State v. State Industrial Accident Board
| Decision Date | 26 March 1930 |
| Docket Number | 6667. |
| Citation | 286 P. 408,87 Mont. 191 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. v. STATE INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT BOARD et al. LONEY |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
Mandamus proceeding by the State, on the relation of Guy D. Loney against the State Industrial Accident Board, J. Burke Clements, and others, members thereof, to compel the Board to hear and determine a claim.
Writ issued.
Gibson & Smith, of Livingston, for relator.
L. A Foot, Atty. Gen., and C. N. Davidson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondents.
Mandamus. During the months of May, June, July, and August, 1928 relator was employed by one J. L. McLaughlin in road making. In August the employer was building for the National Forest Service a section of road eight miles long extending from near Babb in Glacier county westerly into Glacier National Park, approximately five miles of the road being outside, and three miles inside the park. On August 29 relator was accidentally injured while in the course of his employment by falling under a truck, which ran over him. The accident occurred upon the road within the boundaries of the park. The contract of employment was made in Montana, and both employer and employee are residents of this state.
On the day following the accident the employer made a report of the accident to the Industrial Accident Board, following which relator filed with the board his claim for compensation. On January 18, 1930, the board dismissed relator's claim upon the sole ground that some years ago the Attorney General gave an opinion that the Workmen's Compensation Act (Rev Codes 1921, § 2816 et seq.) of this state has no application to employers and employees within Glacier National Park. Relator made timely application to the board to set aside and vacate the order of dismissal and to grant him a rehearing, but this application was denied on February 3, 1930. Relator seeks a writ of mandate to compel the board to hear and determine his claim upon the merits
The Attorney General's opinion, upon which the board made its decision denying relator's application, is based upon the fact that in 1911 the Legislative Assembly purported to cede to the United States exclusive jurisdiction, with certain reservations, over the territory then, or which might thereafter be, included in Glacier National Park (chapter 33, Laws of 1911, section 22, R. C. 1921), and the act of Congress purporting to assume jurisdiction over the park (section 163, tit. 16, USCA). The Attorney General held that the Workmen's Compensation Act of this state has not any extraterritorial operation, that it relates only to accidents occurring within this state, and that, while Glacier National Park is within this state, except as to the limited powers reserved in the act of cession, this state has not any jurisdiction over it.
Whether the state has the right to cede jurisdiction to the extent it assumed to cede it, or whether Congress has the right to assume jurisdiction to the extent to which it has assumed it, is not necessary to be determined in this proceeding. It may some day become a subject of constitutional controversy. Arlington Hotel Co. v. Fant, 278 U.S. 439, 49 S.Ct. 227, 73 L.Ed. 447.
Upon the facts presented in this case, the present Attorney General's office is convinced that relator's application should be granted.
The National Forest Service is not a public corporation within the meaning of section 2840, R. C. 1921, which provides in part: "Where a public corporation is the employer, or any contractor engaged in the performance of contract work for such public corporation, the terms, conditions, and provisions of compensation plan No. 3 shall be exclusive, compulsory, and obligatory upon both employer and employee." See section 2886, R. C. 1921. This obviates the question, in some of the adjudicated cases deemed material, whether the act as respects the parties here is compulsory. Moreover, relator's pleading, admitted, is that employer and employee had elected to be and were bound by plan No. 3 of the act.
Whether the act, where a public corporation, or a contractor, carrying on for a public corporation by contract or otherwise, is involved, has any extraterritorial operation, may present a question not touched upon in this query.
Conceding, for the sake of argument only, that the three miles of road within the Glacier National Park is beyond the territorial jurisdiction of this state for many purposes, we have no doubt that that the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act cover this case. Had the accident occurred between Babb and the park line, there could be no doubt of it. The employer and employee, citizens of Montana, are governed by a contract made in Montana. They elected to be bound by plan 3, a statutory enactment for the benefit of employer and employee alike. The statute entered into and became a part of their contract. Home State Bank v. Swartz, 72 Mont. 425, 234 P. 281; State v. Rosman, 84 Mont. 207, 274 P. 850; American Surety Co. v. Butler, 86 Mont. ---, 284 P. 1011; Gooding v. Ott, 77 W.Va. 487, 87 S.E. 862, L. R. A. 1916D, 637; Smith v. Van Noy Interstate Co., 150 Tenn. 25, 262 S.W. 1048, 35 A. L. R. 1409. The accident actually happened within this state.
The authorities from other states are not directly in point by reason of the fact that their statutes are not the same as ours, but we have found them helpful in arriving at a decision of the question.
The weight of authority in this country sustain the assertion that a Workmen's Compensation Act will apply to injuries to workmen employed in the state and injured while temporarily out of its limits, unless there is something in the act making it inapplicable or clearly denying the right of the employee to recover in such case. Grinnell v Wilkinson, 39 R.I. 447, 98...
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