Standard Acc. Ins. Co. v. Miller
| Decision Date | 05 November 1948 |
| Docket Number | No. 9623.,9623. |
| Parties | STANDARD ACC. INS. CO. v. MILLER. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
George C. Forrey, III, Edward B. Raub, Jr., Burrell Wright and Jacob S. White, all of Indianapolis, Ind., for appellant.
Charles W. Cook, Jr., Claude M. Spilman and James E. Bingham, all of Indianapolis, Ind., for appellee.
Before MAJOR and MINTON, Circuit Judges, and LINDLEY, District Judge.
The plaintiff, a Michigan corporation and the insurer of the employer of one Charles E. Burden, paid workmen's compensation awarded to and accepted by Burden on July 1, 1946, and brought suit on April 9, 1947, against the defendant, a citizen of Indiana, alleging that Burden's injuries, sustained on November 16, 1943, had been caused by the defendant's negligent operation of an automobile. The defendant's answer pleaded the two-year statute of limitations in personal injury cases,1 and the District Court gave summary judgment for the defendant, from which judgment the plaintiff has appealed.
Under the Workmen's Compensation Act of Indiana an employee now must file claim for compensation within two years from the accident.2 At the time of the accident here involved, Section 13 of the Act provided that upon payment and acceptance of an award, the employer might file claim against the person in whom legal liability for damages existed.3 An action by the employer also had to be filed within two years after the accident. Fidelity & Casualty Co. of New York v. Miller, 111 Ind.App. 308, 314, 38 N.E.2d 279, 281. The requirement that the employer's claim against the person legally liable had to be filed within the same period of time after the accident, two years, within which the employee had to file his claim against the employer often made the employer's right of action worthless. The employee's claim against the employer might not be filed until the two-year period was almost up, and the award made some time thereafter. As the employer's right to bring the action did not accrue until he had paid or had become liable to pay the award, the employer's right often did not accrue until the two-year statute had run.
In order to remedy this situation, the Indiana Legislature amended Section 13 of the Act. The section as amended, which became effective April 1, 1945, was enacted in its entirety as set forth in the margin.4 (The italicized part of the section represents the amendment.)
Burden filed his compensation claim August 16, 1945, and the plaintiff paid and Burden accepted the award of compensation on July 1, 1946. The plaintiff filed this action to recover the payment on April 9, 1947, which is admittedly within a year after the acceptance of the award, but over three years after the accident.
The plaintiff claims the benefit of the amended act of 1945 and asserts that the limitation contained therein of one year from the date of the acceptance of the award is the limitation applicable. The defendant contends that the 1945 amendment can be construed to apply only prospectively, that is, to accidents occurring after April 1, 1945, and cannot be construed retrospectively to include an accident which occurred in 1943; and that therefore the ordinary two-year statute of limitations applies, which in this instance had expired by more than a year when this suit was brought on April 9, 1947.
It is true as a general proposition, as the Supreme Court of Indiana said in Connecticut Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Talbot, 113 Ind. 373, 378, 14 N.E. 586, 589, 3 Am. St.Rep. 655, that "statutes are to be construed and applied prospectively, unless a contrary intent is manifested in clear and unambiguous terms." The statute as amended does not provide that it shall be applied retrospectively.
The defendant argues that since the statute as re-enacted provides: "Whenever an injury or death, for which compensation is payable under this act, shall have been sustained under circumstances creating in some other person than the employer a legal liability" (italics ours) that the statute was intended to be applied prospectively only. We think that the future tenor of the italicized words does not necessarily so indicate. This provision has been the law since 1929 and was not changed by the 1945 amendment. The employer thereunder had a...
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