heard said petition, ordered the entry of final decree in favor of the petitioner. From an examination of the transcript of evidence we are of the opinion that all the findings of fact made by said justice and contained in said decree are supported by legal evidence. The respondent's reasons of appeal set forth no question of law or equity, decided adversely to the respondent, which entitles it to have the decree of the superior court reversed or modified.

There is but one contention of the petitioner which seems to us to require particular consideration in this opinion. The question involved therein is likely to frequently arise in proceedings under said act and we have treated the same at length. It appeared that the petitioner did not give notice of said injury to the respondent within 30 days after the happening thereof. Said justice held that in all the circumstances of the case such "notice within 30 days, as required by the act, was excused by reason of accident, mistake or unforeseen cause."

Although we are of the opinion that, upon a strict construction of the statute, the respondent's appeal should be denied, it should not be overlooked that the act, and like acts in the different states, are universally considered as of a remedial character, the provisions of which should be construed broadly and liberally in order to effectuate their purpose. Appeal of Hotel Bond Co., 89 Conn. 143, 93 Atl. 245; Kennerson v. Thames Towboat Co., 89 Conn. 367, 94 Atl. 372, L. R. A. 1916A, 436. In Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 106 N. E. 1, the court, in its consideration of the Massachusetts Workmen's Compensation Act said:

"The act is to be interpreted in the light of its purpose and, so far as reasonably may be, to promote the accomplishment of its beneficent design."

This court in its former opinions has recognized the liberal spirit of this legislation and has been guided by that liberality in the construction of the provisions of the Rhode Island act, and in the application of those provisions to particular cases.

The justice presiding in the superior court found that the petitioner, while engaged in the employ of the respondent, received a severe personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of said employment, which resulted in the permanent total incapacity of the petitioner. He is clearly a workman entitled to the benefits of this remedial statute. The act provides that no proceedings for compensation under it shall be maintained unless written notice of the injury shall be given to the employer within 30 days after the happening thereof, but excuses the failure to give such notice, among other things, if such failure is due to "accident, mistake, or unforeseen cause." The petitioner failed to give notice of his injury to the respondent within 30 days after the accident. During the 30 days in question the petitioner was very ill; he underwent a serious surgical operation; a part of the time he was in extremis and was not allowed to talk; he had what the surgeon termed a "very stormy convalescence"; during the last 23 of these 30 days he was in a hospital, among strangers, in a city at considerable distance from his home and from the place of business of the respondent. When, after the expiration of said 30 days, he was removed to his home, his condition was still so weak that he was unable to walk or attend to any business, and was partly confined to his bed for a considerable period. If these circumstances do not bring the petitioner within the exception, and do not warrant the finding that his failure to give the required notice was due to accident or unforeseen cause, then the act is defective in that regard, and in this case fails of its beneficent purpose. That should very clearly appear before this court can properly reach such an unfortunate conclusion.

The respondent refers to the giving of notice of his injury by the workman to his employer within 30 days as a condition precedent to the maintenance of proceedings for compensation; urges that such provision must be strictly construed; and cites a number of Massachusetts cases in support of that position. There can be no question of the soundness of that doctrine in the ordinary case. But that doctrine is not involved in the question before us. We are called upon to determine whether we will disturb the finding of the justice of the superior court that, because of the exception in the statute, in the circumstances of this case, the giving of the statutory notice was not such a condition precedent, and the petitioner was excused from giving such notice "by reason of accident, mistake, or unforeseen cause." At the time the decisions in the Massachusetts cases, cited by the respondent, were rendered, the Massachusetts act provided no relief and no exception from the requirement of notice within 30 days after the accident causing the injury, and the court was forced to hold, in all cases, that the giving of such notice constituted a condition precedent to the right to recover. Since those decisions, the Massachusetts Legislature has removed the harshness of their statute; and the provision of the Massachusetts law in that regard now is that notice shall be given as soon as practicable after the accident.

Our act, as originally passed and still in force, shows a liberality in the matter of notice, and the intent to prevent as far as possible the defeat of a meritorious claim through technicality. After providing that the written notice to the employer shall be given within 30 days after the happening of the injury, and shall state the nature, time, place, and cause of the injury, and the name and address of the person injured, the act further provides that such notice shall not be held invalid by reason of any inaccuracy in stating these particulars, unless it is shown that there was an intention to mislead the employer and that he was in fact misled thereby. There is a further provision that failure to give such notice shall not bar the proceedings, if it is shown that the employer or his agent had knowledge of the injury, or if the failure be due to accident, mistake, or unforeseen cause. The principle may fairly be deduced from the cases that, if, in statutes of this character, there is a provision requiring notice of the injury to the employer within a certain fixed period, and nothing more, the courts, of necessity, are bound to hold that notice within the prescribed time is imperative and amounts to a condition precedent to the maintenance of proceedings; but, if the statute itself provides relief for failure to give such notice, for reasons which seem equitable to the Legislature, then such remedial provisions shall be broadly and liberally construed by the courts to effectuate the main purpose of all such legislation.

The respondent contends that the liberality shown by the courts of other jurisdictions in the construction and application of similar remedial provisions should have no persuasive force with us, because of the peculiar and strict language employed in our act. This is claimed to be particularly true in regard to the decisions under the British act, because, while, with us, failure to give notice is excused if caused by accident, mistake, or unforeseen cause, in the British act the failure is excused if it arose from "mistake, or other reasonable cause." Mistake relieves under either statute. Is there any essential legal difference between the expressions "accident or unforeseen cause" and "reasonable cause"? In no proper construction of our statute should it be held that every accident or every unforeseen cause, however slight, would amount to an excuse. It must be such an accident or such a cause, unforeseen, as would amount to a reasonable cause for the failure to give notice. Both expressions come to the same thing; and the two provisions in their legal effect are identical. The great liberality shown by the British courts in their interpretation of the statutory provisions referred to are precedents worthy of our consideration in determining the question before us.

Since the British act went into operation, numerous cases in the reports illustrate that liberal tendency. The following citations taken from one volume of Butterworth's Workmen's Compensation Cases show the broad application which the judges have given to the provision which for "reasonable cause" excuses the giving of notice. In each of these cases, it was held that the circumstances furnished reasonable cause for the failure to give the statutory notice. In Hoare v. Arding, 5 B. W. C. C. 36, the saleswoman thought that she was suffering only from a temporary nervous derangement, when in fact her disease was serious. In Moore v. Colliery Co., 5 B. W. C. C. 87, the workman, a collier, as a result of his employment became affected with a disease known as "nystagmus"; a strike came on, and, thinking that relief from his...