Miller v. Am. Steel & Wire Co.

• Decision Date: 10 April 1916
• Citation: 90 Conn. 348,97 A. 345
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: MILLER v. AMERICAN STEEL & WIRE CO.

97 A. 345

90 Conn. 348

MILLER

v. AMERICAN STEEL & WIRE CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 10, 1916.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; James H. Webb, Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Lewis Miller to claim compensation for personal injuries, opposed by the American Steel & Wire Company, the employer. Compensation was awarded, the award confirmed by the superior court, judgment entered accordingly, and the employer appeals. Error found, judgment set aside, and cause remanded for rendition of judgment vacating the award.

It appears from the finding of the commissioner that the claimant on or about March 26, 1915, and for some time prior thereto, had been in the employ of the respondent at New Haven, and about said date received at New Haven an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, which injury consisted in lead poisoning, contracted by working in and about a room in which were molten lead, fumes arising from molten lead, and small particles of lead and its compounds on the floor and throughout said room. In consequence of this injury the claimant was totally incapacitated for a short time and was awarded $7.14.

Frank P. Dresser and Frederick A. Carroll, both of Worcester, Mass., and Arthur M. Marsh, of Bridgeport, for appellant.

BEACH, J. (after stating the facts as above). An examination of the finding in the light of the commissioner's memorandum of decision convinces us that for the purposes of this appeal we must assume that the claimant's incapacity resulted from a gradual process of lead poisoning arising out of the claimant's employment, that it cannot be traced to any fortuitous or unexpected event which can be located in point of time and place, and that it is not the result of a lesion produced by external violence or internal strain. The record therefore does not present the question whether our Workmen's Compensation Act gives compensation for death or incapacity resulting from disease caused by accidental injury. It presents the very different question whether our compensation system includes occupational diseases as well as industrial accidents. More specifically the question is whether the words "personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment" in our act were intended by the General Assembly to cover disease arising out of and in the course of the employment. There is no reference whatever to disease in our act, and, although the case nominally turns upon the proper construction of the single word "injury," the real issue is whether the important subject-matter of industrial diseases shall be introduced by judicial construction into a statute which does not mention the subject or contain any provisions for dealing with the problems peculiar to that subject. It is to be regretted that the appellee was not represented by counsel in this court, and that we are compelled to pass upon a question of such importance without the benefit of full argument upon both sides.

We have said in Powers v. Bond Hotel Co., 89 Conn. 143, 148, 93 Atl. 245, that our act was undoubtedly passed with full knowledge of other similar acts of common purpose; and we have thus recognized the fact that these Workmen's Compensation Acts have arisen out of an industrial condition common to all manufacturing communities, and in a broad sense were intended to remedy a mischief common to all. It is therefore of some, though not of controlling, importance to observe what has been the course of legislation in other states and countries with respect to including occupational disease in Workmen's Compensation Acts. From an examination of the abstracts of 40 foreign Workmen's Compensation Acts contained in the bulletin of the United States Department of Labor issued In 1914 it appears that 27 of them are on their face limited to injuries accidentally sustained, 9 use the word "injury" without qualification, and 4 expressly mention both injury and disease. Out of the 27 countries whose Compensation Acts are limited to injuries accidentally sustained, it is noted that 4 have separate acts providing for workmen's sickness insurance. In this country, according to a Digest of Workmen's Compensation Daws published by the Workmen's Compensation Publicity Bureau of New York City, in 1915, such acts are in force in 31 states and 2 territories, and there is also an act of Congress covering employés of the United States government. Of these acts 20 are expressly limited to accidental injuries, 14 use the term "personal injuries" without qualification, but of these 4 expressly exclude disease except as it results from injury. None of them expressly include disease. Evidently the general course of legislation abroad and in this country has been to deal with industrial accidents as a subject separate and distinct from occupational disease. Of the 10 acts in this country which do not on their face exclude occupational disease, 2 have been authoritatively construed to exclude it. Industrial Commission v. Brown, 92 Ohio, 309, 110 N. E. 744; Adams v. Acme Works, 182 Mich. 157, 148 N. W. 485, D. R. A. 1916A, 283.

"The California act has received a similarly administrative construction." Decisions Industrial Accident Board of California, vol. 1, No. 5, p. 11.

On the other hand, the Massachusetts act has been construed to include occupational diseases. Hurle's Case, 217 Mass. 223, 104 N. E. 336, L. R. A. 1916A, 279, Ann. Cas. 1915C, 919; Johnson's Case, 217 Mass. 388, 104 N. E. 735.

"The act of Congress has been similarly construed by the solicitor of the Department of Commerce reversing a former ruling on that subject." In re Jule, Op. Sol. D. of L. p. 261.

Thus, among what may be called the doubtful states, the preponderance of opinion, so far as any has yet been expressed, seems to be against importing occupational diseases into Workmen's Compensation Acts by the process of judicial construction.

Turning now to the history of our own act: The first affirmative action taken by the General Assembly was the passage of a resolution in 1911 providing for the appointment of a commission "to investigate and report to the next session of the General Assembly upon the legality, advisability and practicability of establishing a state insurance department or other form of state insurance as a means of providing compensation for workmen and others injured through accident occurring in industrial occupations." The commission appointed pursuant to this resolution presented its report, entitled "the Report of Connecticut State Commission on Compensation for Industrial Accident to the General Assembly of 1913," and the bill recommended by the commission was limited to compensation for "personal injuries from any accident arising out of and in the course of his employment." Several other bills, including one representing the views of the association of manufacturers and another the views of the State Federation of Labor, were presented to the General Assembly. None of them made any reference to occupational disease, and in the course of many days of committee hearings reported and filed with the state librarian we find no reference to occupational disease, and none appears in the bill as finally adopted or in the amendments of 1915.

It follows that, if we construe the act as covering compensation for death or incapacity arising from occupational disease, we shall introduce into it a most important subject, which, so far as we can ascertain from the public documents, was not considered by the Legislature in this connection. In fact, the economic importance of the inclusion of disease in an act which contains no special provisions on the subject can hardly be estimated.

In the absence of any definition of occupational disease, the act would include all diseases arising out of and in the course of the employment, and the word "injury," if it includes the contraction of disease, includes also the aggravation of disease. So construed, our act might almost be said to give compensation for the common fate of all who work because they must. The result would be to increase very greatly the cost of compensation insurance, and might either discourage the acceptance of the act by employers, or make it difficult for any but the young and strong to obtain employment. It may be added that in Germany, and, so far as we know, in other countries, where a comprehensive scheme of workmen's sickness insurance is in force, the workman is required to contribute towards the cost of the insurance. We ought not to import into the act by construction a subject-matter carrying such possible consequences unless convinced that the General Assembly, notwithstanding its omission to refer to the subject, actually intended to include it. It seems more reasonable to suppose that in framing an elective system of compensation for the employer and the employé to accept or reject the General Assembly should attempt to state the essential conditions of the bargain in terms, so that the parties could understand the consequences of their election. And when we find in such a statute and in the legislative proceedings leading to its adoption no mention of so important a subject as industrial sickness Insurance, the reasonable inference is that the General Assembly probably did not intend to include the cost of such insurance in the proposition which it submitted to employers for their acceptance. This seems still more probable because it appears from chapter 14, P. A. 1913, entitled "An act concerning reports of occupational diseases," that the General Assembly had the subject of occupational disease under consideration at the very time when the Workmen's Compensation Act was pending before it; and the action which it took in respect of that subject was to require physicians to report cases, not to the compensation commissioner of the district, but to the commissioner of the bureau of labor statistics....