Fields v. Lowe Furniture Corp.

• Citation: 220 Tenn. 212,24 McCanless 212,415 S.W.2d 340
• Parties: , 220 Tenn. 212 Willie B. FIELDS v. LOWE FURNITURE CORPORATION.
• Decision Date: 07 April 1967
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 340

415 S.W.2d 340

24 McCanless 212, 220 Tenn. 212

Willie B. FIELDS v. LOWE FURNITURE CORPORATION.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April 7, 1967.

Rehearing Denied June 6, 1967.

Crawford & Barnes, Cookeville, for plaintiff in error, respondent.

Snow & Poteet, Cookeville, for defendant in error, petitioner.

OPINION

BURNETT, Chief Justice.

This is a Workmen's Compensation suit filed under the statute, T.C.A. § 50--901 et seq. The only question presented on this appeal is whether or not an employee is entitled to compensation when he has seen the doctor selected, and to whom he was sent by his employer, within a year from the time of filing the suit, and does this toll the statute, T.C.A. § 50--1003.

The trial judge, after hearing proof pro and con, found that the employee, Fields, was entitled to compensation. This finding was not questioned except it was very ably argued that the suit is barred under the statute (T.C.A. § 50--1003) because the suit was not filed within a year from the time of the injury or within a year from the time the last payments were made of compensation to a doctor for treating the injuries of the employee.

The suit was filed on March 13, 1965. The man was injured on June 3, 1963. At the time of his injury he was sent by the employer to a doctor selected by the company. This was found as a fact by the trial judge and is amply supported by the evidence. There is no question about the fact that Dr. Lowe was the employer's doctor. Dr. Lowe treated and saw this man several times thereafter and, after some weeks, referred him to another doctor in Nashville and he was placed in Vanderbilt Hospital and treated for the injuries he received on June 3, 1963. The bill of Vanderbilt Hospital was paid by the employer, but this was more than a year before suit was instituted. After returning to his home the employee was again treated by the company doctor on up to May 13, 1964, so the question thus presented is whether or not treatment of this employee by the company doctor in May, 1964, tolled the statute, hereinafter to be quoted. There is no showing that these bills for the treatment of this man up until May, 1964, or that the bill of the doctor to whom the company doctor had referred the man to in Nashville, had ever been paid. As a matter of fact the record is rather to the effect that these bills had not been paid by anyone.

The statute upon which this defense is based is T.C.A. § 50--1003, and reads, as follows:

'50--1003. Limitation of time.--The right to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law shall be forever barred, unless within one (1) year after the accident resulting in injury or death occurred the notice required by § 50--1002 is given the employer and a claim for compensation under the provisions of this law is filed with the tribunal having jurisdiction to hear and determine the matter; provided that, if within said one (1) year period voluntary payments of compensation are paid to the injured person or his dependents, an action to recover any unpaid portion of compensation, payable under this law, may be instituted within one (1) year from the time the employer shall cease making such payments, except in those cases provided for by § 50--1024. (Acts 1919, ch. 123, § 24; Shan.Supp., § 3608a173; Code 1932, § 6874, Acts 1947, ch. 139, § 4, C.Supp. 1950, § 6874.)'

The section immediately following is, of course, T.C.A. § 50--1004, and provides as far as here applicable that:

'50--1004. Medical attendance--Death benefits--Total liability of employer--Submission to physical examinations--Autopsy.--For not exceeding one (1) year after notice of injury, the employer or his agent shall furnish free of charge to the employee such medical and surgical treatment, medicine, medical and surgical supplies, crutches, artificial members, and other apparatus, such nursing services as ordered by the attending physician and hospitalization, including such dental work made reasonably necessary by accident as herein defined, as may be reasonably required * * *'

Of course, this Section must be read in conjunction with T.C.A. § 50--1003, because here, after the man was injured, he was sent to the company physician, who began to treat him immediately and referred him to other physicians for treatment.

The argument presented so forcefully on behalf of the plaintiff in error is that there was no payment of these or other medical bills within a year before this suit was filed so as to bring the case within the purview of the opinion of this Court in Chandler v. Travelers Ins. Co., 212 Tenn. 199, 369 S.W.2d 390, wherein we held that the statute was tolled from the time of the payment of the medical bills for the petitioner. We held in that case that the time was extended in tolling the statute to the payment of the bills but not to the subsequent date of the last treatment that the doctors, to whom the man had been referred by the company doctor, had performed. We did not hold in the Chandler case that the date of the last treatment of the man could be used as a date upon which the statute could be tolled, but that the payment of the bill was the date which would be, and was looked to in that case, as the time of the tolling of the statute. In other words, if the employer paid the doctor of their selection for the treatments given the man the statute would start to run from the last payment, not necessarily the last treatment, because such a voluntary payment of medical bills was compensation within the meaning of the Act.

We now have the converse of this proposition wherein the bills have not been paid, yet presumptively they will eventually be paid by the employer because the doctors here were the doctors of the employer and not doctors of the employee, and thus we do not have any date when the bills were paid. It seems to us in reason and logic that it was the intention of the Legislature under T.C.A. § 50--1004, when the employer is required to render medical service and furnish various things as shown by the statute, above quoted, for a year after the injury, the employer is certainly liable for these medical expenses. Clearly, here this man was seen by the company doctor and treated within a year after he was injured. He was injured in June, 1963, and the last treatment as shown by this record by the company doctor was in May, 1964.

The reasoning of the Colorado court in Frank v. Industrial Commission, as reported in 96 Colo. 364, 43 P.2d 158, is applicable here. In the Frank case the Industrial Commission had held that the claim of the employee was barred under their Act for not having given notice within the time that the Act required the notice to be given, but the Supreme Court of Colorado in the Frank case, supra, held that this statute was tolled during the time that the employee was seeing the physician employed by the employer and exempted the employee from the requirement of serving the Industrial Commission with written notice for compensation within the six months as required by their Act. The court, among other things, said this:

'* * * The sole issue, as above stated, is whether under the facts of this case the furnishing of medical and hospital services removed the bar created by section 84 of the act. * * *

'* * * There is no doubt that, under the facts appearing in the...