Renner v. Model Laundry, Cleaning & Dyeing Co.
| Citation | 191 Iowa 1288,184 N.W. 611 |
| Decision Date | 30 September 1921 |
| Docket Number | No. 33790.,33790. |
| Parties | RENNER v. MODEL LAUNDRY, CLEANING & DYEING CO. ET AL. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Black Hawk County; Geo. W. Dunham, Judge.
Action at law to recover compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Statute (Code Supp. 1913, §§ 2477m to 2477m51). Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. The material facts are stated in the opinion. Affirmed.Johnson, Donnelly & Swab, of Cedar Rapids, for appellants.
Pickett, Swisher & Farwell, of Waterloo, for appellee.
On July 25, 1917, A. B. Bodine, since deceased, was an employé in the service of the defendant laundry company, and in pursuance of such employment was driving a laundry wagon in the streets of the city of Waterloo. While thus engaged, a collision occurred between the wagon and a street car operated by the Waterloo Cedar Falls & Northern Railway Company. In this collision, Bodine was severely injured. Soon after the injury the insurance carrier, Fidelity & Casualty Company, undertook to pay the injured employé compensation at the rate of $7.61 per week, and did pay him at that rate for a period of about three months. Thereafter said company refused to make further payments, alleging as grounds for such refusal, that Bodine had made a settlement with the street railway company for the same injuries, and received payment therefor to the amount of $750, being a sum in excess of the amount which the employé could recover as compensation under the statute, and because of such settlement with the railway company the employer and his insurer are both released from further liability.
Upon defendant's refusal to make further payment Bodine applied to the State Industrial Commissioner for the appointment of a committee of arbitration to consider his claim. After hearing the evidence, two of the committee of three united in finding and reporting that--
“Were it not for the connection of the Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern Railway Company with the case and the payment by it to claimant on account of his injury, the claimant would be entitled to receive from defendant compensation at the rate of $8.38 per week, beginning with the date of the accident and continuing 105 weeks.”
In addition to such statement, the majority of the committee further found that because of the payment by the railway company to the claimant the compensation which would otherwise be his due from the defendants should be reduced or diminished by the sum of $750. The third member of the committee, Judge Williams, filed a minority report, dissenting from the conclusion so announced. The claimant having filed a petition for review, the matter was reheard by the Industrial Commissioner, who sustained the majority report of the committee. It should also here be said that pending this appeal to the Commissioner, the claimant Bodine died, and the administrator of his estate, W. C. Renner was substituted as plaintiff. Further appeal was prosecuted by the administrator to the district court, which upon consideration of the record reversed the ruling of the Commissioner and entered judgment for the plaintiff for the full amount of unpaid statutory compensation which had accrued up to the date of Bodine's death, without any deduction on account of the money received by the deceased from the railway company. From that judgment defendants have appealed to this court.
The evidence as disclosed by the record is very brief. It is conceded that Bodine was an employé of the laundry company, and while engaged in its service suffered an injury in a collision which occurred between the wagon driven by him and a street car. It is also conceded that after the collision the injured man was visited by a representative of the railway company with whom he entered into a written agreement, which after a formal preamble provides as follows:
The consideration of $750 mentioned in the writing was received and retained by Bodine.Prior to this transaction the laundry company's insurer, the defendant Fidelity & Casualty Company as we have already said, had undertaken to pay Bodine compensation at the rate of $7.61 per week, and did make such payments for a period of three months, when it refused further payment on the ground that it had been relieved of further liability to the extent at least of the sum which Bodine had received from the railway company. Aside from the bare fact that there was a collision between the wagon and the car, and that Bodine sustained an injury therein, there is no testimony as to the attending facts and circumstances, and if either party to such collision was chargeable with negligence or wrong, we are without any evidence of it. There is no evidence that Bodine made or presented any claim against the railway company on account of his injury, and as to the intention of the parties in making the agreement there is no showing except as it is revealed in the writing itself and the testimony of the railway's representative, who says:
“The purpose of the covenant not to sue was not to settle the question of liability.”
The Industrial Commissioner adopted the finding of the majority of the arbitration committee that the claimant was entitled to receive compensation under the statute, but that, having received $750 from the railway company, the compensation so payable should be reduced by that amount. In reaching this conclusion the Commissioner held that the burden was upon the claimant to establish the fact that the money received from the railway company was not a recovery of damages within the meaning of the statute, and laid down the proposition that the payment of the money by the railway company was a “definite recognition of liability.”
With the foregoing statement of the substance of the record and attitude of the parties, we turn to the questions of law so presented.
[1] I. The authority for reducing the compensation due to Bodine as was done by the arbitration committee and Industrial Commissioner is to be found, if at all, in that part of the compensation statute which provides as follows (Code Supp. § 2477m6):
It will be seen from the reading that the first or introductory sentence of the section prescribes the condition under which its provisions shall have application, and that is an injury to the employé “caused under circumstances creating a legal liability in some person other than the employer to pay damages.” The remainder of the section provides that (a) when such situation appears, that is, “legal liability in some person other than the employer,” the injured employé may proceed against his employer for compensation under this statute and at the same time maintain an action against the other person for damages as at common law, but in such case the compensation recoverable from the employer is to be reduced by the “amount of damages recovered” from the third person. It further provides (b) that if the employé recovers compensation from his employer under such circumstances, that is where the injury was caused under circumstances creating a legal liability in some other person to pay damages, the employer or insurer who has been called upon to pay compensation is “entitled to indemnity from the person so liable to pay damages * * * and shall be subrogated to the rights of the employé to recover therefor.”
Counsel on either side have cited and discussed the rules and principles bearing upon the effect of a release of or satisfaction by one or more joint tort-feasors, and of the common-law or equitable right of subrogation in certain cases, but except as these rules and principles may be thought to afford aid by way of illustration or analogy, they are somewhat beside the question with which we here must deal. The rule that the release of one joint tort-feasor works the release...
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