Scott v. Alaska Industrial Board

• Decision Date: 15 September 1954
• Docket Number: No. 6987-A.,6987-A.
• Parties: Vernon S. SCOTT, Plaintiff, v. ALASKA INDUSTRIAL BOARD and Columbia Lumber Company of Alaska, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Alaska

123 F. Supp. 361

Vernon S. SCOTT, Plaintiff, v. ALASKA INDUSTRIAL BOARD and Columbia Lumber Company of Alaska, Defendants.

No. 6987-A.

District Court, Alaska First Division, Juneau.

September 15, 1954.

Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, Juneau, Alaska, for plaintiff.

Faulkner, Banfield & Boochever, Juneau, Alaska, for defendant.

FOLTA, District Judge.

The plaintiff has appealed from an award of the Alaska Industrial Board on the ground that he is entitled to compensation for temporary disability for a longer period than that allowed. The defendant Columbia Lumber Company, alleging that it has overpaid the plaintiff for such disability, has interposed a counterclaim for the amount of the alleged overpayment, which the plaintiff has moved to strike.

A disposition of the question presented by the motion to strike involves an analysis of the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act governing the review of the orders of the Industrial Board. Sec. 43-3-22, A.C.L.A.1949, so far as pertinent, is as follows:

"Award to be final and conclusive: Questions of fact: Injunction proceedings: Certification of questions by Board: Advancement on docket: Early determination: Increase in award. * * * An award by the full Board shall be conclusive and binding as to all questions of fact; but either party to the dispute, within thirty days from the date of such award, if the award is not in accordance with law, may bring injunction proceedings, mandatory or otherwise, against the Industrial Board, to suspend or set aside, in whole or in part, such order or award."

As was pointed out in Grant v. Alaska Industrial Board, 11 Alaska 355 and Hemmingson v. Libby, McNeil, & Libby, D.C., 89 F.Supp. 502, 12 Alaska 651, the foregoing provisions of the local act are practically identical with their counterpart in the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Act, 33 U.S.C.A. 901 et seq., 921. Of the nature of the proceeding under the Federal Act, it was said in Basset v. Massman Construction Company, 8 Cir., 120 F.2d 230, at page 233, certiorari denied 314 U.S. 648, 62 S.Ct. 92, 86 L.Ed. 520:

"Our special concern is with subdivision (b) as a part of this section." (Section 921 of the Act.)

"This subdivision prescribes the procedure to be `through injunction proceedings'. Although so described, the proceeding is purely one of judicial review of the action of an administrative agency. It lacks a cardinal characteristic of ordinary injunction proceedings directed at administrative orders in that there is (except as to jurisdictional issues) no trial de novo of the facts. * * * In short, this proceeding is not the ordinary injunction but is a review proceeding in an admiralty court".

Thus it would seem that the...