Meyers v. Southwest Region Conference Ass'n of Seventh Day Adventists, 20498

• Decision Date: 11 April 1955
• Docket Number: No. 20498,20498
• Citation: 79 So.2d 595
• Parties: Reverend Samuel David MEYERS v. SOUTHWEST REGION CONFERENCE ASSOCIATION OF SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 595

79 So.2d 595

Reverend Samuel David MEYERS v. SOUTHWEST REGION CONFERENCE ASSOCIATION OF SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS.

No. 20498.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Orleans.

April 11, 1955.

Rehearing Denied May 9, 1955.

Writ of Certiorari Granted June 30, 1955.

Meyer Sabludowsky and Jorda S. Derbes, New Orleans, for plaintiff.

Lemle & Kelleher, Carl J. Schumacher, Jr., New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.

JANVIER, Judge.

This is a suit for workmen's compensation brought under the Louisiana Compensation Law by a member of an incorporated church organization against the church and its liability insurance carrier. The plaintiff, Samuel David Meyers, is a minister employed by the Southwest Regional Conference Association of Seventh Day Adventists, an incorporated body organized under the laws of the State of Texas 'for the purpose of supporting public worship and benevolent, charitable, educational and missionary undertakings.'

The plaintiff was assigned a parish by the President of the conference and according to the said President he was expected to look after the parish in which he served, 'conducting services three times a week,' and holding other meetings. In addition to preaching at these services and meetings, he 'was responsible for the financial program of the church' and was required to visit among the parishioners and, at times, was called upon to serve voluntarily in church-school activities.

He owned an automobile which he used in making his calls and the defendant organization, in addition to his salary which was sufficient to entitle him to maximum compensation if he was entitled to compensation, made him an allowance for expenses growing out of the use of his automobile, and it also paid for liability insurance to protect him against loss as a result of liability which might result from the use of his car. The record shows that he actually used his car extensively, covering approximately 1,500 miles each month.

During the month of December, 1952, the plaintiff was ordered by the defendant church corporation to accompany another minister of the church to a conference to be held in Dallas, Texas. The trip was to be made in an automobile of another minister, Reverend Jeter E. Cox. In the course of the trip, near Colfax, Louisiana, the car in which he and the Reverend Cox were traveling came into collision with another automobile and both he and the Reverend Cox sustained serious physical injuries. This suit for compensation is the result of those physical injuries.

Plaintiff claims to have been totally and permanently disabled, and he prays for judgment against the church corporation and against its liability insurance carrier, the Indemnity Insurance Company of North America, in the sum of $30 per week for 400 weeks, together with the maximum allowance for hospital and medical expenses.

The defendants, the church corporation and the insurer, admitted the employment and the occurrence of the accident, but they denied liability for compensation on several grounds. They aver that a church corporation is not a trade, business or occupation within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Statute, LSA-R.S. 23:1035. They further aver that a minister's calling is not hazardous within the contemplation of the statute and that the operation of a church is not a hazardous trade, business or occupation, even though the minister may be required to use an automobile in conducting church work. They further aver that the Workmen's Compensation Law should be construed as not contemplating church corporations for the reason that if they are construed as contemplating such church organizations, they would violate the principle of separation of church and state vouchsafed by our Louisiana Constitution, LSA, in section 4 of Article 1 and by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

They further aver that, as a matter of fact, the plaintiff has not been disabled and is employed by the same church corporation in work practically identical with that which he was doing prior to the accident and is receiving the same salary which he was receiving before the accident.

It appeared during the trial that the plaintiff had obtained a judgment and under it had collected $6,500 as damages from the tort-feasor who had been involved in the accident in which he sustained his injuries.

There was judgment in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans in favor of plaintiff and against both defendants for $30 per week for 400 weeks and for $1,000 medical expenses, and it was provided in the judgment that the defendants should be 'entitled to a credit of $6,500 against this judgment and shall not be required to make any payments hereunder until said credit is exhausted.'

From this judgment both defendants appealed suspensively, and plaintiff answered the appeal praying that the judgment be amended by the elimination of the credit allowed to defendants.

At the outset we are impressed with the suggestion that it could not have been the intention of the framers of our compensation statute and of its various amendments that its provisions should be held to apply to such a church corporation. Prior to the enactment of compensation statutes tremendous economic losses were sustained, sometimes by employees and sometimes by employers as a result of occupational accidents. It was realized that however careful employees might be and however great might be the safeguards thrown around hazardous occupations, nevertheless accidents were bound to occur with, in each case, an economic loss to the employee if he could not recover in tort, or to the employer if the employee could persuade a court or a jury that the accident had occurred without fault on his part. It was felt that such losses resulted in unavoidable costs in hazardous businesses and that they should be recognized as a necessary cost in the conducting of such businesses. As such they could be passed on to the consuming public as a part of the cost by the addition of some predetermined amount for insurance, and, that, as a result, the injured employees, whether at fault or not, would be relieved in all cases of the necessity of providing themselves with the necessary costs of living during disability.

The thought which we have in mind is well expressed by Professor Wex Malone in his work 'Louisiana Workmen's Compensation,' at page 34:

'Workmen's Compensation rests upon the sound economic principle that those persons who enjoy the product of a business--whether it be in the form of goods or services--should ultimately bear the cost of the injuries or deaths that are incident to the manufacture, preparation and distribution of the product. Certainly this has always been true with reference to the capital structures and the machinery and equipment necessary to process and distribute all industrial products. Expected wear and tear and breakage of every sort is anticipated by the producer and this cost is considered when he fixes the price of his commodity or service. This is done without any reference to whether or not the loss should be regarded as the result of fault on the part of the management. If the cost is a predictable incident of the operation, sound business judgment demands that it be included as an element of the price. The same should be true of the human wreckage that is involved in production.

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'Under this approach the element of personal fault either disappears entirely or is subordinated to broader economic considerations. The employer absorbs the cost of accident loss only initially; it is expected that this cost will eventually pass down the stream of commerce in the form of increased price until it is spread in dilution among the ultimate consumers. So long as each competing unit in a given industry is uniformly affected, no producer can gain...