Roberts v. American Chain & Cable Co.

• Decision Date: 21 November 1969
• Citation: 259 A.2d 43
• Parties: Mary Jane ROBERTS, Adm'x of Estate of James C. Davis v. AMERICAN CHAIN & CABLE CO., Inc., Hall & Knight Hardware Co., and A. L. Doggett, Inc. (3rd Party Defendant).
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 43

259 A.2d 43

Mary Jane ROBERTS, Adm'x of Estate of James C. Davis v. AMERICAN CHAIN & CABLE CO., Inc., Hall & Knight Hardware Co., and A. L. Doggett, Inc. (3rd Party Defendant).

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Nov. 21, 1969.

Grover G. Alexander, Gray, for plaintiff.

James R. Desmond, John A. Mitchell, Portland, Irving Isaacson, Lewiston, for defendants.

Before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and WEBBER, MARDEN, DUFRESNE, and WEATHERBEE, JJ.

DUFRESNE, Justice.

On report under Rule 74(r), M.R.C.P., effective since December 31, 1967, formerly Rule 76. The parties agree that James C. Davis, the plaintiff's intestate, on September 22, 1964 was an employee of A. L. Doggett, Inc., (Doggett) third-party defendant, and in the course of his employment received an injury which resulted in his death on October 7, 1964. The deceased was unmarried at the time and left surviving him his mother, Mary Jane Roberts, who as administratrix of his estate brought suit against the defendants, American Chain & Cable Co., Inc. (American Chain) and Hall & Knight Hardware Co. (Hall & Knight). Her complaint reveals that the accident resulting in Davis' death happened when in the course of the installation of a petroleum tank by his employer the chain used in hoisting the tank and setting it in place broke, causing Davis to be crushed in the mishap. Resting her tort claim for damages on varied grounds of negligence and breach of warranty against American Chain, the manufacturer and wholesale distributor, and Hall & Knight, the dealer and intermediate seller of the chain to her decedent's employer, Doggett, the plaintiff seeks monetary awards for conscious suffering, together with medical, surgical and hospital expenses, available at common law, plus statutory benefits for wrongful death under 18 M.R.S.A. § 2553, together with reasonable funeral costs. Under Rule 14, M.R.C.P., the defendant American Chain caused to be served upon the third-party defendant Doggett a complaint in which as third-party plaintiff it claimed that the cause of the accident was the negligence of Doggett in overloading the chain and if found liable in damages for Davis' accidental injury and resulting death American Chain was entitled as against Doggett to exoneration or contribution and prayed judgment therefor.

The issue raised in the instant report results from Doggett's affirmative defense of immunity under the workmen's compensation act to American Chain's third-party complaint, the employer specifically pointing to 39 M.R.S.A. § 4 in support of its claim that as an assenting employer it is exempt from any liability on account of its employee's injuries and death except as provided under the act. The parties are in full agreement respecting the factual background from which the question of law submitted to this Court arises. Doggett was an assenting employer within the terms of the workmen's compensation act when Davis, its employee and plaintiff's intestate, in the regular course of his employment received the injuries which resulted in his death. Doggett had in full force and effect a compensation insurance policy which covered the claim and the insurance carrier on the account of Davis' employer paid all benefits required under the act, including the additional sum of $500 to the State of Maine on account of the Second Injury Fund as provided by 39 M.R.S.A. § 57.

Thus, the question presented to us is whether the workmen's compensation act of this State bars American Chain, the third-party wrongdoer (meaning the person other than the employer legally liable in damages in respect to an injury to an employee under 39 M.R.S.A. § 68), from bringing a third-party complaint as provided by Rule 14, M.R.C.P., against Doggett, the assenting employer of the deceased employee, for the purpose of obtaining contribution or exoneration from such employer in the event that such third-party tortfeasor be held liable in damages in the main complaint, in light of the fact that the employer has fully complied with the requirements of the act and has paid all the benefits available thereunder.

Our workmen's compensation act has set up a comprehensive program whereby an employee subject to it may obtain from his assenting employer as a result of any personal injury received by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, 39 M.R.S.A. § 51 et seq., compensation, vocational rehabilitation, medical and other services, and his estate, burial expenses if the industrial accident results in death, all within specific detailed ranges of amounts and time periods. The employer's liability within the scope of the act is not made to rest on negligence, but accrues as an absolute statutory duty without reference to negligent conduct. In return for the employer's acceptance of liability without fault in industrial injuries under the State's regulatory program made an integral part of the employer-employee relationship between an assenting employer and a non-dissenting employee, the emplyee's right of action against his employer as existed at common law and certain other statutory rights are abrogated. 39 M.R.S.A. § 28. His only redress is under the act, which this Court has said created a new and exclusive remedy. Nadeau v. Caribou Water, Light & Power Company, 1919, 118 Me. 325, 108 A. 190. This Court was construing R.S., 1916, c. 50, § 5, which now appears as 39 M.R.S.A. § 4 in substantially the same form:

'Such assenting employers, except as provided by section 28, shall be exempt from civil actions because of such injuries either at common law or under sections 141 to 149 or under Title 18, sections 2551 to 2553.'

The issue of a third party's right of contribution or exoneration from an assenting employer within the State's scheme of the workmen's compensation act must ultimately be resolved by construction of the act itself and determination of legislative intendment. Our act is not as specific as some of the acts of our sister states wherein the bar of the statute insulating the employer from liability is specifically directed, as in the New York legislation, against 'such employee, his personal representatives, husband, parents, dependents or next of kin, or anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages, at common law or otherwise on account of such injury or death.' Workmen's Compensation Law, § 11, McKinney's Consol. Laws, c. 67. Our act, on the other hand, is so general in terminology as to generate the belief that the Legislature may have intended an all-embracing immunity in favor of the employer cutting across any equitable considerations which our courts in the application of equitable principles might otherwise apply.

The original compensation act, Public Laws, 1915, c. 295, when the injury for which compensation payable under the act had been sustained under circumstances creating in some other person than the employer a legal liability to pay damages in respect thereto, gave the employee an initial option either to seek the limited compensatory benefits under the act against his employer or to pursue his common law action against the third party and obtain full damages for the injury. As pointed out in Foster v. Congress Square Hotel Company, 1929, 128 Me. 50, at 54-55, 145 A. 400, 67 A.L.R. 239, prior to the amendment of the act in 1921, the employee-beneficiary would have been barred from bringing suit against the third-party tortfeasor if he applied for and was awarded compensation. Furthermore, if the employer who paid compensation declined to seek reimbursement by the enforcement of his employee's common law action for damages against the third-party tortfeasor to which he was subrogated under the act, the third-party tortfeasor would thereby enjoy complete immunity from his wrong. Although the employer from the beginning has been given subrogation rights against the third-party tortfeasor permitting reimbursement to the full extent of the benefits paid under the act, together with expenses and costs of action, it is only through the amendment of 1921, Public Laws, c. 222, § 8, that the injured employee was given the right to enforce his common law rights against the third-party tortfeasor when his employer failed to bring suit within 90 days after written demand to do so, (now 30 days-39 M.R.S.A. § 68). As stated in Foster, supra, 'the inability of the injured person to obtain full damages, and the immunity of the tort-feasor, are among the evils which the Legislature intended to remedy by the amendment of 1921.' The right to contribution as between tortfeasors whose tortious conduct was not intentional and wilful but whose negligent acts concurred in bringing about the accident and resulting injury was recognized and declared by this Court in 1918, in the case of Hobbs v. Hurley, 117 Me. 449, 104 A. 815. Notwithstanding such clearly expressed judicial doctrine, our Legislature substantially revised the original workmen's compensation act of 1915 at its 1919 and 1921 sessions, and both revisions re-enacted the employer's rights of subrogation to the rights of the injured employee for purposes or recovery of damages from the third-party wrongdoer and sanctioned unconditional and total reimbursement out of the proceeds of such recovery. See, Public Laws, 1919, c. 238, § 26; Public Laws, 1921, c. 222, § 8. The Legislature to the present day has left the employer's right to recoupment through subrogation as an absolute right, whether the employer's conduct in the industrial accident be faultless or culpable. See, 39 M.R.S.A. § 68.

An overwhelming majority of the jurisdictions deny contribution to a third-party tortfeasor as against an assenting employer, following the rule of common liability upon which they condition the right of contribution. Employers Mutual Liability Insurance Co. v. Griffin Construction Co., Ky., 280 S.W.2d 179, 184, 53 A.L.R.2d 967. For a collection of the authorities, see 18 Am.Jur.2d, Contribution, §§ 47, 48; Annotation...