Special Indem. Fund v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 13 January 1948
• Docket Number: 32591.
• Citation: 188 P.2d 866,199 Okla. 571,1948 OK 15
• Parties: SPECIAL INDEMNITY FUND v. TAYLOR et al.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

188 P.2d 866

199 Okla. 571, 1948 OK 15

SPECIAL INDEMNITY FUND v. TAYLOR et al.

No. 32591.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

January 13, 1948

Original proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Law by the Special Indemnity Fund of the State of Oklahoma, administered by the State Insurance Fund, to review compensation award of the State Industrial Commission in favor of M. L. Taylor.

Award sustained.

GIBSON J. dissenting.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Disability resulting from the combined effects of multiple injuries to minor members, fingers and thumb, may be fixed on the basis of the hand.

2. Where only three members, constituting a majority of the Industrial Commission, sit in the hearing of an appeal from an order of a trial commissioner, a decision concurred in by two of those so sitting is valid.

Mont R. Powell, Don Anderson and Thomas D. Lyons, all of Oklahoma City, for petitioner.

Murphy & King, of Oklahoma City, and Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen for respondents.

ARNOLD Justice.

Taylor sustained a compensable injury to the thumb of his right hand on September 8, 1945. Theretofore by accident he had suffered an injury to the same hand whereby his fingers were seriously injured by amputation and otherwise. He is a physically impaired person as defined by the Special Indemnity Fund Act 85 O.S.Supp. § 171 et seq.

None of said injuries, though described and the disability to the fingers and thumb estimated individually, are shown to have actually extended beyond said members of the hand. The medical witnesses for both sides estimated the disability resulting from the combined effects of the injuries, old and new, on the basis of the hand.

The trial commissioner did not participate in the hearing before the commission sitting en banc. The order was entered by the three commissioners sitting, two voting for the order and one against. The commission is composed of five members. The disability to the hand so fixed by the commission was within the limits estimated by the doctors.

It is first contended that the finger injuries were improperly converted into an injury and resulting disability to the hand.

The legislature, recognizing that the hands and feet are composed of many-interrelated component parts which cooperate together to make an efficient hand or foot, classified the hand and foot as members of the body and scheduled them on the basis of 200 and 150 weeks, respectively. After so classifying and scheduling the hand and foot and to promote simplicity of determination of disability it classified and scheduled the minor members of these major members. The method of classification and schedule by the legislature as to the hands and feet convinces us that it recognized that which we all know, that is, that the hands and feet are composed of many parts which combine and cooperate as parts of the classified whole and that an additional disability to said major members may result from a combination of injuries to two or more of said minor members. Though its classification and schedule relating to the fingers and toes contemplates and includes one of the individual digits of said major members in their individual combined relation to the hands and feet, classification does not contemplate and evaluate the combined effect on the hand or foot when two or more of the fingers or toes are injured. Though the schedule for such minor members, fingers and toes, is arbitrarily fixed and must be adhered to when only one of such members is injured the legislature did not intend that it be necessarily applied where two or more such members are injured. ...