Metcalf v. Department of Labor and Industries

• Decision Date: 26 May 1932
• Docket Number: 23784.
• Citation: 11 P.2d 821,168 Wash. 305
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: METCALF et al. v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRIES.

11 P.2d 821

168 Wash. 305

METCALF et al. v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRIES.

No. 23784.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 26, 1932

Department 1.

Appeal from Superior Court, Thurston County; D. F. Wright, Judge.

Proceeding by Ethel Mae Metcalf and others for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act for the death of Alva Metcalf employee. From a judgment reversing a decision of the Department of Labor and Industries denying the claim, and allowing it, the Department appeals.

Affirmed.

John H Dunbar, Harry Ellsworth Foster, and Granville Egan, all of Olympia, for appellant.

Harry L. Parr, of Olympia, and Chas. R. Lewis, of Shelton, for respondents.

Albert H. Solomon, of Seattle, amicus curiae.

HERMAN J.

August 21, 1930, Alva Metcalf was engaged in bucking logs in Thurston county. A tree had fallen across the road, and Mr Metcalf was working rapidly in order to get the road open so that a man named Benson might pass. The log was approximately twenty-one inches in diameter at the point he was sawing, and it was in such a position that the saw was being pinched, thereby requiring more exertion to propel the saw. Mr. Metcalf was working in a very inconvenient place, sawing with one knee on the ground. When the log was almost sawed through, he fell over and died without regaining consciousness.

A claim was filed with the Department of Labor and Industries on behalf of Ethel Mae Metcalf, his widow, decedent's minor son, Jacob Elroy Metcalf, and the undertaker. The claim was rejected. After notice of rejection, claimant petitioned for a rehearing Before the joint board, which was granted, and thereafter the joint board sustained and affirmed the former order denying the claim upon the grounds that Mr. Metcalf's death was not the result of an injury within the meaning of the act, and that there was no proof that he met his death during the course of his employment.

Mrs. Metcalf appealed to the superior court, which reversed the decision of the Department of Labor and Industries and entered judgment accordingly. From the judgment allowing the claim of the widow, the minor son, and the undertaker, the Department of Labor and Industries has appealed.

Appellant's assignments of error present the question whether a strain is an injury, within the definitions of the Industrial Insurance Act.

Respondent has directed the court's attention to Rem. Comp. Stat. § 7673, which reads as follows: 'The common-law system governing the remedy of workmen against employers for injuries received in hazardous work is inconsistent with modern industrial conditions. In practice it proves to be economically unwise and unfair. Its administration has produced the result that little of the cost of the employer has reached the workman and that little only at large expense to the public. The remedy of the workman has been uncertain, slow and inadequate. Injuries in such works, formerly occasional, have become frequent and inevitable. The welfare of the state depends upon its industries, and even more upon the welfare of its wage worker. The state of Washington, therefore, exercising herein its police and sovereign power, declares that all phases of the premises are withdrawn from private controversy, and sure and certain relief for workmen, injured in extrahazardous work, and their families and dependents is hereby provided regardless of questions of fault and to the exclusion of every other remedy, proceeding or compensation, except as otherwise provided in this act; and to that end all civil actions and civil causes of action for such personal injuries and all jurisdiction of the courts of the state over such causes are hereby abolished, except as in this act provided.'

The Workmen's Compensation Act of this state originally defined the word 'injury' as referring 'only to an injury resulting from some fortuitous event as distinguished from the contraction of disease.' (Rem Comp. Stat. § 7675.) Appellant has called our attention to the most recent definition of the word 'injury' by our Legislature, pointing out that it omits the words 'fortuitous event.' That definition is set forth in Laws of 1927, c. 310, p. 818, § 2, and reads as follows: 'The word 'injury' as used in this act means a sudden and tangible happening, of a traumatic nature, producing an immediate or prompt result, and occurring from without, and...