Hissom Memorial Center v. Robinson, 44176
| Decision Date | 24 November 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 44176,44176 |
| Citation | 477 P.2d 845 |
| Parties | The HISSOM MEMORIAL CENTER and the Department of Public Welfare, Petitioners, v. Margie R. ROBINSON and the State Industrial Court, Respondents. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
The Oklahoma Workmen's Compensation Law, 85 O.S.1967 and 1970 Supp., § 2, defines state employment as an attendant at a state school for the mentally retarded as a 'hazardous employment'; and, where such an employee suffers injury and a compensable disability within the course of such employment, it is unnecessary for her to prove that the particular type of work she was doing, when injured, was hazardous.
Original Proceeding to Review an Award of the State Industrial Court; Silas C. Wolf, Judge.After an award of disability compensation for temporary total and partial permanent disability to an attendant at The Hissom Memorial Center, a state school for mentally retarded children, under the jurisdiction of the Oklahoma Public Welfare Commission and Department of Public Welfare, said award was affirmed by the Industrial Court en banc, and said Center and Department instituted proceedings for a review in this Court. Award sustained.
Lee Vernon, Oklahoma City, for petitioners.
K. J. Schwoerke, Schwoerke & Schwoerke, Oklahoma City, G. T. Blankenship, Atty. Gen., for respondents.
This is an original proceeding by the petitioners, hereinafter referred to, collectively, as 'respondents', to review an order of the State Industrial Court awarding disability compensation to Mrs. Margie R. Robinson, hereinafter referred to as 'claimant'. Mrs. Robinson slipped and fell on the floor, sustaining the injury and resulting disability constituting the basis of said award, during the course of her employment as an attendant at Hissom Memorial Center (hereinafter referred to individually as 'Center'), a state school for mentally retarded children, operated and maintained by the petitioner, Department of Public Welfare, under the jurisdiction of the Oklahoma Public Welfare Commission.
According to the claimant's undisputed testimony, her duties were to take care of the resident students at said Center, including feeding and bathing them, giving them medication, and taking care of their beds. Her further testimony was to the effect that she was an assistant 'in charge' of the children placed in the Center.
At the trial before a Judge of the State Industrial Court, respondents demurred to the evidence on the ground that claimant's employment was not a 'hazardous employment' under this State's Workmen's Compensation Law, 85 O.S.1967 and 1970 Supp., §§ 1 et seq. In overruling said demurrer, the trial tribunal indicated it was his belief that claimant's duties were not hazardous in their nature, but, in his order setting forth her award, he specifically determined that attendants, like her, '* * * are specifically covered * * *' under the cited Compensation Law. In respondents' subsequent appeal to the Industrial Court en banc, the trial tribunal's order was affirmed.
The first proposition respondents advance for vacation of the Industrial Court's order is, in substance, that said court erred in determining that claimant's occupation is covered by the cited Compensation Law, irrespective of the nonhazardous nature of her duties. The applicable portion of the Law is contained in the following excerpt from Section 2 thereof:
'Compensation provided for in this act shall be payable for injuries sustained by employees engaged in the following hazardous employments, to wit: Factories, cotton gins, mills and work shops where machinery is used;
motor vehicles operating as motor carriers for the transportation of passengers or property for compensation, or motor vehicles used to transport products manufactured or processed by a business concern, repairing or servicing of appliances that utilize electricity, natural gas, liquified petroleum gas or gasoline, And all state employees working as guards, attendants and all other persons engaged in hazardous employment at state penitentiaries and reformatories, state mental hospitals, State schools for mentally retarded, the commodity warehouses And the state institutions under the jurisdiction of the State Department of Public Welfare or the Oklahoma Public Welfare Commission, the State Fire Marshal, Assistant Fire Marshal, deputies, agents and inspectors of the Office of ghe State Fire Marshal, enforcement officers of the Safety Responsibility Division and other employees engaged in hazardous employment of the Department of Public Safety, school district employees engaged in hazardous employment, uniformed personnel of the State Highway Patrol, State Crime Bureau, county sheriffs and deputies, members of a police department, members of garbage and sanitation departments and fire departments of any incorporated city or town, and all other persons engaged in hazardous employment for any incorporated city or town.' (Emphasis added)
By diagramming a few lines of the above quoted Act, beginning with the word 'attendants', and referring to the cases of Rhoton v. City of Norman, Okl., 466 P.2d 948; Hieronimus v. Phillips Petroleum Co., Ok., 460 P.2d 944; Board of Ed., Ind., Sch. Dist. No. 1, Tulsa v. Wright, Okl., 460 P.2d 422; Holsey Appliance Company v. Burrow, Okl., 281 P.2d 426, and others, respondents attempt to show that, in order for the claimant's disability to have been compensable under the Act, she must, at the time she was injured, have been engaged in a task that was of a hazardous character--which, admittedly, she was not. We do not agree. That the Act covers Only state employees who are injured while working as attendants in...
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