Standard Rectifier Corp. v. Workmen's Compensation Appeals Bd.

• Decision Date: 25 October 1966
• Citation: 419 P.2d 164,65 Cal.2d 287,54 Cal.Rptr. 100
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 419 P.2d 164 STANDARD RECTIFIER CORPORATION et al., Petitioners, v. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD and Edith J. Whiddon, Respondents. L.A. 29066. In Bank

Page 100

54 Cal.Rptr. 100

65 Cal.2d 287, 419 P.2d 164

STANDARD RECTIFIER CORPORATION et al., Petitioners, v. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD and Edith J. Whiddon, Respondents.

L.A. 29066.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Oct. 25, 1966.

Wallace, Brown & Crain and W. Gerald Brown, Newport Beach, for petitioners.

Everett A. Corten, San Francisco, Edward A. Sarkisian, Romaine E. Harper, Los Angeles, and Ben W. Whitehead, for respondents.

BURKE, Justice.

Petitioners seek annulment of an award of workmen's compensation benefits for permanent disability issued in favor of respondent Edith J. Whiddon. We have concluded that the application for benefits was timely filed, that other contentions advanced by petitioners are also devoid of merit, and that the award should be affirmed.

Mrs. Whiddon, the employee, testified that her work required many repetitive motions of her arms, neck and shoulders, averaging 5,000 movements a day, five or six days a week. In April 1961 she first noticed aching in her arms, neck and head, and reported it to her supervisor, Ruth Kinney. About a month later she consulted her doctor and received 'a small' treatment from him. In May and June 1961 she again complained to the supervisor about the aching and that it was the result of maladjustment of the machines and the lights with which she worked. She testified that on several different occasions she requested and received from the supervisor some gray pain pills which she took and which gave her some relief. The employee had heard from other employees that the pills were available, but did not know 'what kind of a pill that was.' The supervisor was not a doctor or a nurse and none was on the premises. In May or June 1961 the supervisor advised the employee to consult the supervisor's personal doctor, and she did so and received one treatment from the doctor. The employee testified that the doctor 'knew (the supervisor) and he knew they'd sent me to him * * *. She sent me and I told him who sent me.' The employee paid the doctor's bill herself.

In January 1962 the employee requested sick leave from the employer's superintendent, explaining that the movements of her neck required by the work were giving her severe pains through the neck, right arm and head. Leave was granted and she received six days' sick pay. Except for nine days in April, the employee did not return to work until the end of May 1962. Thereafter her complaints grew worse, her doctor told her 'the job was aggravating my neck, I must quit,' and on July 28, 1962, she terminated her employment. In December 1963 she underwent surgery to her neck.

Meanwhile, on August 19, 1963, the employee filed with the Industrial Accident Commission (predecessor of respondent board) her first application for benefits. This was concededly beyond the one-year limitation period specified in Labor Code ¹ section 5405. ² The commission found, however, that the employee had sustained a permanent industrial disability and that her application had been timely filed within the five-year period set forth in section 5410 ³ for instituting proceedings upon the ground of new and further disability. Permanent disability is a new and further disability within the meaning of that section. (Gobel v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1934) 1 Cal.2d 100, 102--103, 33 P.2d 413; Cowell L. & C. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1930) 211 Cal. 154, 160--161, 294 P. 703, 72 A.L.R. 1118.)

The rule as established by the cases is that before an employee is entitled to the advantage of the five-year period for claiming benefits for new and further disability under section 5410, he must have been furnished workmen's compensation benefits by the employer either voluntarily or pursuant to a commission award. (Westvaco etc. Corp. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1955) 136 Cal.App.2d 60, 67, 288 P.2d 300; Pacific Indem. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (Wimmer) (1948) 85 Cal.App.2d 490, 494 193 P.2d 117; American Motorists Ins. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1935) 9 Cal.App.2d 66, 68, 48 P.2d 721; Kauffman v. Industrial Accident Com. (1918) 37 Cal.App. 500, 503, 174 P. 690; see also Cowell L. & C. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1930) supra, 211 Cal. 154, 160--162, 294 P. 703; Broadway-Locust Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1949) 92 Cal.App.2d 287, 290, 206 P.2d 856.) The rationale of this rule is that the 'new and further disability' to which section 5410 refers is a disability in addition to that for which the employer previously provided benefits as required by the statute. The furnishing of medical treatment for an industrial injury constitutes such a benefit. (§ 4600; Pacific Indem. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (Wimmer), supra, 85 Cal.App.2d p. 495, 193 P.2d 117.)

In the present case the commission held that the furnishing of the pain pills by the supervisor with knowledge that they were to alleviate a condition caused by work constituted the furnishing of medical treatment. We are persuaded that this view is found and accords with the intent of the Legislature that provisions of the workmen's compensation act be liberally construed 'with the purpose of extending their benefits for the protection of persons injured in the course of their employment.' (§ 3202; see Schreifer v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1964) 61 Cal.2d 289, 291, 38 Cal.Rptr. 352, 391 P.2d 832; L. B. Price Mercantile Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1957) 49 Cal.2d 13, 16, 313 P.2d 860.)

First aid rendered to an injured employee has been held to be medical treatment within the purview of the rules here involved. (See Pacific Indem. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (Wimmer) (1948) supra, 85 Cal.App.2d 495--497, 193 P.2d 117; Johnson Western Company et al. v. Industrial Acc. Com. (Cooper) (1950) 15 Cal.Comp.Cases 104.) In Wimmer the first aid was administered by a nurse in a hospital maintained on the employer's premises, and in Cooper by a foreman who 'used swabs from first aid kit to apply arnica to his face and * * * continued to put something on Cooper's face each day for the next four or five days.' Petitioners urge that the pain pills here requested by the employee and furnished by her supervisors are more akin to the aspirin offered by a foreman and held not to constitute treatment sufficient to toll the limitations statute, in Stevens v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1963) 28 Cal.Comp. Cases 39. But in Stevens the employee replied in the negative to the foreman's inquiry whether he wished to go to a doctor, and whether the proffered aspirin was accepted does not appear;...