Madera Sugar Pine Co v. Industrial Accident Commission of California

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: SANFORD
• Citation: Madera Sugar Pine Co v. Industrial Accident Commission of California, 262 U.S. 499, 43 S.Ct. 604, 67 L.Ed. 1091 (1923)
• Decision Date: 04 June 1923
• Docket Number: Nos. 235,296,s. 235
• Parties: MADERA SUGAR PINE CO. v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION OF CALIFORNIA et al. (two cases)

262 U.S. 499

43 S.Ct. 604

67 L.Ed. 1091

MADERA SUGAR PINE CO.

v INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION OF CALIFORNIA et al. (two cases).

Nos. 235, 296.

Argued and Submitted March 7, 1923.

Decided June 4, 1923.

Mr. H. E. Barbour, of Fresno, Cal., for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. A. E. Graupner and Warren H. Pillsbury, both of San Francisco, Cal., for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice SANFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.

These two cases were heard together. They involve a single question as to the constitutionality of the Workmen's Compensation Act of California.

This is a compulsory compensation act establishing in all except certain employments, an exclusive system governing compensation for injuries to employees resulting in disability or death. By its terms liability exists against an employer for the compensation therein providend in lieu of any other liability whatsoever to any person, and 'without regard to negligence,' for any injury sustained by his employees, including aliens, arising out of and in the course of the employment, not caused by their intoxication or intentionally self-inflicted; such compensation being recoverable by the employees, according to a prescribed scale gauged by their previous wages and the extent of their disability, or, if the injuries cause death, by those dependent upon them for support, according to prescribed death benefits gauged by the previous wages and the extent of the dependency of the beneficiaries. Laws Cal. 1917, c. 586; Amendment, Laws 1919, c. 471. See Western Indemnity Co. v. Pillsbury, 170 Cal. 686, 695, 151 Pac. 398, and North Alaska Salmon Co. v. Pillsbury, 174 Cal. 1, 162 Pac. 93, L. R. A. 1917E, 642. Non-resident alien dependents are included within its provisions as to death benefits. See Western Supply Co. v. Pillsbury, 172 Cal. 407, 416, 156 Pac. 491, Ann. Cas. 1917E, 390.

In the present cases, two laborers employed by the Madera Sugar Pine Company in California, having sustained, without negligence of the Company, fatal injuries, arising out of and in the course of their employment, their partially dependent mother and sisters, respectively, being aliens residing in Mexico, were awarded by the Industrial Accident Commission, in appropriate proceedings under the Act, death benefits against the Company as therein prescribed.

Petitions for writs to review these awards in accordance with the State practice were denied by the Supreme Court of California; and thereupon, on the application of the Company, these writs of error, with supersedeas, were allowed by the Chief Justice of that court. See Napa Valley Co. v. Railroad Commission, 251 U. S. 366, 372, 40 Sup. Ct. 174, 64 L. Ed. 310.

The sole contention of the Company here is that the act, as construed and applied in these cases, requiring it to make compensation for the death of employees, occurring without fault, to their non-resident alien dependents operates to deprive it of property without due process and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The argument is, in substance, that while an employer may lawfully be compelled to make compensation to the resident dependents of employees whose death was caused by no legal wrong, on the ground that the State is interested in preventing such dependents from becoming public charges, this justification does not extent to the case of foreign dependents, who would not become public charges of the State; and, therefore, that an act requiring compensation to be made to such foreign dependents in the absence of legal wrong, is not a reasonable exercise of the police power of the State. This argument, however, erroneously assumes that in a compensation act of this character the benefits is to be separately determined, independently benefits is to be separately determined, independetly of the general scope of the act, and solely with reference to the relation of the beneficiaries to the employers and to the State.

Provision is universally made in workmen's compensation acts for compensation not only to disabled employees but to the dependents of those whose injuries are fatal. And the two kinds of payment are 'always regarded as component parts of a single system of rights and liabilities arising out of' the relation of employer and employee. Western Metal Supply Co. v. Pillsbury, 172 Cal. 407, 414, 156 Pac. 491, Ann. Cas. 1917E, 390. The object of such acts 'is single—to provide for the liability of the employer to make compensation for injuries received by an employee,' whether to the employee himself or to those who suffer pecuniary loss by reason of his death. Huyett v. Pennsylvania Railroad, 86 N. J. Law, 683, 684, 92 Atl. 58.

This Court has in several cases sustained the constitutionality of workmen's compensation acts, from which the California Act in its constitutional aspects is not distinguishable, establishing exclusive systems governing the liabilities of employers in hazardous occupations in respect to compensation for industrial accidents to employees resulting in disability or death, and requiring compensation t be paid to a disabled employee or to his surviving dependents in accordance with prescribed scales gauged upon the previous wage and the extent of the disability or dependency. New York Central Railroad v. White, 243 U. S. 188, 37 Sup. Ct. 247, 61 L. Ed. 667, L. R. A. 1917D, 1, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 629; Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, 37 Sup. Ct. 260, 61 L. Ed. 685, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 642; Ward v. Krinsky, 259 U. S. 503, 42 Sup. Ct. 529, 66 L. Ed. 1033. And see Arizona Employers' Liability Cases, 250 U. S. 400, 39 Sup. Ct. 553, 63 L. Ed. 1058, 6 A. L. R. 1537. These acts were sustained, in their entirety, without any separate reference to the status of the dependents—although in the White Case...