Laird v. State of Vt. Highway Dept.

• Decision Date: 12 June 1941
• Docket Number: No. 1686.,1686.
• Parties: LAIRD v. STATE OF VERMONT HIGHWAY DEPT. et al.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

20 A.2d 555

112 Vt. 67

LAIRD

v. STATE OF VERMONT HIGHWAY DEPT. et al.

No. 1686.

Supreme Court of Vermont. Washington County.

June 12, 1941.

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Appeal from Commissioner of Industrial Relations; Howard E. Armstrong, Commissioner.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Elsie J. Laird, claimant, opposed by the State of Vermont Highway Department, employer of claimant's deceased husband, and the Travelers Insurance Company, insurance carrier. From an order denying compensation and dismissing the claim, the claimant appeals, and defendants appeal from ruling of commissioner in so far as it included his findings of fact and conclusions of law thereon.

Order of commissioner annulled.

Argued before Moulton, C. J., and Sherburne, Buttles, Sturtevant, and Jeffords, JJ.

George R. McKee, of Montpelier, and J. Boone Wilson, of Burlington, for plaintiff.

George L. Hunt, of Montpclier, for defendants.

JEFFORDS, Justice.

On January 2, 1938, Willis J. Laird who was employed by the named defendant as watchman at the state garage was found lying in the snow near the open main gate of the premises. He was in a comatose state, was paralyzed on his right side, and his condition was a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was totally disabled from this time until his death which occurred in August, 1938.

Laird entered a claim for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, P. L. ch. 264. A hearing was had on this claim and an award made in favor of the claimant in May, 1938. The defendants appealed to this court from the award. While the appeal was pending the claimant died. It was held that there was no legal evidence in the case connecting the claimant's injury in any way with his employment and the order of the Commissioner awarding compensation was annulled and set aside. See Laird v. State of Vermont Highway Dept. et al, 110 Vt. 195, 3 A.2d 552, for a more complete statement of the facts and holdings in that case.

After the above decision was handed down the present claimant, as widow and sole dependent of Willis, filed her claim for compensation under P.L. 6513, as amended by sec. 1 of No. 172 of the Acts of 1937. Hearings were had by the Commissioner over the objections of the defendants which were to the effect that the decision in the Willis Laird case was conclusive as to this claimant and estopped her from the further prosecution of her claim. The Commissioner from the evidence introduced at the hearings made findings of fact and conclusions therefrom favorable to the claimant but as a result of various conclusions of law set forth in the printed case he held that the rights of dependents to benefits under the act are derivative and stand on no higher ground than those of the injured employee and upon the grounds above referred to in defendants' objections denied compensation and dismissed the claim.

The claimant appealed from the ruling of the Commissioner and on this appeal various questions of law were certified for determination. Although stated in different ways they all come down to the utimate question of whether the decision in the Willis Laird case is a bar to the proceedings brought by the present claimant.

The defendants appealed from the ruling and determination of the Commissioner in so far as it included his findings of fact and conclusions of law thereon. Such appeal, it was stated, to be considered only in the event that the claimant appealed from the ruling adverse to her. On the defendants' appeal the following questions were certified:

"1. That an award denying compensation and dismissing said claim, having been made, whether the Commissioner has or has not, as defendants claim, the authority or duty to find facts and determine conclusions of law thereon.

"2. Whether the following findings of fact and holdings of the Commissioner are or are not, as defendants claim, legally supported by the evidence:

"(a) '17. Laird's exertion, in the performance of his work and shoveling, elevated his blood pressure and was the precipitating or aggravating cause of his cerebral hemorrhage which later resulted in his death.'

"(b) 'I find and so hold that claimant's decedent received a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment on January 2, 1938.'

"3. Whether the findings and holdings of the Commissioner, above in Paragraph 2(b) set forth, are or are not, as defendants claim, legally warranted (1) by the facts found, or (2) by any facts legally supported by the evidence.

"4. Whether at the hearing the Commissioner did not or did, as defendants claim, commit error in the admission of evidence offered by claimant and in the exclusion of evidence offered by defendants, as shown by the transcript thereof."

Claimant's appeal which we will first consider presents a matter of first impression to this court. The cases from other jurisdictions where similar questions on like facts have been considered are not numerous and the conclusions reached are conflicting. That such conflict exists is natural as the result in each case must depend upon the construction of statutes varying often in their phraseology. Consequently, the value of such decisions is quite limited. Fitch v. Parks & Woolson Machine Co., 109 Vt. 92, 97, 191 A. 920.

The defendants in support of their contention that the claimant's rights are wholly derived from, and not independent of, those of her late husband cite: Ek v. Dept. of Labor & Indus., 181 Wash. 91, 41 P.2d 1097; Nyberg v. Little Falls Black Granite Co., 202 Minn. 86, 277 N.W. 536; Biederzyski v. Farrel Foundry & Mach. Co., 103 Conn. 701, 131 A. 739, and Hughes v. Elliott, 162 Tenn. 188, 35 S.W.2d 387. In addition to these cases, Lewin Metals Corp. v. Industrial Comm., 360 Ill. 371, 196 N.E. 482 has come to our attention.

In the first of the above cases it appears that one Charles Ek filed a claim for compensation which after hearing was denied on the ground that there was insufficient evidence that he had suffered an accident or injury as claimed. Ek did not appeal from this decision. After his death his widow as claimant in the case under discussion filed her claim for a widow's pension under the Washington act. Her claim was rejected below on grounds which would have barred Ek from recovery and for the additional reason that she did not file her claim within the required time. She appealed and the Supreme Court without discussing the reasons for denial below, although referring to them, affirmed the judgment on a ground apparently not before considered in the case. It was held that the judgment of the department in Charles' case when the time for appeal expired became a complete and final adjudication not only upon Charles, but also upon all persons who claimed through or under him and that the present claimant did so claim. No discussion of the Washington statute is had nor cases cited in support of the holding that the widow's right to compensation was derived from her late husband. The only case referred to was Beels v. Dept. of Labor and Ind., 178 Wash. 301, 34 P.2d 917, from that jurisdiction. In that case it was stated that a widow's claim to a pension was based on a new, original right arising from the death of the husband and a decision favorable to the claimant widow therein was rendered. In the Ek case it was stated that the Beels case was not in point because in the latter there was no adjudication binding on the claimant therein. It is questionable whether the holding in the Ek case to the effect that a dependent's rights to compensation are derivative is to be considered the present law on that point in that state in view of what is said in two later decisions from the Supreme Court of Washington. See McFarland v. Dept. of Labor & Ind., 188 Wash. 357, 62 P.2d 714, and Miller v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1 Wash.2d 478, 96 P.2d 579.

In the Nyberg case a claim had been made and before hearing on it had been concluded claimant died. His widow on motion was substituted as claimant. The defendant contended, in effect, that the widow's rights to compensation were entirely independent of those of her deceased husband and that because of lapse of time her claim was barred by the statute of limitations. It is stated in the opinion on the authority of previous cases from that jurisdiction that the act created two distinct rights, one in the employee and the other in his dependents. The court makes a distinction between the existence of these rights and proceedings to enforce them. It was held that the proceedings by the dependent were not contemplated by the act to be separate from the former but were merely a continuation and reopening of the same. The result of this decision and those later from that jurisdiction apparently is a holding to the effect that while the rights exist independent of each other and accrue to different parties those of the dependents are derived from those of the employee in the sense at least that the claim of the dependents is but a continuation of the earlier claim by the deceased workman. It would seem to follow that any rulings or findings made in the cases of deceased employees would be binding and conclusive on those points as to dependents in their cases although some language used in Susnick v. Oliver Iron Mining Co., 205 Minn. 325, 286 N.W. 249, might indicate a different conclusion. See, also, Johnson v. Pillsbury Flour Mills Co., 203 Minn. 347, 281 N.W. 290, for another case from that jurisdiction adhering to the rule laid down in the Nyberg case.

In the Biederzyski case from Connecticut the question was whether the claimant as a dependent widow would be required to prove de novo certain facts previously found in favor of her deceased husband in an award to him. The defendants based their claim that she should be so required on the ground that her claim was separate and distinct from that of her late...