Simpson v. State Comp. Comm'r

• Decision Date: 17 April 1934
• Docket Number: (No. 7864)
• Citation: 114 W.Va. 814
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Mamie Simpson v. State Compensation Commissioner

114 W.Va. 814

Mamie Simpson

v.State Compensation Commissioner

(No. 7864)

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted April 10, 1934.

Decided April 17, 1934.

1. Mastek and Servant

The fact of illegitimacy does not prevent a child whose mother had married an employee, not the child's father, from becoming the stepchild of the employee under the Workmen's Compensation Law.

2. Master and Servant

The stepchild under sixteen years of age of an employee is a dependent under Code 1931, 23-4-10 (a workmen's compensation statute) when at the time of the industrial injury causing the death of the employee the stepchild "is dependent in whole or in part for his or her support upon the earnings of the employee."

Appeal from State Compensation Commissioner.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Law by Mamie Simpson and another. From a ruling of the State Compensation Commissioner awarding compensation to Mamie Simpson, as the dependent widow, but denying compensation to a child, an appeal was taken.

Reversed.

Brown W. Payne, for appellant.

Homer A. Holt, Attorney General, and Kenneth E. Hines, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.

Hatcher, Judge:

In November, 1930, Pete Simpson went through a regular marriage ceremony with Mamie Saunders, a single woman. At that time he had a wife who had deserted him but from whom he had not been divorced. Mamie was not aware of his marital impediment. She was the mother of William, then eleven months old, an illegitimate child by another man. Simpson was killed in July, 1932, while at work for a subscriber to the Workmen's Compensation Fund. Between November, 1930, and July, 1932, Simpson voluntarily maintained a. home for, and furnished the entire support of, Mamie and William. The compensation commissioner awarded compensation to Mamie, as the dependent widow of Simpson, but denied compensation to William. This appeal was secured in his behalf.

Code 1931, 23-4-1, directs disbursement of the compensation fund to "the dependents" of such a decedent. Who are dependents, under the compensation statutes, are designated in 23-4-10(g). Included in that designation are a child under sixteen years of age, and a stepchild under sixteen years of age, provided that, at the time of the injury causing the death of the workman, such child "is dependent in whole or in part for his or her support upon the earnings of the employee." The word "child" as used in the statute evidently refers to a son or daughter of the employee. As it is not questioned that William was supported by the earnings of Simpson, William's claim depends on whether or not he can be regarded as a stepchild.

Dictionaries and textbooks generally define the word "stepchild" as "the child of a wife or husband by a former marriage." Lipham v. State, (Ga.) 53 S. E. 817. The birth of William out of wedlock is taken by the commissioner to exclude William from classic cation as a stepchild. In support of this position, the commissioner cites Splitdorf Co. v. King, (N. J.) 103 Atl. 674; Scott v. Ice Co., (Md.) 109 Atl. 117, and Knoxville Co. v. Meek, (Tenn.) 21 S. W. (2d) 625. The New Jersey and Maryland cases are not persuasive, as they are based on bastardy statutes which have received a much narrower construction than ours. The Tennessee case simply cites and accepts the usual definition of the word "stepchild".

Lipham v. State, supra, refused to be bound by that definition saying, "The framers of statutes are men of affairs, rather than rhetoricians, balancing the various shades of meaning of language employed, and words are to be given their ordinary intendment and effect. * * * A bastard in the eye of the law has no father, but the relationship between the illegitimate offspring and the mother is recognized, even to the extent of the capacity of the illegitimate to inherit. It would therefore seem unreasonable to hold that no affinity existed between the husband and the illegitimate child of the woman born before marriage."

The Compensation Act of Minnesota includes stepchildren as dependents. In Lunceford v. Fegles, (Minn.) 239 N. W. 673, a case identical with the instant one, the court recognized the general definition of the word "stepchild" but also refused to be bound by it saying that it was not a universal definition. The opinion proceeds: "She (the illegitimate) was a member of...