Minter v. Bendix Aviation Corp.

• Decision Date: 08 April 1957
• Docket Number: No. A--90,A--90
• Parties: Minnie MINTER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. BENDIX AVIATION CORPORATION, Respondent-Respondent. Marilyn Sanderson MINTER, Petitioner-Respondent, v. BENDIX AVIATION CORPORATION and The Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York, Respondents-Appellants.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 128

24 N.J. 128

130 A.2d 809

Minnie MINTER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. BENDIX AVIATION CORPORATION, Respondent-Respondent.

Marilyn Sanderson MINTER, Petitioner-Respondent, v. BENDIX AVIATION CORPORATION and The Fidelity and Casualty

Company of New York, Respondents-Appellants.

No. A--90.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued March 11, 1957.

Decided April 8, 1957.

Michael G. Alenick, Newark, argued the cause for appellant Minnie Minter (Sanford Silver, Newark, on the brief).

Walter H. Jones, Newark, argued the cause for respondents Bendix Aviation Corp. and Fidelity & Casualty Co. of New York.

Alexander Avidan, Newark, argued the cause for respondent Marilyn Sanderson Minter (Avidan & Avidan, Newark, attorneys).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

BURLING, J.

This appeal stems from a judgment of the Bergen County Court which we have certified prior to a review by the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Within its narrowest confines the case presents a question of fraud in a limited sense, I.e., withholding information concerning a prior marriage of the decedent in a proceeding to secure death benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Law. We must, however, take a broader view of the proceeding in order to impel a final determination of the primal meritorious question, namely, whether one claim can support two awards.

Various aspects of the controversy have been in litigation for 6 1/2 years. The observation is hardly a tribute to our collective endeavor to reach substantial justice through an immediate channel. Our rules provide ample opportunity for appellate courts to exercise a superintending control over litigation which has an occasional tendency to spread itself thin over an undue length of time and provokes an unnecessary usurpation of judicial manpower with its accompanying expense to litigants. Prompt penetrating adjudication by removing the feigned veils requires the cooperation of litigants and of hearers at the trial level. Satisfaction may be taken in the fact that similar cumbersome strategic adjective situations as exist in this case are the rare exception rather than the rule.

Wallace Minter, an employee of respondent Bendix Aviation Corporation, was killed in 1951. There is no dispute that the accident causing his death arose out of and in the course of his employment.

Several months later his alleged widow, Minnie Minter filed a claim for dependency death benefits with the Workmen's Compensation Division. Bendix, in answer, denied that Minnie was Wallace's legal wife. An award was made which Bendix later conceded was justified upon the evidence before the Compensation Division, see Minter v. Bendix Aviation Corp., 26 N.J.Super. 268, 274, 97 A.2d 715 (App.Div.1953), although at the time of the hearing it had some reason to believe that Minnie was not the decedent's lawful wife. Bendix did not seek a postponement of the agency hearing to fully investigate and develop this issue and no appeal was taken from the award.

After Minnie obtained her award (April, 1952) Bendix applied to the Division for a new trial and for a stay of the judgment on the basis of newly discovered evidence. This was denied by the Division which was in turn affirmed by the Bergen County Court and the Superior Court, Appellate Division, Minter v. Bendix Aviation Corp., 26 N.J.Super. 268, 97 A.2d 715 (1953). The latter decision was rendered on June 12, 1953, and the court noted that there was indeed another contender (Marilyn) for the award who had already filed her claim with the Compensation Division. (Marilyn's claim was filed in February, 1953. Bendix then sought a remand of the case which it had appealed to the Appellate Division in view of Marilyn's claim but this was denied and the noted decision was thereafter rendered.)

Bendix immediately filed an action of interpleader with the Superior Court, Chancery Division. The Chancery Division decided to withhold action on the interpleader pending the outcome of Marilyn's claim with the Compensation Division. A dismissal of the claim would moot the interpleader

The hearing on Marilyn's claim took place on November 24, 1953. Bendix moved to dismiss her petition because of the previous award to Minnie, arguing that the Deputy Director lacked jurisdiction to proceed. (It would seem that at this point Bendix' motion should have included an application to open the judgment awarded to Minnie and thereby a comprehensive hearing could have been had with all interested parties participating, R.S. 34:15--58, N.J.S.A.) Bendix expressed concern over the possibility of a double liability but the motion was denied by the Deputy Director who thought that Marilyn was entitled to be heard. She obtained an award on December 23, 1953, the Deputy Director concluding:

'That the said dependents, Marilyn Sanderson Minter, as widow, and Wallace Edward Minter, the infant child, were the legal and total dependents of the decedent at the time of his accidental death on August 4, 1951, within the meaning of the provisions of R.S. 34:15--13 (N.J.S.A.).'

It is to be noted that Minnie was not a party and did not participate in this proceeding Nor did the Division take any steps to reopen her case (R.S. 15:34--58, N.J.S.A.) after the award to Marilyn, although the Deputy Director recognized the inequity of 'a double award arising out of one accident.' Following Marilyn's award the Chancery Division dismissed the interpleader action brought by Bendix on the ground that it constituted a collateral attack against Minnie's judgment.

Bendix, meanwhile, had appealed Marilyn's award to the Bergen County Court. That court immediately recognized what we consider to be the overriding consideration in this case. Judge O'Dea stated:

'Under the Workmen's Compensation law (R.S. 34:15--13 (N.J.S.A.)), there can be only one wife or dependent widow of a decedent employee entitled to an award at the time of accident or death. No man may have two wives. An employer under the act should not be required to pay dual claims to two widows of the same employee under dual judgments, of one single tribunal. When such a situation appears by judicial or actual notice, the interests of justice require that both claimants be heard by the tribunal, on notice to the other, the employer and any others in interest, to determine the single lawful claimant.'

The court recognized that the division had broad power over the control of its judgments, R.S. 34:15--57, 58, N.J.S.A., Estelle v. Board of Education of Borough of Red Bank 14 N.J. 256, 261, 102 A.2d 44 (1954), and stated that 'where a manifest injustice would result from the entry of a second judgment in the same tribunal for the same cause of action * * * then the same tribunal which has entered and retains control over the first judgment should stay further proceedings in both matters before it until the rightful claimant has been determined between the two.' The direction of the Bergen County Court was to stay both judgments pending further consolidated proceedings in the Compensation Division to determine the rightful claimant.

In view of the direction of the Bergen County Court (rendered July 27, 1954) the Superior Court, Appellate Division, refused to consider for the present an appeal which Bendix had taken from the dismissal of its interpleader action. The ultimate issue, after all, was the same, and absent an appeal from the judgment of the Bergen County Court which might upset the path of final disposition marked out by Judge O'Dea there was little reason to address attention to interpleader.

Minnie, however, did not agree that her judgment should be opened, at least at the direction of a court which allegedly had no control over it. She moved the Bergen County Court to vacate that portion of its order pertaining to her judgment. This motion was denied and Minnie pursued an appeal to the Superior Court, Appellate Division.

The Appellate Division reversed, concluding that there was no basis upon which the Bergen County Court could stay Minnie's judgment. Minnie's judgment had never been appealed nor was Minnie a party to Marilyn's cause. Minter v. Minter, 35 N.J.Super. 439, 114 A.2d 455 (App.Div.1955). Judge Clapp was careful to note that the order of the Bergen County Court so far as remanding Marilyn's cause and staying her judgment was not affected by the reversal.

Inasmuch as Minnie had successfully attacked the order of the Bergen County Court the Appellate Division ordered argument upon the appeal which Bendix had previously taken from the dismissal of its action of interpleader in the Chancery Division. In the course of the oral argument Bendix charged that Minnie, when filing her claim with the Workmen's Compensation Division, knew of Wallace's prior marriage to Marilyn and had reason to believe that the latter was his lawful wife, all of which allegedly worked a fraud upon the tribunal. The Appellate Division, while affirming the dismissal of the interpleader action, thought Bendix was entitled to a further proceeding in the Compensation Division 'to open Minnie's judgment on the ground of her fraud on the Compensation Division.' Eclipse etc., Bendix Aviation Corp. v. Minter, 35 N.J.Super. 430, 114 A.2d 451, 454 (App.Div.1955). Bendix, over a span of three years, had obtained additional evidence which gave a color of merit to the fraud charge.

A hearing was requested of the Compensation Division by Bendix. Its petition, in effect, asked that both claims be re-examined and the matter concluded. The two Deputy Directors who were familiar with the extended litigation presided at the hearing. In their opinion the sole question was 'whether Minnie at the time of her hearing for compensation in 1952 knowingly, willfully and intentionally testified falsely and perpetrated a fraud on the Workmen's Compensation Division * * *.' Family relatives were witnesses; Minnie...