Murray Hospital v. Angrove

• Decision Date: 29 March 1932
• Docket Number: 6910.
• Citation: 10 P.2d 577,92 Mont. 101
• Parties: MURRAY HOSPITAL v. ANGROVE.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

10 P.2d 577

92 Mont. 101

MURRAY HOSPITAL v. ANGROVE.

No. 6910.

Supreme Court of Montana

March 29, 1932

Rehearing Denied April 23, 1932.

Appeal from District Court, Silver Bow County; Wm. E. Carroll Judge.

Action by the Murray Hospital, a corporation, against William Angrove. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Reversed and remanded, with direction to dismiss the action.

R Lewis Brown, of Butte, for appellant.

J. A Poore, of Butte, for respondent.

MATTHEWS J.

The defendant, William Angrove, has appealed from a judgment against him and in favor of the plaintiff, Murray Hospital, a corporation, entered in an action in debt.

The facts on which the trial court rendered its judgment were agreed upon and are as follows: The defendant is a hoisting engineer engaged in a hazardous employment for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. The employer operates under "Compensation Plan No. 1" of the Workmen's Compensation Act (Rev. Codes 1921, § 2970 et seq.), and the defendant comes under its provisions. Under a permissive provision of the act, the employer in 1922 entered into a contract with the plaintiff hospital for necessary treatment of employees engaged in hazardous employment, and designated those employees who come within the provisions of the contract, the defendant being among those so designated, and having elected to accept the benefits of the contract. Thereunder the contracting hospital is bound to provide each employee entitled to the benefits of the contract "all necessary medical, hospital and surgical attendance for sickness contracted during the time such man is employed by the party of the second part, save and except venereal diseases and sickness which has resulted from intoxication," and to also provide such services "for injuries received in, arising out of and in the course of such employment."

On the 24th of December, 1928, while proceeding from his home to his place of employment, in the usual and direct route and proceeding with due care, defendant was struck by an automobile and suffered an injury to his knee. The place of the accident was perhaps midway between his home and place of work, which were about three miles apart. The defendant worked as usual for several days, during which time he suffered from pain in his knee which finally became so intense that he entered the hospital for treatment; he was given proper care until he was completely cured, and then discharged. Thereafter the hospital brought action and secured judgment for the sum of $25, as the reasonable value of the services rendered. The amount in dispute is trivial, but the principle involved is far-reaching in its effect and renders a careful consideration of the questions presented imperative.

It is conceded that the contract provides for treatment under two divergent sets of circumstances, to wit: (1) For injuries received in, arising out of, and in the course of, the employment; (2) for sickness contracted during the time when the man is employed by the contracting employer, save and except for venereal diseases and sickness which has resulted from intoxication.

It is clear that the first obligation has to do only with those injuries resulting from an industrial accident; "an injury resulting from some fortuitous event, as distinguished from the contraction of disease" (section 2870, Rev. Codes 1921); while the second is in addition to, and apart from, any disability arising out of and in the course of the employment.

If the wording of the second obligation was not in itself sufficient to show the intention of the parties and of the law on the subject as hereinafter discussed, the exceptions made place the meaning beyond question; no such sickness as is excepted could be contracted as a result of, or in the course of, the employment, and, had it been the intention of the contracting parties that the obligation here considered should apply to "sickness" arising out of and in the course of the employment, the exceptions would not have been inserted.

Counsel for the defendant asserts that defendant was entitled to the services rendered without further compensation than that paid under the contract under either or both of the above provisions; while counsel for plaintiff contends, first, that the employees of the contracting employer are entitled to treatment for an "injury," pursuant to the obligation of the contract, only when such injury would entitle them to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, and that defendant's injury was not such an injury; second, that the second obligation extends only to attendance in case of "sickness," and that plaintiff's disability does not come within the definition of that term.

The contract was made pursuant to the permission granted in the Workmen's Compensation Act and in conformity therewith; consequently the act itself becomes a part of the contract, and the contract must be construed in the light of the true intent and purpose of the act. In order intelligently to determine the rights of the respective parties under the contract, we must first have a clear understanding of the fundamental principles, the intent of, and the object to be attained by, the act.

It has been said that "until very recently it has been difficult for American lawyers to reconcile themselves to the fundamental changes which workmen's compensation laws accomplish in the principles underlying doctrines with which they have long been familiar. The doctrine that an employer shall be responsible for injuries to his workman, whether or not the master is at fault, until very recently, in most parts of the United States, met with almost instant opposition whenever it has been made," but that "since compensation Acts have been put into practical operation in many states the great saving which they have effected, in many ways, has produced a revolution of feeling in regard to them." Bradbury's Workman's Compensation Law (3d Ed.) 1.

Such a law must necessarily grow through operation and experience; as the vision expands, so does the law. In line with the modern trend of economic and humane thought, this state enacted its first Workmen's Compensation Act in 1915 (chapter 96, Laws of 1915); many changes have since been made, and many will doubtless be made in the future. It is not perfect by any means.

The original idea embodied in such laws was merely compensation for injury through industrial accident; hospitalization by reason of such injury is but a part of that idea, but hospitalization for disability in no way arising out of and in the course of the employment is a step forward in the development of the law.

In 1919 this court declared the theory of our act to be "that loss occasioned by injury to the employee shall not be borne by the employee alone--as it was under the common-law system--but directly by the industry and indirectly by the public, just as is the deterioration of the buildings, machinery and other appliances necessary to enable the employer to carry on the particular industry," and observed that "the object sought commends itself not only as wise from an economic point of view, but also as eminently just and humane." Shea v. North-Butte Mining Co., 55 Mont. 522, 179 P. 499, 501. See, also, Dosen v. East Butte Copper Mining Co., 78 Mont. 579, 254 P. 880, 886.

In Bradbury's work, above (page 1), it is said: "Testimony from foreign countries and a rapidly increasing fund of evidence from many of the states of the Union, prove that it is not taking the employer's property without due process of law to compel him to pay compensation to an injured workman, when the injury is due to a risk which is necessarily incident to the business. An assertion to the contrary is an economic fallacy. The amount paid in compensation to injured workmen will be added to the cost of the article produced and in the readjustment, which is inevitable, the expense will be borne by the community generally. All experience proves this beyond question." This is in keeping with the theory of the Compensation Law. Capital, labor, machinery, and plant form component parts of the "industry," the breaking down of any one of which cripples the industry, and its rehabilitation should be at the expense of the industry "directly," but borne "indirectly by the public."

Prior to the enactment of Workmen's Compensation Laws, "while fire, deterioration of plant and financial loss were insured against, and the insurance, whatever form it took, was charged to the cost of production, no account was taken of the deterioration of the human machine." State ex rel. Duluth Brewing & Malting Co. v. District Court, 129 Minn. 176, 151 N.W. 912, 15 N.C. C. A. 275. Awakening to the injustice and economic waste of such a situation, during the past thirty years Compensation Acts have been passed by the federal government and by forty-two of our states. Harper on Workmen's Compensation (2d Ed.) 16.

Under our act three plans of compensation are provided: Plan No. 1 under which the employer here operated, permits the employer, on proof of solvency and financial ability to do so, to make the required payments directly to the injured workman; plan No. 2 requires the employer to insure his employees, and plan No. 3 requires the employer to pay into the accident fund a sum equal to a percentage of the annual payroll, out of which fund the Accident Board makes the payments. Sections 2970, 2978, 2990, Rev. Codes 1921. These payments are only made in case of injury arising out of and in the course of the employment, and are comparable to the restoration of loss to capital through some fortuitous circumstance, from the industry. In addition to compensation, our act requires the employer operating under plan No. 1, the...