In re Demitro

• Decision Date: 19 February 1924
• Parties: IN RE DEMITRO.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

223 P. 238

110 Or. 110

IN RE DEMITRO.

Supreme Court of Oregon

February 19, 1924

In banc.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Multnomah County; Robert G. Morrow Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Tom Demitro. From a denial of its motion to dismiss appeal to the circuit court the Industrial Accident Commission appeals. Reversed.

I. H. Van Winkle, Atty. Gen., and James West, Asst Atty. Gen., for appellant.

BURNETT J.

The claimant, Tom Demitro, being dissatisfied with the amount allowed to him by the state Industrial Accident Commission on October 6, 1922, on his claim for an alleged injury to his left eye, attempted to appeal to the circuit court of Multnomah county. His notice of appeal was filed October 30 1922. Indorsed thereon at the time of filing was the following:

"State of Oregon, County of Multnomah--ss.:

"Due service of the within notice of appeal is hereby accepted in Multnomah county, Or., this 30th day of October 1922, by receiving a copy thereof duly certified as such by Oren R. Richards, attorney for plaintiff. Will T. Kirk, Defendant and Commissioner Above Named."

The record discloses no other evidence or proof of service of appeal. When the case came on for hearing, the Commission by its attorney moved to dismiss the appeal because the notice had not been served upon the Commission by registered mail. The court, however, overruled the motion, and the Commission appeals. In treating of the right to appeal from findings of the Commission, section 6637, Or. L., declares that--

"It shall be sufficient to give the circuit court jurisdiction that a notice be filed with the clerk of said court to the effect that an appeal is taken to the circuit court from the decision of the Commission, the same to be signed by the party appealing or his attorney, and a copy thereof to be served by registered mail on the Commission."

The whole scheme of the Workmen's Compensation Law (Laws 1913, c. 112) is purely statutory and not according to the course of the common law. It is elementary that in acquiring jurisdiction in pursuit of a statutory remedy the requirements of the enactment must be complied with strictly. If we contemplate the Commission as a single official body we are confronted with the proposition that the isolated admission of service by one member of the body will not control the whole body. If we contemplate the Commission in respect to its component parts of three commissioners, we encounter practically the same proposition that the admission of service by one of those parties or, in other words, by one of the defendants, will not control the other two defendants. In either event the record presented by the petitioner in his appeal to the...