Texas Co. v. Sancho, 3380.
| Decision Date | 25 March 1939 |
| Docket Number | No. 3380.,3380. |
| Parties | TEXAS CO. (P. R.) v. SANCHO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Lionel P. Marks and Jerrold H. Ruskin, both of New York City, for appellant.
William C. Rigby, of Washington, D. C. (B. Fernandez Garcia, Atty. Gen. of Puerto Rico, and Nathan R. Margold, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellee.
Before BINGHAM and WILSON, Circuit Judges, and BREWSTER, District Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment or decree of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico affirming the action of the District Court of San Juan in dismissing the plaintiff's bill.
The bill was brought November 5, 1936, to enjoin the Treasurer of Puerto Rico from enforcing, by distraint, orders of the Workmen's Relief Commission of April 24, 1928, wherein the Relief Commission awarded compensation to the dependants of each of three laborers accidentally killed on February 12, 1926, while working on a concrete platform by the side of a warehouse and wharf belonging to the plaintiff, cleaning the platform from earth and stones that had fallen upon it from a natural wall formed by earth, when the upper part of it slid and caused their death.
In the bill it was alleged that the orders of the Workmen's Relief Commission, awarding compensation to the beneficiaries of each deceased workman, declared therein that "plaintiff was not an insured employer", and directed that the administrative secretary of the Relief Commission "prepare the corresponding liquidations" and send the same to the Attorney General of Puerto Rico with a copy of each order, the orders directing him to collect the respective amounts from the plaintiff pursuant to Section 7 of Act No. 102, of September 1, 1925. It then alleged the liquidations made by the administrative secretary of the Commission relating to the death of each of the three employees, as follows:
Case of Rodulfo Suarez
Compensation for death ........ $2,000.00
Administrative expenses, 12 per
cent......................... 240.00
_________
Total ..................... $2,240.00
Less advances made by employer 45.33
_________
Total ..................... $2,194.67
Case of Isidro Villoch
Compensation for death ........ $2,000.00
Administrative expenses, 12 per
cent. ....................... 240.00
_________
Total ..................... $2,240.00
Case of Isidro Perez
Compensation for death ........ $2,000.00
Administrative expenses, 12 per
cent. ....................... 240.00
_________
Total ..................... $2,240.00
It was alleged in paragraph 3 of the bill, that the above orders, awarding compensations against the plaintiff, charging it with their payment and declaring that it was an uninsured employer, were illegal and without authority in that the plaintiff was an insured employer and had complied with all the requisites of the law, to wit: (par. 2 of the bill) "that on or before July 15, 1925" and "in pursuance of Section 13 of the Workmen's Accident Compensation Act" then in force, it "filed with the Workmen's Relief Commission a statement in duplicate under oath showing the number of workmen, the nature of the occupation of said workmen and the total amount of wages paid to said workmen during the preceding fiscal year, and the Treasurer of Puerto Rico, under said law, assessed, taxed and collected from the plaintiff the corresponding premium, for which reason and by express disposition of said Section 13, plaintiff was an insured employer since the date in which it filed the above mentioned record or statement, until the 15th of July, 1926."
It was further alleged in paragraph 5, that it had "paid the premium" for the year in "which the accident occurred."
In paragraph 4 it was alleged that on February 12, 1926 (about seven months after filing the duplicate statement with the Workmen's Relief Commission and the assessment and collection from the plaintiff of the premiums for the fiscal year running from July 15, 1925 to July 15, 1926), Rodulfo Suarez, Isidro Villoch and Isidro Perez, laborers employed by the plaintiff, died as a result of an accident incident to their work which occurred while they were working together with other laborers, as employees of the plaintiff cleaning up the concrete platform, as above stated; and that their "usual employment" was "to help in the embarkment and disembarkment of gasoline drums, the filling of same, placing them in order, and cleaning the warehouse and platform."
Paragraph 1 of the bill alleged that the plaintiff was a Puerto Rican corporation "engaged in the wholesale business of buying and selling" petroleum products, "in which business it employs and actually employed during the dates to which this bill refers, besides its office personnel, various laborers, all of which were insured under the workmen's compensation in force on the dates later referred to herein."
In the seventh paragraph it was alleged that on June 2, 1928 (some thirty-nine days after the entry of the orders of April 24, 1928), the plaintiff brought petitions for certiorari with a view to testing the validity of the orders declaring that the plaintiff was not insured; and that in the District Court and in the Supreme Court, on appeal they were denied for lack of jurisdiction.
In paragraph eight it was alleged that between April 24, 1928, and September 4, 1936, no attempt was made by the Attorney General of Puerto Rico (the one having the legal authority) "to collect the compensations awarded by the above referred to orders, and no legal action has been started to collect the same under Section 7 of the Workmen's Accident Compensation Act, No. 102, of 1925"; but on September 14, 1936 (paragraph 9), the present Industrial Commission (created under Act 45 of April 18, 1935, a successor of the Workmen's Relief Commission created under Act 102 of September 1, 1925) handed down an order in the case of Rodulfo Suarez, directing the defendant, Treasurer of Puerto Rico, to levy an attachment upon the property of the plaintiff and collect the compensation awarded his beneficiaries April 24, 1928, in the sum of $2,194.67; and that the Treasurer, after requesting the plaintiff to pay the same and threatening summarily to attach its property, on October 27, 1936, seized the plaintiff's truck, notifying it that if it did not pay said amount, plus $1.00 costs, by November 6, 1936, the property attached would be sold at public sale; that the sale would cause the plaintiff irreparable damage unless enjoined; and that it was the intention of the Industrial Commission and the defendant Treasurer to pursue an identical course in the collection of the other two compensations unless enjoined.
And in the tenth paragraph it was alleged that the order of the Industrial Commission of September 14, 1936, and the acts of the defendant in attempting to collect said compensations by summary attachments were illegal, arbitrary and abusive for the following reasons:
In paragraph 11 it was alleged that the plaintiff had no adequate remedy at law and would suffer irreparable loss if the defendant was not restrained.
In the District Court of San Juan the case was submitted on the following stipulation:
The defendant maintains (1) "that the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico having decided against the plaintiff the certiorari cases Nos. 6986, 6987 and 6988 to which reference is made in paragraph 7 of the bill, the injunction now prayed for does not lie"; (2) that the "plaintiff not having taken recourse of the remedy provided by Section 9 of Act 102 of 1925 to review the orders of the Workmen's Relief Commission, the writ of injunction now prayed for does not lie"; (3) "that the orders of the Workmen's Relief Commission of April 24, 1928, described in the bill do not have the nature of final judgments under the dispositions of the Code of Civil Procedure in force, providing that a final judgment will not be executed five years after having become final, for which reason the statute of limitation has not run against the right to execute said orders, an injunction, therefore, not lying to enjoin their execution"; and (4) "that the proper, correct and legal procedure to collect the compensations awarded by the Workmen's Relief Commission is that specified in Section 25 of Act 85 of 1928, and not, as maintained by plaintiff, that specified by Section 7 of Act 102 of 1925."
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
De Castro v. Board of Com Rs of San Juan
...308 U.S. 463, 471, 60 S.Ct. 349, 353, 84 L.Ed. 401. In that case, in reversing a decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals, Texas Co. v. Sancho, 1 Cir., 102 F.2d 710, which had reversed the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico on a point of local law, we said, 'to justify reversal in such cases, the e......
-
LIQUILUX GAS CORP. v. MARTIN GAS SALES, INC.
...stated, such general rule is subject to an exception in the case of a statute relating to remedies or procedure."), rev'd, 102 F.2d 710 (1st Cir.1939), rev'd on other grounds sub nom, Bonet v. Texas Co., 308 U.S. 463, 60 S.Ct. 349, 84 L.Ed. 401 (1940); Arbona Bros. v. H.C. Christianson & Co......
-
Tracy v. Baker
...was available to the company under the act. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico held that it was. The Court of Appeals, Texas Co. (P. R.) v. Sancho, 1 Cir., 102 F.2d 710, construed the act otherwise and reversed. The Supreme Court stated, 308 U.S. at pages 470-471, 60 S.Ct. at page 353: "As th......
-
Sancho v. Texas Co
...U.S.C.A. § 225) the Circuit Court of Appeals vacated that judgment and remanded the cause with directions to issue the in- junction. 1 Cir., 102 F.2d 710. We granted certiorari, 308 U.S. 538, 60 S.Ct. 85, 84 L.Ed. —-, because of the asserted violation by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the ......