L. B. Price Mercantile Co. v. Industrial Acc. Commission of Cal.

• Decision Date: 06 August 1957
• Citation: 49 Cal.2d 13,313 P.2d 860
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: L. B. PRICE MERCANTILE CO. (a Corporation) and Michigan Mutual Liability Co. (a Corporation), Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION OF the State of CALIFORNIA and Artie J. Davis, Respondents. L. A. 24439.

Page 860

313 P.2d 860

49 Cal.2d 13

L. B. PRICE MERCANTILE CO. (a Corporation) and Michigan Mutual Liability Co. (a Corporation), Petitioners, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION OF the State of CALIFORNIA and Artie J. Davis, Respondents.

L. A. 24439.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Aug. 6, 1957.

McCartney & Hall, Stephen J. Grogan and John L. Struett, Los Angeles, for petitioners.

Everett A. Corten, San Francisco, and Edward A. Sarkisian, Los Angeles, for respondents.

SPENCE, Justice.

Petitioners seek the annulment of a death benefit award made by the respondent commission in favor of the widow of a deceased employee.

The commission found that the employee sustained injury arising out of and occurring in the course of his employment, resulting in his death on January 5, 1956, and that he left surviving his totally dependent widow who was entitled to the death benefit of $10,000. It awarded that sum to the widow 'payable at the rate of $40.00 per week.' Petitioners confine their attack to a challenge of the jurisdiction of the commission to fix the weekly installment payments on the total death benefit at the sum specified.

The deceased employee earned less than the minimum average weekly earnings used for the computation of temporary disability payments (Lab. Code, § 4453). In the event that he had lived and had been entitled to temporary disability payments, he would have received no more than $15 per week (Lab. Code, § 4653). Petitioners therefore contend that under section 4702 of the Labor Code the commission had no jurisdiction to fix the weekly payments on the total death benefit at any sum greater than $15 per week. In our opinion this contention cannot be sustained.

Section 4702 of the Labor Code reads in part as follows: 'Except as provided in the next paragraph, the death benefit in cases of total dependency, when added to all accrued disability indemnity, shall be the sum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) except in the case of a surviving widow and one or more dependent minor children, in which case the death benefit shall be increased 25 percent, but not to exceed twelve thousand five hundred dollars ($12,500) and except as otherwise provided in Sections 4553 and 4554. In cases of partial dependency the death benefit shall be a sum equal to four times the amount annually devoted to the support of the dependents by the employee, not to exceed the sum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000). The death benefit in all cases shall be paid in installments in the same manner and amounts as temporary disability indemnity, payments to be made at least twice each calendar month, unless the commission otherwise orders.' (Emphasis added.)

Petitioners' position rests upon their construction of the last sentence above quoted. They contend that the clause 'unless the commission otherwise orders' modifies only the clause 'payments to be made at least twice each calendar month.' They therefore claim that the commission had no jurisdiction to fix the amount of the weekly installments at $40 per week. We cannot agree.

If the Legislature had intended that result, it would have written the phrase: 'payments to be made at least twice each calendar month unless the commission otherwise orders.' Having placed a comma after the word 'month,' the more reasonable construction is that the section gives the commission discretion to 'otherwise' fix both the 'manner and amounts' of such payments. The most that petitioners can claim is that the section is ambiguous. Under such circumstances, it is the duty of the commission and the courts to give the section a liberal construction. Lab.Code, § 3202; Smith v. Industrial Acc.Comm., 44 Cal.2d 364, 282 P.2d 64.

Furthermore, the construction which we have placed upon section 4702 finds abundant support in its legislative history. Its earliest forerunner, enacted in 1911, provided for a death benefit 'equal to three times his (decedent's) annual average earnings, not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000, the same to be payable, unless and until the industrial accident board shall otherwise direct, in weekly installments corresponding in amount to the weekly earnings of the employee.' (Stats. 1911, p. 799; emphasis added.) It seems entirely clear that this earliest forerunner gave the board discretion to 'otherwise direct' both as to the amounts and times of payments of such installments. We find nothing in any of the amendments to the death benefit provisions which leads to the conclusion that any change in meaning was intended in this regard. We...