Roberts v. I. X. L. Glass Corp.

• Citation: 244 N.W. 188,259 Mich. 644
• Decision Date: 16 September 1932
• Docket Number: No. 12.,12.
• Parties: ROBERTS v. I. X. L. GLASS CORPORATION et al.
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan

259 Mich. 644

244 N.W. 188

ROBERTS

v.I. X. L. GLASS CORPORATION et al.

No. 12.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Sept. 16, 1932.

Appeal from the Department of Labor and Industry.

Proceedings for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Fred Roberts, employee, opposed by the I. X. L. Glass Corporation and another, employers, and the General Indemnity Corporation, insurance carrier. From an award of compensation by the Department of Labor and Industry, the employers and insurance carrier appeal.

Affirmed.

Argued before the Entire Bench.Mason, Alexander & McCaslin, E. Dean Alexander, and John P. MacKay, all of Detroit, for appellants.

William C. Brown, of Lansing (Ida R. McDowell, of Cleveland, Ohio, of counsel), for appellee.

NORTH, J.

Defendants have appealed from an award of compensation to plaintiff. The sole question presented is whether an employee whose contract for employment is entered into in Michigan with a resident employer, who is under the Workmen's Compensation Act (section 8407 et seq. Comp. Laws 1929), for services to be rendered wholly outside of the state of Michigan is within the terms of the act so that, if otherwise entitled thereto, he may be awarded compensation notwithstanding the accident occurred in another state and that the employee was at no time a resident of Michigan.

Appellants contend that plaintiff, not having been a resident of Michigan, not having rendered any services to his employer in Michigan, and having received his injury outside of this state, is not within the provisions of the Michigan compensation law and therefore not entitled to be awarded compensation. Appellants rely upon the 1921 amendment (herein quoted) to the Michigan Compensation Act; and, at least inferentially, seem to concede that, prior to this amendment, an employee who contracted in this state for employment with a resident employer for services to be rendered outside the state, would be protected by the act notwithstanding the employee at the time of accident was a nonresident and sustained his injury outside the state. It is appellee's position that, notwithstanding the amendment, he is within the terms of the act. As hereinafter noted, we think there is such conflict between the different portions of the amended act as necessitate statutory construction.

The Michigan Workmen's Compensation statute was enacted in 1912 (Pub. Acts 1st Ex. Sess. No. 10). It is not compulsory, but instead is optional with both employer and employee. Its provisions are read into, and become part of, the contract of employment if the parties have elected to become subject to the act. As is general in such acts, it provides in section 1 of part 1 that certain specified common-law defenses shall not be available to the employer in an action to recover damages for the death or injury of an employee sustained in the course of his employment; and in sections 3, 6, and 7 of the act it is provided:

‘Sec. 3. [Section 8409, Comp. Laws 1929] The provisions of section one (1) shall not apply to actions to recover damages for the death of, or for personal injuries sustained by employees of any employer who has elected * * * to pay compensation in the manner and to the extent hereinafter provided.’

‘Sec. 6. [as amended by Act No. 64 Pub. Acts 1919, section 8412, Comp. Laws 1929] Such election on the part of the employers mentioned in subdivision two (2) of the preceding section, shall be made by filing with the industrial accident board hereinafter provided for, a written statement to the effect that such employer accepts the provisions of this act for all his businesses, and to cover and protect all employees employed in any and all of his businesses, including all businesses in which he may engage and all employees he may employ while he remains under this act.’

‘Sec. 7. [Section 8413, Comp. Laws 1929] The term ‘employee’ as used in this act shall be construed to mean: * * * Every person in the service of another, under any contract of hire, express or implied. * * *'

The Legislature of 1921 amended the Michigan Compensation Act (Pub. Acts 1921, No. 173). This amendment re-enacted the portion of section 7 above quoted, and added section 19, part 3 (section 8458, Comp. Laws 1929), which reads: ‘Sec. 19. The industrial accident board shall have jurisdiction over all controversies arising out of injuries suffered without the territorial limits of this state, in those cases where the injured employee is a resident of this state at the time of the injury, and the contract of hire was made in this state, and any such employee or his dependents shall be entitled to the compensation or death benefits provided by this act.’

As noted above, appellants' contention of nonliability is based upon the portion of the above-quoted section 19, part 3, which gives the Industrial Accident Board jurisdiction over controversies arising out of industrial accidents occurring outside the territorial limits of Michigan ‘in those cases where the injured employee is a resident of this state at the time of the injury,’ and the contract of employment was made within the state. Appellants assert that the statutory requirement as to residence at the time of injury constitutes a limitation upon the jurisdiction of the Industrial Accident Board. This contention would come with much, if not controlling, force if it were not in conflict with other portions of the statute. It is quite significant that this recital, as to the employee being a resident at the time of injury, was embodied by the amendment in the procedural part (part 3) of the act only; but was not inserted in the part of the act (part 1) which defines and fixes the rights and liabilities of employers and employees. In construing this act this fact was somewhat stressed in Crane v. Leonard, Crossette & Riley, 214 Mich. 218, 230, 183 N. W. 204, 18 A. L. R. 285. Further, the quoted portion of section 6 seems conclusive of the fact that the original enactment was intended to cover ‘all employees' regardless of residence or the locus of the accident. No one has ever questioned, and it would seem that it could not be successfully questioned, that the Michigan Compensation Act expressly provides compensation for the dependents of a fatally injured resident employee without regard to whether such dependents are residents or nonresidents. It is not uncommon for dependents to be awarded compensation notwithstanding they are of foreign birth and have never resided in this country. As a matter of legislative policy it would be quite inconsistent, to say the least, to deny compensation to an injured employee on the ground that he was a nonresident, but in case of fatal injury to award compensation to his dependents regardless of residence or citizenship. In the absence of a clearly expressed provision in the statute which necessitates such a strange result, the legislative intention to accomplish it ought not to be read into the act.

If the 1921 amendment were to be construed in accordance with appellants' contention, it would work a redical change in the scope and effect of the act. We cannot conceive of the Legislature intending or attempting to accomplish such a result inferentially, as it were, by including the single quoted phrase in section 19 of part 3. If the Legislature intended to so amend the statute, clearly it required a change in section 6 of part 1 above quoted, which is in no way referred to or changed by the amendatory act. That the Legislature did not intend by the 1921 amendment to modify the act in the manner appellants assert is almost conclusively disclosed by the fact that the amendatory act covers section 7 of part 1; and, as above stated, again re-enacted that portion which defines as an employee ‘every person in the service of another, under any contract of hire.’ This re-enacted portion of section 7 is in full harmony with the original provision in section 6 that the employer's election to come under the act is an election ‘to cover and protect all employees employed in any and all of his businesses' of the employer. While it must be conceded that there is some conflict between the various quoted provisions of the act as amended, we are satisfied that the reasonable construction and the one necessary to carry out the legislative intent appearing from the whole act is that it covers nonresident as well as resident employees in those cases wherein the contract of employment is entered into in this state with a resident employer.

While not necessarily controlling, a fact worthy of consideration and somewhat persuasive is that the Department of Labor and Industry since the amendment of 1921 has uniformly held the Michigan Compensation Act applicable to nonresident employees, in accordance with the statutory construction above adopted. Such was the holding of the Industrial Accident Board in McCrary v. Beckwith Company, opinion filed March 19, 1925. In that hearing the defendants urged the same contention as do appellants here. If the Legislature did not intend the amended act to be thus construed, we think it would have clearly so indicated by using a few simple words to that effect in the 1921 amendatory act;...