Sarrasin v. Crescent Co.
| Decision Date | 15 May 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 295-A,295-A |
| Citation | 104 R.I. 69,241 A.2d 818 |
| Parties | James SARRASIN v. The CRESCENT CO., Inc. ppeal. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
This is an employee's appeal from a final decree of the workmen's compensation commission, affirming the decree of a single commissioner denying and dismissing the employee's petition for specific compensation.
The salient facts are briefly these. On July 30, 1963, petitioner sustained a compensable injury while working for respondent. The nature and location of this injury was specified as 'torn medial knee cartilage' as set forth in a preliminary agreement dated September 17, 1963. Pursuant to the terms of this agreement, petitioner received $40 weekly for total incapacity form August 1, 1963, until he returned to work, at which time he signed a suspension receipt. When this occurred is not apparent from the record, but in any event, three supplemental agreements for recurring periods of total incapacity were signed and by a decree of the workmen's compensation commission entered January 14, 1966, in W.C.C. No. 65-1260, incapacity was determined to be partial.
On the same day, namely January 14, 1966, pursuant to a petition filed January 11, 1966, and docketed W.C.C. No. 66-0053, a decree was entered discharging respondent and its carrier from all liability by reason of the injury of July 30, 1963. 1 Predicated on G.L. 1956, § 28-33-25, this decree was entered pursuant to the commission's authorization of commutation of all future benefits in consideration of a lump sum payment of $2,100. Also on January 14, 1966, petitioner signed a general release running to respondent and its carrier.
Thereafter, October 13, 1966, some nine months after the entry of the commutation decree, petitioner filed the instant petition seeking specific compensation for loss of use of the injured leg, pursuant to the provisions of G.L. 1956, § 28-33-19(a), (b) and (m), as amended. A hearing was held thereon at which Dr. John B. Thayer, Jr., testified that petitioner had sustained a permanent loss of something less than 25 per cent of use. He further testified that this loss of use had become an end result on January 4, 1966. This was ten days prior to the entry of the commutation decree.
The respondent offered no evidence. Rather, it contended, as it did before us, that the petition for specific compensation was barred by the commutation decree, it being res judicata of all claims to benefits resulting from the July 30, 1963 injury and further that the instant petition, in effect, sought to review the commutation decree contrary to the commission's jurisdiction which, by virtue of G.L. 1956, § 28-35-61, as amended, is limited to six months from the entry of the decree sought to be reviewed. In the instant case this would be the commutation decree entered January 14, 1966, more than six months prior to the filing of the instant petition.
In the decrees entered pursuant to their respective decisions, the single commissioner denied and dismissd the instant petition on the grounds contended for by respondent, and the full commission affirmed.
This court in Dupere v. Brassard, 87 R.I. 205, 139 A.2d 879, decided in 1958, held that an unappealed commutation decree fully discharged all further liability of the employer as to the injury for which probable future benefits had been commuted. It was on the authority of Dupere that the full commission affirmed the decree of the single commissioner in the instant proceedings.
In support of his claim of appeal, petitioner assigned the usual reasons, namely, that the decree is against the law, against the evidence, and against the law and the evidence. All but one of his contentions advanced in support of his reasons of appeal were considered by this court and rejected in Dupere, supra. The sole contention neither advanced nor considered is that the general release executed by petitioner is in fact a waiver of his right to specific compensation and thus void, being in violation of G.L. 1956, § 28-33-26. This section provides:
'No agreement by an employee, except as provided in §§ 28-29-22 to 28-29-24, inclusive, to waive his rights to compensation under chapters 29 to 38, inclusive, of this title shall be valid.'
We shall consider this contention infra, passing first, however, on his urging that Dupere be specifically overruled as being unsound law or, in the alternative, be held not applicable to the facts of the case at bar.
We have no hesitancy in declining to overrule Dupere. A full ten years have passed since this court in that case interpreted the legislative will with regard to the...
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Almstead v. Department of Employment Sec., Bd. of Review, 82-133-M
...probable future payments that the director and the board of review denied plaintiff unemployment benefits. See Sarrasin v. Crescent Co., 104 R.I. 69, 74, 241 A.2d 818, 820 (1968). Initially, we shall focus upon § 28-33-25, which provides for the commutation of future payments to a lump sum.......