Hopkins v. Matchless Metal Polish Co.

• Decision Date: 27 July 1923
• Citation: 99 Conn. 457,121 A. 828
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: HOPKINS v. MATCHLESS METAL POLISH CO. ET AL.

121 A. 828

99 Conn. 457

HOPKINS v. MATCHLESS METAL POLISH CO. ET AL.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 27, 1923

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Isaac Wolfe, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by George Hopkins claimant, opposed by the Matchless Metal Polish Company employer, and the Globe Indemnity Company, insurance carrier. From an award by a Compensation Commissioner, defendants appeal to the Superior Court. Reserved on the Commissioner's finding for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors. Superior Court advised to sustain appeal and vacate award.

The defendant the Matchless Polish Company is a corporation, the state of its incorporation not having been proven, having its principal place of business in Illinois, and offices and a business in New Jersey subsidiary to its Illinois business. It also did business in Connecticut. It made a contract of employment in New Jersey with the plaintiff which contemplated that he should render his principal service and receive payment therefor, in Connecticut, and also render service in the states of Massachusetts and New York, but did not contemplate that any of the plaintiff's services should be rendered in New Jersey. The plaintiff is and has been for a long time a resident of the city of Waterbury, Conn. The plaintiff suffered in Waterbury severe injuries arising in the course of and out of his employment. Both the defendant employer and the insurer had notice of the claimant's injuries. The defendant employer was insured in the Globe Indemnity Company, which was authorized to transact a compensation insurance business in Connecticut. The Globe Company " covered by a so-called blanket policy the operations of the employer respondent, such policy purporting to cover all of the employees of the respondent employer, wherever they might be, in accordance with the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act of the state of New Jersey. The said Globe Indemnity Company in fact by the said blanket policy undertook to cover all of the liability for compensation of the employer respondent with reference to its employees, wherever located, but by said policy undertook and agreed to pay compensation as provided by the Compensation Act of the state of New Jersey."

Both defendants in the Superior Court assigned as reasons of appeal the Commissioner's taking jurisdiction of the claim and rendering an award thereon, and as a further error that, if he had jurisdiction, he must award compensation in accordance with the Compensation Act of the state of New Jersey. In addition the Globe Company also assigned among its reasons that the evidence did not justify holding it primarily liable for compensation to the plaintiff.

The Commissioner adjudged that the respondents pay the plaintiff a stated award.

Arthur B. O'Keefe, Joseph I. Shrebnick, and Charles F. Mitchell all of New Haven, for appellants.

Clayton L. Klein, of Waterbury, for appellee.

WHEELER, C.J. (after stating the facts as above).

The defendant company, a foreign corporation, made a contract of employment with the plaintiff in New Jersey which contemplated that he should render service in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. The plaintiff's injuries arose in the course of and out of his employment in Connecticut. Both the company and the insurer claim that the Commission had no jurisdiction of this claim.

We have held that our Workmen's Compensation Act (Laws 1913, c. 138) was of the elective kind, and that " the relation arising between these employers and employees was that of contract," and that " neither employer nor workman, unless he so choose, comes within the act. When both so elect, the act becomes a part of the contract of employment." Powers v. Hotel Bond Co., 89 Conn. 143, 147, 93 A. 245, 248. It has been suggested in Anderson v. Miller Scrap Iron Co., 169 Wis. 106, 170 N.W. 275, 171 N.W. 935, that such a construction prevents the subsequent amendment to the act becoming part of the contract. We think this a misconception of the effect of the election by an employer or employee. His election, as matter of law, incorporates the provisions of the act and any subsequent amendments thereto as a part of the contract. No violation of a right of contract can arise out of this since it is by his own election that the act and subsequent amendments are incorporated in his contract. We held in Kennerson v. Thames Towboat Co., 89 Conn. 374, 94 A. 372, L.R.A. 1916A, 436, that our Compensation Act did provide for compensation arising out of a contract of employment, the parties to which have by their express or implied election made the act a part thereof, and gave to all employees under this contract the right to recover compensation for injury no matter where it occurred. " Obviously," we say on page 378 of 89 Conn., on page 377 of 94 A. (L. R. A. 1916A, 436), " it was intended to embrace all injuries occuring to such employees everywhere." We state the matter to be determined in these words:

" The respondent insists that our act has no extraterritorial effect. That is not the precise question to be determined, but, rather, whether our act provides for compensation, arising out of a contract of employment authorized by our act, for injuries suffered without our jurisdiction. If our act authorizes such a contract, recovery may be had; otherwise not."

Later we reaffirmed this position in Douthwright v. Champlin, 91 Conn. 524, 526, 100 A. 97 (Ann. Cas. 1917E, 512), saying:

" We have held that our State might provide, in a Workman's Compensation Act, compensation for injuries arising out of and in the course of the employment under a contract made in Connecticut but performed outside our State,"

--and that our act had done this by necessary implication. And in the same case, at page 527 of 91 Conn., at page 98 of 100 A. (Ann. Cas. 1917E, 512), we stated:

" Nor does our act provide compensation for residents alone. * * * It gives compensation for ‘ any injury,’ and this was intended to furnish to nonresident and resident alike, the new remedy. * * * It excepts certain classes, and the designation of these exceptions marks the only limitation upon the definition."

Among the reasons leading to the construction of our act as providing for " compensation arising out of a contract of employment authorized by our act, for injuries suffered without our jurisdiction," as well as within it, we gave in Kennerson v. Thames Towboat Co., at page 375 of 89 Conn., at page 376 of 94 A. (L. R. A. 1916A, 436), these:

" Neither employer nor employee can know what portion of this period of employment will be subject to the provisions of the act, and no provision for insurance of this liability will be practically possible, since it may not ordinarily be known what part of the service will be in and what part out of the state, or in what jurisdiction the service will be performed, in industries and commercial enterprises engaged in intrastate and interstate employment. The state boundary is not the limit of very many businesses. To subject them to the laws of the many jurisdictions in which they may be engaged will be especially burdensome to them, and involve them probably in greater expense and liability and far greater difficulties than under the old system. Equally hard will it prove to the employee, since he must pursue his remedy in the state of the accident, or the federal court applying that state's law, and thus he may be brought under any one of many different compensation acts, with whose provisions he cannot hope to be familiar; some acts contractual in character, some compulsory, some optional, and some ex delicto; and he may find he has forfeited the benefit of the foreign act through failure to comply with its provisions. A reading of the several acts now in force convinces us that these difficulties are not imaginative, but imminent actualities."

In the Kennerson Case, to the argument that, if our act is given extraterritorial force, similar effect must be given to like laws of other states, we replied:

" We should give similar effect to contracts of like character to those before us, though made under a compensation act of another jurisdiction, provided they did not conflict with our law or public policy, and the machinery provided for the ascertainment and collection of the compensation could be used in our jurisdiction."

In Douthwright v. Champlin, 91 Conn., at page 526, 100 A. 97, we reaffirmed this doctrine, and held it to be a necessary corollary to the rule governing our own contracts of employment unless one or the other party to it shall indicate his refusal to accept the provisions of part B of the act. And we continue on page 528, of 91 Conn., at page 98 of 100 Atl.:

" If the contract had been made in New Jersey and the parties had accepted its terms, the contract itself would have included the feature of compensation. We would then have enforced the contract unless the special terms of the act made its enforcement in this jurisdiction impracticable; for their act, like ours, is voluntary and contractual, and our declared public policy favors an enactment of this kind. If the contract had been made in South Carolina, where there is no compensation act, and the parties had upon entering upon its performance here accepted our act or failed to indicate a refusal to accept it in the manner called for by the act, it is not contended that the contract of hiring would not have been enlarged

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