Ortega v. Salt Lake Wet Wash Laundry

• Decision Date: 20 February 1945
• Docket Number: 6686
• Citation: 108 Utah 1,156 P.2d 885
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: ORTEGA v. SALT LAKE WET WASH LAUNDRY et al

156 P.2d 885

108 Utah 1

ORTEGA v. SALT LAKE WET WASH LAUNDRY et al

No. 6686

Supreme Court of Utah

February 20, 1945

Appeal from District Court, Third District, Salt Lake County; M J. Bronson, Judge.

Reversed and remanded with directions.

White Wright & Arnovitz, of Salt Lake City, for appellant.

Dan B. Shields, of Salt Lake City, for respondents.

Larson Chief Justice. McDonough and Turner, JJ., concur. Wade, Justice (concurring in result). Wolfe, Justice (concurring in result).

OPINION

Larson, Chief Justice.

Is the Workmen's Compensation Act the exclusive remedy for a minor illegally employed, who is injured in the course of employment? That is the only question presented by this appeal from a judgment of the District Court of Salt Lake County dismissing plaintiff's complaint. Lupe Ortega a girl fourteen years of age, was employed by defendants, from February 1943, to April 8, 1943. On the date last mentioned she was required and directed to work on and operate a power driven machine, to wit, an electrically driven mangle. On said date while so working her hand was crushed in the mangle as a result of which she lost the three fingers and the distal phalanx of her right hand. She filed suit for damages. The defendants demurred, which demurrer the court sustained and dismissed the action on the ground that the Workmen's Compensation Act is the exclusive remedy for an injured employee, and therefore a civil suit for damages would not lie. Plaintiff appeals, presenting for our decision the question posed above.

The Workmen's Compensation Act, Sec. 42-1-57, U. C. A. 1943, provides:

"The right to recover compensation pursuant to the provisions of this title for injuries sustained by an employee, whether resulting in death or not, shall be the exclusive remedy against the employer, except as in this title otherwise declared; provided, that where the injury is caused by the employer's willful misconduct and the act causing such injury is the personal act of the employer himself, or if the employer is a partnership, of one of the partners, or if a corporation, of an elective officer or officers thereof, and such act indicates a willful disregard of the life, limb or bodily safety of employees, such injured employee or other person damaged may, at his option, either claim compensation under this title or maintain an action at law for damages. The term 'willful misconduct,' as employed in this section shall be construed to mean an act done knowingly and purposely with the direct object of injuring another."

There are two exceptions to the exclusive remedy provision by Title 42: (a) The exceptions noted in the provided part of this section, and (b) in the case of a noncomplying employer, Sec. 42-1-54, U.C.A. 1943. To the effect that a proceeding under the provisions of the act otherwise is the sole remedy of the injured employee, see Murray v. Wasatch Grading Co., 73 Utah 430, 274 P. 940; Shurtliff v. Oregon S. L. Ry. Co., 66 Utah 161, 241 P. 1058; Halling v. Ind. Comm., 71 Utah 112, 263 P. 78; Utah Idaho Cent. Ry. Co. v. Ind. Comm., 84 Utah 364, 35 P. 2d 842, 94 A.L.R. 1423.

The trial court upheld the contention of the laundry and took the view that the case came within the first provision of the section quoted. The plaintiff assails such holding, and contends that she does not come within the restrictive first clause, because: (1) She was not an "employee" within the meaning of the act; and (2) if she was an employee she was taken out of the limitation of the first clause by the exceptions following the term "provided" in Sec. 42-1-57 quoted above, arguing that the section makes two exceptions; for willful misconduct and for willful disregard of safety.

The parties will hereafter be designated as plaintiff and defendant, respectively; the Workmen's Compensation Act, being Title 42 of Utah Code Ann. 1943, will hereafter be called the Compensation Act, and Title 14 of the Utah Code Annotated will be called the Child Welfare Act. All references to Title, Chapter, or Section unless otherwise specifically noted will refer to the Utah Code Annotated, 1943. When we use the word "industry" in this opinion we mean an industry, trade, or occupation to which the compensation act applies.

(1) Was plaintiff an "employee" within the meaning of that term as used in Sec. 57, quoted supra? To put it another way, was the employment relationship between plaintiff and defendant one governed by the compensation act, and within the restrictive remedy provision of Sec. 57? This brings us to a consideration of Subdivision (2) of Sec. 41, Title 42, defining employees, which reads:

"* * * (2) Every person, except agricultural laborers and domestic servants in the service of any 'employer' as defined in subdivision (2) of section 42-1-40, who employs three or more workmen or operatives regularly in the same business, or in or about the same establishment, under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, including aliens, and minors who are legally permitted to work for hire, but not including any person whose employment is but casual and not in the usual course of trade, business or occupation of his employer. * * *." (Italics added.)

The Compensation Act, first enacted in 1917, is predicated upon the police power, the right of the state to regulate the status of employer and employee, for the general welfare of the people of the state. Park Utah Mines v. Ind. Comm., 84 Utah 481, 36 P. 2d 979; Buckingham Trans. v. Ind. Comm., 93 Utah 342, 72 P. 2d 1077. It is a beneficent act, passed to protect employees, and those dependent upon them, and to tax the costs of human wreckage against the industry which employs it, such burden being added to the price of the produce and thereby spread over the general consuming users of the product of the industry. Park Utah Mines v. Ind. Comm., supra. The general rules of liberal statutory construction govern the act, keeping in mind the purpose of its adoption. Industrial Comm. v. Daly Min. Co., 51 Utah 602, 172 P. 301. It is to be liberally construed in favor of the injured workman. Ogden City v. Ind. Comm., 57 Utah 221, 193 P. 857; Chandler v. Ind. Comm., 55 Utah 213, 184 P. 1020, 8 A. L. R. 930. These are all different ways of saying that the purpose of the act is to view the workman as a part of the industrial setup and impose upon the industry the costs and burdens of the breakage, wreckage or destruction of the human part of the industrial machinery, the same as of the inanimate and mechanical parts thereof. Compensation is therefore allowed without reference to negligence, risk inherent in the tasks, or the conduct of other workmen. The only exception is that of an injury purposely self-inflicted, which by its very nature could not be the result of, or an incident of the employment. The scope of the act is broad enough to cover all injuries to any employee which arises out of or in the course of employment. Much stress has been placed on the definition of "employee" as limiting or expanding the scope and concept of that term. Let us get a clear view of the scope of the act. By Sec. 42-1-40, the term "employers" includes the state, each county, city, town, and school district therein, and every other entity in the state having an existence recognized by law, which has human beings regularly employed. The section divides employers into two classes -- those upon whom the provisions of the act are mandatory, and those upon whom the provisions of the act are optional. The optional group includes employers of agricultural and domestic laborers and employers having less than three persons regularly employed. The mandatory group includes the state and each county, city, town, and school district therein, and every person, firm, or corporation having in service three or more employees regularly employed, except the optional groups. As far as the "employer" is concerned, the term is broad enough to cover all employment relationships.

The word "employee" is defined by Sec. 42-1-41 to mean every person in the service of any of the public bodies above enumerated, including employees of state institutions of learning and every person in the service of any employer as defined in subdivision (2) of Sec. 42-1-40. Of course this means "lawfully in the service of another." We will develop this later. The only class of persons in the service of an employer specifically excluded by the language of the section from the term "employee" is that embraced within the clause

"but not including any person whose employment is but casual and not in the usual course of the trade, business or occupation of his employer." (Italics added.)

Subdivision (2) of the section begins:

"Every person, except agricultural laborers and domestic servants, in the service of any 'employer' as defined in subdivision (2) of section 42-1-40 * * *."

Bear in mind that "employer subject to the act" as there defined includes such employers of agricultural and domestic laborers and employers of less than three persons as shall elect to come within the act by complying therewith, that is, taking insurance, etc., so that the agricultural laborers and domestic servants, excepted from the term "employee" are those in the service of an employer who has not brought himself within the act by complying therewith. The main argument in this cause hinges about the clause in subdivision (2) of Section 42-1-41, which after defining employee as

"Every person * * * in the service of any 'employer'" then goes on "including aliens, and minors who are legally permitted to work for hire * * *." (Italics added.)

Does this by necessary implication exclude minors who are not legally permitted to work for hire from being "employees" wi...