Rosa v. George A. Fuller Co.

• Decision Date: 25 June 1948
• Docket Number: Eq. No. 1852.
• Citation: 60 A.2d 150
• Parties: ROSA v. GEORGE A. FULLER CO. et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

60 A.2d 150

ROSA

v.GEORGE A. FULLER CO. et al.

Eq. No. 1852.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 25, 1948.

Appeal from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Charles A. Walsh, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by John Rosa, employee, opposed by George A. Fuller Company, employer, and another. From decree denying and dismissing petition, petitioner appeals.

Appeal sustained, decree reversed, and cause remanded with direction.

Goldberg & Goldberg, Philip B. Goldberg and George Ajootian, all of Providence, for petitioner.

Hinckley, Allen, Tillinghast & Wheeler and S. Everett Wilkins, all of Providence (Thomas J. Hogan, of Providence, of counsel), for respondents.

CONDON, Justice.

This petition for workmen's compensation was filed in the office of the director of labor on September 27, 1945, more than two years after the happening of the accident which caused petitioner's injury, but within two years after it first incapacitated him from earning full wages. Upon a hearing de novo in the superior court upon petitioner's appeal from a decision of the director of labor, and after respondents had concluded their cross-examination of the petitioner, they moved to dismiss his petition because it was not filed ‘within 2 years after the occurrence of the injury’ as is required by General Laws 1938, chapter 300, article III, § 17. That court granted the motion and entered its decree denying and dismissing the petition on such ground. From that decree the petitioner has appealed to this court.

On February 15, 1943 petitioner twisted his right knee and ‘ripped the cartilage’ while working for respondents. He reported the accident to their doctor who gave him a ‘stocking’ to wear on the knee. Apparently this did not help him and X-ray photographs were taken of the knee. He was then sent by respondents' insurer to Dr. Crane who, after examining petitioner and the X rays, told him that he would need an operation. Petitioner agreed to undergo it but asked that it be postponed until the wintertime. It was then the summer of 1943. During all this time petitioner had been working at his regular work earning full wages, although he testified that his knee ‘hurt like the dickents.’ He saw Dr. Crane three or four times but apparently nothing was done by respondents to furnish petitioner with surgical and hospital services. Petitioner testified that they could not get a bed for him in a hospital. Finally his injury compelled him to stop work on September 21, 1945. After waiting further until September 27, 1945 for the respondents to act he brought the instant petition for compensation. He testified that he is still willing to submit to an operation.

On those facts did the superior court err in finding that such petition was filed more than two years after the occurrence of his injury within the meaning of art. III, § 17? As the facts are undisputed, the construction of that section is the sole question raised by petitioner's appeal. Involved in the determination of that question, however, is a subsidiary question, namely, should such section be given a liberal or a strict construction? The justice of the superior court said from the bench in granting respondents' motion: ‘I must construe the statute rigidly.’ This court, in an unbroken line of decisions involving various sections of our workmen's compensation act, has held that it is remedial and that its provisions ‘should be construed broadly and liberally in order to effectuate their purpose,’ and also in order to extend their benefits ‘to the largest * * * number of employees.’ Donahue v. R. A. Sherman's Sons Co., 39 R.I. 373, 98 A. 109, L.R.A.1917A, 76; LaCroix v. Frechette, 50 R.I. 90, 145 A. 314; Lopes v. B. B. & R. Knight, Inc., 50 R.I. 16, 144 A. 439; Martin v. Silvertown Garage, 54 R.I. 388, 173 A. 352; Condon v. First Nat. Stores, Inc., 65 R.I. 129, 13 A.2d 684, 687. In the last-cited case we said in applying that rule of construction: ‘No construction, particularly of a remedial statute, should be adopted which would defeat its evident purpose.’

There can be no doubt as to the purpose of our act. Its primary object is to provide economic aid to the employee who is injured and suffers loss of earnings as a result of accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, without regard to negligence on his part or on the part of his emploeyr. Hingeco Mfg. Co. v. Haglund, 65 R.I. 218, 14 A.2d 233. Secondarily it was intended to impose upon the employer the burden of taking care of the casualties occurring in his employment and thus to relieve the public of bearing such burden out of the public revenues. Carpenter v. Globe Indemnity Co., 65 R.I. 194, 14 A.2d 235, 129 A.L.R. 410. Probably for that reason this court said in Sayles v. Foley, 38 R.I. 484, 96 A. 340, 343, that such legislation was ‘a matter affecting the public welfare,’ and in LaCroix v. Frechette, supra, that it should be liberally construed to fulfill its purpose. A strict construction of § 17 would, in our opinion, tend to defeat such purpose. We see no reason why that section should not receive the same liberal construction that this court has so frequently given to other provisions of the act.

The word ‘injury’ in that section may reasonably be open to two constructions. It may be construed to mean ‘accident’ or to mean ‘injury’ which incapacitates the employee from earning full wages. When read in the light of the language of art. II, §§ 4, 10 and 11, which provide payments for injury sustained by the employee, the second construction appears the more reasonable one. It is certainly not clear that the legislature must have used ‘injury’ in the sense of ‘accident’ in § 17, as respondents contend. If such was the legislative intent it is difficult to understand why the word ‘accident’ was not used as it has been in the statutes of other states. In those states the courts have declined to read that word as meaning ‘injury.’ Those courts have held under such statutes that the claim for personal injury arises simultaneously and is complete with the happening of the accident; that the accident gives rise to the cause of action; and that the limitation applies thereto and not to the extent of the injury. Lewis v. Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation, 159 Pa.Super. 226, 48 A.2d 120. See also Murphy v. W. O. Cook Const. Co., 130 Kan. 200, 285 P. 604; White v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 41 Ga.App. 514, 153 S.E. 574. Whatever may be said of that view of a statute which expressly provides that the date of the accident shall mark the beginning of the running of the limitation, we think that it would be incorrect to apply it to the word ‘injury’ in our statute.

The use of the word ‘injury’ by our legislature calls for a construction of the word consistent with the purpose of the act. There is a recognized difference between the words ‘injury’ and ‘accident’ as the Pennsylvania superior court pointed out in the Lewis case, supra. In a Wisconsin case construing the statute of that state the supreme court stated that ‘Injury and compensable disability are more in the nature of synonymous terms than are date of injury and date of the accident.’ Acme Body Works v. Industrial Commission, 204 Wis. 493, 234 N.W. 756, 758, 236 N.W. 378. That injury is equivalent to accident in the federal longshoremen's compensation act has also been rejected by the United States court of appeals for the District of Columbia. Potomac Electric Power Co. v. Cardillo, 71 App.D.C. 163, 107 F.2d 962. And that view, it was said in Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation v. Norton, 3 Cir., 93 F.2d 119, is according to the weight of authority in the state courts. The Indiana appellate court is of the same opinion. Farmers Mut. Liability Co. v. Chaplin, 114 Ind.App. 372, 51 N.E.2d 378, 896. Abundant and respectable authority, therefore, treats the word ‘injury’ in a statute of limitation on claims for compensation similar to our § 17 as referring to the time when the injury becomes compensable and not to the time of the accident.

That view, in our opinion, is also based upon sound reason. In support of that statement we shall quote briefly what some courts have said on the question. The Utah supreme court, overruling a contrary view which it had long held, said in Salt Lake City v. Industrial Commission, 93 Utah 510, 74 P.2d 657, 658: ‘Holding that the statute begins to run from the time of accident instead of from the time of compensable disability or loss, in effect makes the statute begin to run before the cause of action accrues. In negligence cases the cause of action arises from the negligence which causes the accident and therefore the statute begins to run from the time the negligence operated on plaintiff, which would be at the time of the accident. But no such rule applies in compensation cases. Compensation does not depend upon negligence.’ The court went on to point out that the cause of action for compensation does not arise until the loss of earnings is suffered.

In Connecticut, where the statute provided that claim for compensation should be made within one year from the date of the injury, it was held that this meant when the injury became compensable and that any other construction would be out of harmony with the beneficent purpose of the act. The court emphasized that the act did not provide any compensation until the employee was incapacitated from earning full wages for more than seven days. ‘Until such period of incapacity has passed no enforceable claim for compensation has accrued, and no claim for compensation could be made.’ Esposito v. Marlin-Rockwell Corporation, 96 Conn. 414, 114 A. 92, 94.

In the state of Maine like reasoning was the basis of the decision in Hustus' Case, 123 Me. 428, 123 A. 514, 515. Of a statute containing a limitation almost exactly like ours the court said: ‘A workman is incapacitated within the act when he has lost his earning power in whole...