Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority v. Gaither

• Decision Date: 20 July 1978
• Docket Number: No. 33249,FULTON-D,33249
• Citation: 241 Ga. 572,247 S.E.2d 89
• Parties: eKALB HOSPITAL AUTHORITY v. GAITHER.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 89

247 S.E.2d 89

241 Ga. 572

FULTON-DeKALB HOSPITAL AUTHORITY v. GAITHER.

No. 33249.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Argued April 10, 1978.

Decided July 6, 1978.

Rehearing Denied July 20, 1978.

Jones, Bird & Howell, F. M. Bird, Eugene T. Branch, Alexander E. Wilson, Jr., Arthur Howell, III, Atlanta, for appellant.

White & Jewett, Robert John White, C. Lawrence Jewett, Atlanta, for appellee.

BOWLES, Justice.

Certiorari was granted in this case to determine the application of the Workmen's Compensation Act (Code Ann. § 114-101 et seq.) to local hospital authorities.

Respondent, an employee of the petitioner hospital authority, suffered an on-the-job injury. She received full pay and free medical services for several months following her injury under FDHA's on-the-job injury program. When her doctors under the program pronounced her fit to return to work, respondent terminated her treatment at the hospital and filed a claim against FDHA with the State Board of Workmen's Compensation. FDHA filed a timely objection and moved to dismiss the claim on the ground that it was not an employer under the Workmen's Compensation Act, Code Ann. § 114-101, and that the board lacked jurisdiction to hear the claim.

The administrative law judge granted FDHA's motion to dismiss. Fulton County Superior Court affirmed the dismissal. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the superior court, finding that the legislature, by amendments to Code Ann. § 114-101 in 1970 (Ga.L.1970, p. 235) and 1975 (Ga.L.1975, p. 190), broadened the coverage of Title 114 by expanding the scope of the term "employer" to include local hospital authorities.

The 1970 amendment to Code Ann. § 114-101 added the phrase "instrumentalities and authorities" of the state to the definition of employer. The Court of Appeals found that local hospital authorities, while not state authorities, were instrumentalities of the state and are to be treated as employers under the workmen's compensation law. We disagree.

Local hospital authorities created under the authority of the Hospital Authorities Law, Code Ann. § 88-1801 are local, not state, instrumentalities. The State Constitution empowers counties to operate in the sphere of health care and to utilize local hospital authorities as their own county instrumentalities. Code Ann. §§ 2-6301, 2-6102.

Pursuant to these constitutional provisions and pursuant to a special amendment to Art. VII, Sec. VII, Par. I of the Constitution of 1877 (Ga.L.1943, p. 18 et seq.; Code Ann. § 2-7002), FDHA entered into a contract with Fulton and DeKalb counties in 1945 whereby the hospital authority acquired and was to operate Grady Memorial Hospital as an instrumentality of Fulton and DeKalb counties. Because under the Constitution and under its contract with Fulton and DeKalb counties the hospital authority is an instrumentality of the county and not of the state, it is not covered by the workmen's compensation law under its definition of "employer" as a state instrumentality.

Prior to the 1975 amendment, Code Ann. § 114-101 defined an employer to include "any individual, firm, association or corporation engaged in any business operated for gain or profit." Under that law, a local hospital authority was found not to be an employer under the workmen's compensation law. Richmond County Hospital Authority v. McClain, 112 Ga.App. 209, 144 S.E.2d 565 (1965). As amended, the words "operated for gain or profit" were deleted so that an employer is now defined to include "any individual, firm, association or corporation engaged in any business."

When Section 101 read "corporation engaged in any business operated for gain or profit," it included by definition only the profit-making private business corporation as provided for in Part I, Title 22 of the Georgia Business Corporation Code. Code Ann. § 22-102(a). The deletion of the words "operated for gain or profit" broadened the coverage of Section 101's definition of employer to include private non-profit corporations as provided for in Part II, Title 22 of the Georgia Business Corporation Code. Code Ann. § 22-2101 et seq.

Section 101's definition of employer does not include all corporations, but specifies corporations engaged in any business are those to which the Workmen's Compensation Act applies. To ignore the important modifying phrase "engaged in any business" would distort the meaning of the statute. "Courts should not so interpret a statute as to make parts of it surplusage unless no other construction is reasonably possible. All words of the Legislature, however numerous, ought to be preserved, and effect given to the whole, if it can be done. Smith v. Davis, 85 Ga. 625, 631, 11 S.E. 1024 (1890); Hicks v. Smith, 94 Ga. 809, 815, 22 S.E. 153 (1894)." Undercofler v. Colonial Pipeline Co., 114 Ga.App. 739, 743, 152 S.E.2d 768, 771 (1966).

We conclude that "corporations engaged in any business" includes only those corporations governed by the Georgia Business Corporation Code. Hospital authorities are not governed by either section of the Georgia Business Corporation Code, but are expressly exempted therefrom. Code Ann. §§ 22-103, 22-2103. A hospital authority is a "public body corporate and politic." Code Ann. § 88-1803. They are public corporations having for their object the administration of a portion of the powers of government delegated to it, and are not business corporations.

The 1975 amendment to Code Ann. § 114-101 eliminated the exempted status for nonprofit business corporations under Title 22 and made the workmen's compensation law apply to them as it does to profit-making corporations as set forth in Part I of Title 22. It did not by its language include authorities or other public corporations, and absent an express extension of coverage we will not presume that the legislature intended to effect such a change.

The lower court was correct in finding that a local hospital authority is not covered under the workmen's compensation law and in dismissing the case against FDHA.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except JORDAN, J., who concurs in the judgment only, and NICHOLS, C. J., and HALL, J., who dissent. HILL, J., disqualified.

HALL, Justice, dissenting.

The most basic rule of the Workmen's Compensation Act is that it shall be liberally construed. The ". . . words of the statute . . . must be construed reasonably and liberally with a view of applying the beneficent provisions of the statute so as to effectuate its purposes, and to extend them to every class of workman and employee that can fairly be brought within the provisions of the act." Lee v. Claxton,...