Overmiller v. D. E. Horn & Co.
| Decision Date | 24 March 1960 |
| Citation | 159 A.2d 245,191 Pa.Super. 562 |
| Parties | W. Luther OVERMILLER, Claimant, v. D. E. HORN & CO., Inc., Defendant, and Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association Casualty Insurance Company, Insurance Carrier, Appellants. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Fisher, Ports, May & Beers, Robert O. Beers York, for appellant.
J Ross McGinnis, York, Gitman & Weisbord, Harris I. Weisbord Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before RHODES, P. J., and HIRT, GUNTHER, WRIGHT, WOODSIDE, ERVIN and WATKINS, JJ.
W. Luther Overmiller filed a workmen's compensation claim on September 16, 1953, alleging that he suffered a compensable injury on March 19, 1953. After hearing testimony, which showed that the claimant suffered a heart attack, the referee filed his decision on March 17, 1954, disallowing compensation on the ground that the claimant's disability was due to natural causes not connected or associated with an accident.
The claimant appealed to The Workmen's Compensation Board, but subsequently requested permission to withdraw the appeal. The board granted the claimant's request on June 7, 1954. More than a year later, on August 4, 1955, the claimant filed a petition for a rehearing. The board took no action on this petition until July 13, 1956, when it granted the claimant's request. From the order granting the rehearing, the defendant appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of York County, contending that the board had no authority to order a rehearing because the petition was filed more than one year after the date of the order sought to be reheard.
In its opinion, the court said, '* * * it seems crystal clear from the authorities that claimant is definitely barred by Section 426 of the Act in force at the time and the amendment of 1956 is of no avail.' It concluded, however, that the order of the board was interlocutory, and dismissed the appeal. The defendant then appealed that order to this Court.
Section 426 of The Pennsylvania Workmen's Compensation Act of June 2 1915, P.L. 736, as last amended prior to 1956, 77 P.S. § 871, provided, inter alia, as follows: 'The board, upon petition of any party and upon cause shown * * * may grant a rehearing of any petition upon which the board has made an award or disallowance of compensation or other order or ruling, or upon which the board has sustained or reversed any action of a referee; but such rehearing shall not be granted more than one year after the board has made such award, disallowance, or other order or ruling, * * *.' (Italics supplied.)
In applying this provision to the matter before us there can be no doubt that the claimant's petition for rehearing was filed too late and is barred by the statute. The board lacked authority to consider it.
In Dolan v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1932, 106 Pa.Super. 74, 77, 78, 161 A. 763, 764, this Court said concerning the above section: 'The words of the statute, 'shall not be granted,' are clear and precise, and are capable of only one interpretation, and that is, that the board does not, under the provisions of the act, have any power to grant a rehearing more than one year after it has sustained or reversed any action of the referee. The language of the statute is mandatory, and must be given effect.
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'Where a statute fixes the time within which an act must be done, as, for example an appeal taken, courts have no power to extend it, or to allow the act to be done at a later day, as a matter of indulgence.' Schrenkeisen v. Kishbaugh, 1894, 162 Pa. 45, 48, 29 A. 284, 285; Guy v. Stocklein Baking Co., 1938, 133 Pa.Super. 38, 46, 1 A.2d 839.
David L. Ullman, now Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, and an authority on Workmen's Compensation Law, said in Workmen's Compensation Law and Practice in Pennsylvania, page 9:
William A. Skinner, Esq., in The Workmen's Compensation Law of Pennsylvania, 4th Ed. Vol II, page 832, says: See also Calabria v. State Workmen's Insurance Fund, 1939, 333 Pa. 40, 3 A.2d 322.
Section 426, supra, was amended by the Act of February 28, 1956, P.L. (1955) 1120, which changed the 'one year,' shown above in italics, to 'eighteen months.' This amendment became effective March 30, 1956. (See Sec. 2, P.L. 1145). The claimant contends that this amendment determines the period within which his petition for reargument had to be filed.
The dates, upon which this determination must be made, are June 7, 1954, when the board authorized the withdrawal of the appeal; [1] August 4, 1955, when the claimant filed his petition for rehearing; and March 30, 1956, the effective date of the amendment extending from one year to eighteen months, the statutory period within which petitions for rehearings could be considered by the board.
The board did not grant the rehearing until July 13, 1956 more than two years after its prior order, but we shall ignore this date as it is the date of filing the petition, and not the date of the board's action thereon, which ordinarily governs. Marinho v. Glen Alden Coal Co., 1933, 108 Pa.Super. 560, 165 A. 506.
There is no language in the amending statute of 1956 from which there could be inferred an intent of the legislature to make it retroactive, and the rules of statutory construction prohibit our giving it retroactive effect.
Had the amendment of 1956 become effective within one year of the order of the board, it would have extended the time for filing a petition for rehearing from 1 year to 18 months from the date of the order. Seneca v. Yale & Towne Mfg. Co., 1940, 142 Pa.Super. 470, 16 A.2d 754; Matkosky v. Midvale Company, 1941, 143 Pa.Super. 197, 199, 18 A.2d 102. As to causes which are not barred, a statute of limitation may be extended, or even repealed. 34 Am.Jur., Limitation of Actions §§ 29, 33.
But, here the cause was barred. The year within which the board had a statutory right to consider a petition for rehearing had passed without any petition having been filed. It is accepted, almost without exception or qualification, that after an action has become barred by an existing statute of limitations, no subsequent legislation will remove the bar or revive the action. See 67 A.L.R. 298, 303; 34 Am.Jur. Limitation of Actions § 33; 53 C.J.S. Limitations of Actions § 5, note 66; and numerous cases cited in the above encyclopedias.
The rule is based primarily upon the fundamental principle of statutory construction that statutes are presumed to operate prospectively. 'There is no canon of construction better settled than this, that a statute shall always be interpreted so as to operate prospectively and not retrospectively unless the language is so clear as to preclude all question as to the intention of the legislature'; Taylor v. Mitchell, 1868, 57 Pa. 209, 211; Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington R. Co. v. Quaker City Flour Mills Co., 1925, 282 Pa. 362, 366, 127 A. 845.
'No law shall be construed to be retroactive unless clearly and manifestly so intended by the Legislature.' Statutory Construction Act of May 28, 1937, P.L.1019, § 56, 46 P.S. § 556. See Oliphant v. Smith, 1837, 6 Watts 449; Sawdey Liquor License Case, 1951, 369 Pa. 19, 22, 85 A.2d 28; Anderson v. Sunray Electric, Inc., 1953, 173 Pa.Super. 566, 569, 98 A.2d 374.
The new provisions in an amendment (in this case the provision for the additional 6 month period) must 'be construed as effective only from the date when the amendment became effective,' (in this case March 30, 1956). Section 73 of the Statutory Construction Act, supra, 46 P.S. § 573. The amendment cannot relate to a petition filed prior to its effective date, or to procedural steps completed before its enactment. 82 C.J.S. Statutes § 422.
Because the procedural provisions of statutes are sometimes applied to cases in which the right to the claim arose before the effective date of the procedural statute, it is occasionally suggested that the rule requiring prospective operation of statutes does not apply to procedural provisions. Generally speaking, however, the application of statutory procedural provisions to pending cases is following the rule of the prospective operation of statutes, because the new procedure applied to pending cases is that procedure which takes place after, and not before, the passage of the statute. The cases cited by the appellee are examples of this: Seneca v. Yale & Towne Mfg. Co., supra, where the statutory period of limitation which would have expired after the effective date of the statute was extended; Ware v. Northern Metal Co.,...
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