In re Meunier

• Decision Date: 09 April 1946
• Citation: 66 N.E.2d 198,319 Mass. 421
• Parties: MEUNIER'S CASE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

319 Mass. 421

66 N.E.2d 198

MEUNIER'S CASE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

April 9, 1946.

Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Baker, Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act on the claim of Thomas J. Meunier for disability arising from injury to the lungs. From a decree awarding compensation, insurer appeals.

Reversed and case remanded to Industrial Accident Board with directions.

FIELD, C. J., and LUMMUS, RONAN, WILKINS, and SPALDING, JJ.

E. Field, C. C. McCarthy, and D. Field, all of Boston, for insurer.

S. B. Horovitz, of Boston, W. A. Bellamy, of Taunton, and B. A. Petkun, of Boston, for employee.

RONAN, Justice.

This appeal by the insurer from a decree awarding compensation for disability arising from an injury to the lungs of an employee is based on the ground that the statute, G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 152, § 9B, inserted by St. 1935, c. 424, as revised by St. 1938, c. 462, governing the admissibility and probative effect to be given to the reports of medical referees in workmen's compensation cases, is invalid.

Section 9B, in so far as material, provides for the appointment of a board of medical referees consisting of three impartial physicians where an employee is claiming compensation on account of disability resulting from an injury due to an industrial disease. The referees are directed to examine the employee if living, and may examine the body of the employee if he has died, and ‘may consider and study all pertinent medical and hospital records and other information relative to the claim * * * may inspect the place or places of the employment * * * and make such further investigation as they deem necessary; and shall make to the department a complete report, which shall include the results of their study, together with their diagnosis and their opinion as to the extent and cause of disability, if any.’ The report of the referees ‘shall be binding on the parties and be included in the decision of the single member and of the reviewing board; provided, that the single member or the reviewing board may refer the matter back to said referees for further investigation and report.’ The employee contends that the word ‘binding’ in this section simply means that the report is admissible in evidence, and that the effect to be given to it depends upon the degree of credibility to which it appears to be entitled in the view of the trier of fact. The insurer contends that the Legislature intended not only that the report should be accepted as evidence but that it should be conclusive of all matters therein stated, and that, if the statute is applied, the insurer is deprived of any opportunity to attack, discredit or refute the report and is denied a fair chance to submit evidence to sustain its defence to the claim.

The legislative intent in enacting a statute is to be gathered from a consideration of the words in which it is couched, giving to them their ordinary meaning unless there is something in the statute indicating that they should have a different significance; the subject matter of the statute; the pre-existing state of the common and statutory law; the evil or mischief toward which the statute was apparently directed; and the main object sought to be accomplished by the enactment. None of its words is to be rejected as surplusage, and none is to be given undue emphasis. Each is to be accorded the appropriate weight and meaning which the context and an examination of the statute as a whole show the framers of the statute intended it to have. Commonwealth v. Welosky, 276 Mass. 398, 177 N.E. 656;Commissioners of Public Works v. Cities Service Oil Co. 308 Mass. 349, 32 N.E.2d 277;Tilton v. City of Haverhill, 311 Mass. 572, 42 N.E.2d 588.

The validity of this statute, section 9B, was not considered in Latorre's Case, 302 Mass. 24, 18 N.E.2d 357;Sylvia's Case, 313 Mass. 313, 47 N.E.2d 293;Beaudette's Case, 314 Mass. 728, 51 N.E.2d 307, or Duggan's Case, 315 Mass. 355, 53 N.E.2d 90, as that question was not properly presented and was not determined.

The controversy in the present case hinges on the meaning to be given to the word ‘binding.’ That word has frequently been employed in our decisions to denote that certain evidence is final and conclusive against a party. One putting in evidence his opponent's answers to interrogatories thereby binds himself to the truth of the facts stated in them in the absence of evidence contradicting the answers. Hoosac Tunnel & Wilmington Railroad v. New England Power Co. 311 Mass. 667, 671, 42 N.E.2d 832;Falzone v. Burgoyne, 317 Mass. 493, 495, 58 N.E.2d 751. A party finally adopting as true one of two inconsistent statements in his testimony is bound by the statement which he so adopts. Sullivan v. Boston Elevated Railway, 224 Mass. 405, 406, 112 N.E. 1025;Osborne v. Boston Consolidated Gas Co. 296 Mass. 441, 6 N.E.2d 347. One is bound by his testimony as to his own knowledge, motives, purposes, emotions or feelings. Germaine v. Boston & Albany Railroad, 298 Mass. 501, 11 N.E.2d 447;McFaden v. Nordblom, 307 Mass. 574, 30 N.E.2d 852. In these instances, the evidence must be accepted as true, and the party who is bound by it cannot ask a judge or jury to disregard it or to find to the contrary.

The word ‘bind’ or ‘binding’ appearing in our statutes has been construed to mean conclusive. The allegations contained in a pleading ‘shall bind the party making them.’ G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 231, § 87. Compare G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 231, § 90. The effect of the words quoted was stated in Snowling v. Plummer Granite Co. 108 Mass. 100, 101, in these words, ‘both parties were conclusively bound by their respective allegations, and neither could contradict what the one had thus asserted and the other admitted.’ A party ‘cannot be heard ordinarily to dispute his own allegations.’ Sullivan v. Inhabitants of Ashfield, 227 Mass. 24, 28, 116 N.E. 565, 567. Findings made contrary to the facts admitted in a pleading cannot stand. Bancroft v. Cook, 264 Mass. 343, 348, 162 N.E. 691;Markus v. Boston Edison Co., 317 Mass. 1, 7, 56 N.E.2d 910. The statute, G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 213, § 3, Tenth A, authorizing this court and the Superior Court to ‘make binding determinations of right interpreting’ written instruments undoubtedly gives to a declaratory judgment conclusive effect. See now St. 1945, c. 582. See also Brindley v. Meara, 209 Ind. 144, 198 N.E. 301, 101 A.L.R. 682;Washington-Detroit Theatre Co. v. Moore, 249 Mich. 673, 229 N.W. 618, 68 A.L.R. 105;Faulkner v. Keene, 85 N.H. 147, 155 A. 195;McCrory Stores Corporation v. S. M. Braunstein, Inc. 202 N.J.L. 590, 134 A. 752;Ladner v. Siegel, 294 Pa. 368, 144 A. 274; Am. Law Inst. Restatement, Judgments, § 77. The statute, G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 246, § 16, providing that ‘the answer and statements of a trustee, on oath, shall be considered as true’ was held to bind the plaintiff to the truth of the matters included in the answer and statements of the trustee. Krogman v. Rice Brothers Co. 241 Mass. 295, 301, 135 N.E. 161;Workers' Credit Union v. Hannula, 285 Mass. 159, 160, 188 N.E. 710. We need not mention other decisions or statutes where the word ‘binding’ has been interpreted to mean true and conclusive. The wording of section 9B does not require a different meaning.

We are confirmed in this view by the original form in which section 9B was cast. See St. 1935, c. 424. That statute provided that the ‘diagnosis' of the medical referees should be binding on the parties. It is not an unreasonable inference that the statute was so worded to avoid the difficulties which had been experienced in the introduction in evidence of reports of impartial physicians made under G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 152, § 9, which provides that such report ‘shall be admissible as evidence in any proceeding before the department or a member thereof.’ Some of these reports had been excluded when found to rest upon hearsay evidence. Blosck's Case, 277 Mass. 451, 179 N.E. 223;Minns's Case, 286 Mass. 459, 190 N.E. 843;Farren's Case, 290 Mass. 452, 195 N.E. 738. It must be presumed that the Legislature was familiar with those decisions. Devney's Case, 223 Mass. 270, 271, 111 N.E. 788;Johnson's Case, 318 Mass. 741, 745, 64 N.E.2d 94. In the present statute the Legislature did not provide merely for the admission of the report of the medical referees, as it did with reference to the report of the impartial physician under section 9. Emma's Case, 242 Mass. 408, 136 N.E. 125. We think the present statute, section 9B, attempts to make the report a final determination of the fact.

We now inquire whether the Legislature had the power to make such a provision. The Legislature doubtless has the power to prescribe the rules of evidence and the methods of proof to be employed in trials in court and in hearings before administrative boards. It may change the rules of common law or those provided by existing statutes, and may make competent that which had been previously inadmissible. Dying declarations in a prosecution for unlawfully procuring an abortion, the habits of a deceased person in discharging his financial obligations, the answers to interrogatories of one who had died before the trial, the declarations of a deceased person concerning facts of which he had personal knowledge, private conversations between husband and wife, entries in books of account made in the usual course of business, records of certain hospitals concerning the condition of a patient and his medical history, and records of bank accounts, are familiar illustrations. See in their present form G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 233, §§ 64, 65, 65A, 66, 76, 77, 78, 79. Rights and remedies unknown to the common law may be created; procedure may be altered and the burden of proof shifted from one party to another. Kendall v. Inhabitants of Kingston, 5 Mass. 524, 534;Hall v. Reinherz, 192 Mass. 52, 77 N.E. 880;Opinion of the Justices, 209 Mass. 607, 610, 96 N.E. 308;Duggan v. Bay State Street Railway, ...