Dresser Minerals v. Hunt

• Decision Date: 10 October 1977
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 77-171,77-171,1
• Citation: 262 Ark. 280,556 S.W.2d 138
• Parties: DRESSER MINERALS et al., Appellants, v. Henry HUNT, Employee, by Ruth Hunt, Guardian, Appellee
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 138

556 S.W.2d 138

262 Ark. 280

DRESSER MINERALS et al., Appellants, v. Henry HUNT, Employee, by Ruth Hunt, Guardian, Appellee.

No. 77-171.

Supreme Court of Arkansas, Division No. 1.

Oct. 10, 1977.

Smith, Williams, Friday, Eldredge & Clark by George E. Pike, Jr., Little Rock, for appellants.

Thacker & Kincaid, Hot Springs, B. W. Sanders, Arkadelphia, for appellee.

GEORGE ROSE SMITH, Justice.

This is a workmen's compensation case. The claimant, Henry Hunt, was employed by Dresser Minerals as a miner, working underground. On September 3, 1970, a flying sliver of rock penetrated his right eye, eventually resulting in the complete loss of the use of that eye. Hunt suffered so greatly from anxiety and depression as a consequence of the injury that he became totally disabled, physically and mentally. In March of 1973 he was declared incompetent by the Garland Probate Court, Mrs. Hunt being appointed as his guardian.

The first hearing before a referee was had on July 8, 1974. The employer and insurance carrier admitted that Hunt's injury was compensable, but they contested the extent of their liability in several respects. By direct appeal from the circuit court's affirmance of the commission's decision the employer and carrier question three specific findings made by the commission. One of those findings is also challenged by the claimant, by cross appeal.

First, the commission, pursuant to the statute, increased the award of compensation by 15%, because it found that the injury was caused in substantial part by the employer's violation of a safety regulation. Ark.Stat.Ann. § 81-1310(d) (Repl.1976). The appellants contend that this additional 15% claim is barred by limitations and that the claimant's proof did not establish a causal connection between the violation and the injury.

The commission correctly denied the plea of limitations. The claim for additional compensation was filed two years and four months after the original injury. Ordinarily the statute of limitations for a claim for disability is two years, but there is this exception: "In cases where compensation for disability has been paid on account of injury, a claim for additional compensation shall be barred unless filed . . . within one year from the date of the last payment of compensation, or two years from the date of the injury, whichever is greater." § 81-1318(b). Here compensation was paid from the beginning; so our holding in Miller v. Southern Machine & Iron Works, 239 Ark. 218, 388 S.W.2d 391 (1965), is not in point. There no claim of any kind had been filed and nothing had been paid when the claim for wrongful death was filed after the one-year statute for such claims had already run.

We see no reason to treat the 15% claim as so wholly distinct from other claims for additional compensation as to put it in a class by itself, exempting such a claim from the basic rule that a claim for additional compensation is not barred if filed, as this one was, while compensation is actually being paid. Penal statutes, it is true, are to be strictly construed, but there is the countervailing principle that the compensation law is to be liberally construed in favor of the claimant. Furthermore, the great majority of claims for disability are paid as a matter of course, without the claimant's ever having to employ an attorney. The appellants' argument would tend to emasculate the 15% penalty provision, because in many cases (as apparently in this one) the two years would have run before the claimant, whose basic claim was being paid, learned anything about the 15% provision in the statute.

With regard to the causal connection between the safety violation and the injury, there is ample evidence to show that the employer did not have on hand, on the day of the accident, the required type of lenses to protect the miners' eyes from the kind of injury that occurred. In fact, on that very day Hunt had asked for a protective mask, but the proper kind was not available.

Second, the commission awarded Mrs. Hunt $100 a week as compensation for...