U.S. Steel Corp. v. Baker
| Decision Date | 31 October 1957 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 96 |
| Citation | 97 So.2d 899,266 Ala. 538 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION v. Nannie H. BAKER, as Administratrix. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Burr, McKamy, Moore & Thomas, Birmingham, for appellant.
Lipscomb, Brobston, Jones & Brobston, Bessemer, for appellee.
This is a workmen's compensation case. It is here on certiorari from the circuit court of Jefferson County, Bessemer Division.
The parties have stipulated as follows: While the plaintiff's intestate was employed in defendant's mine, he sustained a compensable accident resulting in a 35% permanent partial disability from silicosis. Under a court-approved settlement the employer agreed to pay the employee $18.85 a week for 300 weeks making a total claim of $5,646. Payments of compensation were made from the date of the employee's injury in December, 1954, until his death on September 4, 1955. It is agreed that the employee's death had no relation to his injury. The employer refused to make further payments after the death of the employee. The plaintiff in this case is the employee's dependent widow and the administratrix of his estate. She instituted this proceeding to require the employer to pay to her husband's estate the unpaid weekly installments under the settlement agreement which would have been paid to her husband if he had remained alive.
Both parties agree that a single question of law, of first impression in Alabama, is presented. That question is whether or not, under the law of Alabama as it existed on September 4, 1955, the unmatured installments payable under a court-approved workmen's compensation settlement agreement between an employer and an employee, whereby the employer agrees to pay the employee compensation for a permanent partial disability, survive the employee's death and pass to his estate or dependents when his death results from a cause not connected with the injury giving rise to the compensation agreed upon.
The problem is one of statutory construction and effect.
Although we have held that the Workmen's Compensation Act should be liberally construed to the end that its beneficent objects may be advanced (Baggett Transp. Co. v. Holderfield, 260 Ala. 56, 61, 68 So.2d 21; Hamilton Motor Co. v. Cooner, 254 Ala. 422, 426, 47 So.2d 270; Birmingham Post Co. v. Sturgeon, 227 Ala. 162, 169, 149 So. 74) we have also held that it should not be extended beyond its legitimate scope and contrary to the clear legislative purpose and intent (Nichols v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., 227 Ala. 592, 594, 151 So. 347, 90 A.L.R. 842; Birmingham Post Co. v. Sturgeon, supra). A careful analysis and consideration of the provisions of the Act, as it existed on September 4, 1955, (which controls in this case), convinces us that the legislative intent was to limit payment of installments of a compensation award to those falling due during the lifetime of the employee, and that installments accruing after his death do not survive in favor of his personal representative or his widow and dependent children. This, of course, applies in a case where the employee's death is from a cause unconnected with the injury for which compensation has been awarded. Provision is made for payment of compensation to the widow and dependent children where the employee's death is attributable to the injury made the basis of the award. Sections 279(F) and 283, Tit. 26, Code 1940, Act No. 563, appvd. Aug. 29, 1951, effective Oct. 28, 1951, Acts 1951, p. 978.
We proceed to a discussion of pertinent provisions of the Act which we think clearly show the legislative intent, viz.:
Section 279, Tit. 26, Code 1940, as amended supra , prescribes the schedules for compensation. Schedule (A) covers 'Temporary Total Disability' and provides for maximum and minimum weekly payments. It also contains the following provisions:
Schedule (B) prescribes compensation payable for 'Temporary Partial Disability' and contains in subdiv. 1 the following provision: 'This compensation shall be paid during the period of such disability, not, however, beyond three hundred weeks, payments to be made at the intervals when the earnings were payable, as nearly as may be, and subject to the same maximum as stated in subsection (A).'
Schedule (C) provides for compensation in case of 'Permanent Partial Disability'. Subdiv. 1 provides that 'for permanent partial disability the compensation shall be based upon the extent of such disability.' It also prescribes the compensation payable for the loss of members of the body and for a 'serious disfigurement, not resulting from the loss of a member or other injury specifically compensated, materially affecting the employability of the injured person.' Subdiv. 6 provides that 'in all other cases of permanent partial disability not above enumerated, the compensation shall be fifty-five percent of the difference between the average weekly earnings of the workman at the time of the injury and the average weekly earnings he is able to earn in his partially disabled condition subject to the same maximum as stated in subsection (A).' The award of compensation to the employee in the case before us was under this subdivision. Subdiv. 7 provides that 'compensation shall continue during disability, not however, beyond three hundred weeks.'
Schedule (D) covers 'Permanent Total Disability'. It provides in subdiv. 1 that compensation therefor 'shall be paid during such permanent total disability, not exceeding five hundred and fifty weeks * * *; payment to be made at the intervals when the earnings were payable, as nearly as may be' and that 'such payments, with the approval of the circuit judge, may be monthly or quarterly'. Subdiv. 2 provides that where 'an employee, who is permanently and totally disabled becomes an inmate of a public institution, then no compensation shall be payable unless he has wholly dependent on him for support a person or persons named in sections 280 and 281 of this title, whose dependency shall be determined as if the employee were deceased, in which case the compensation * * * shall be paid for the benefit of such person so dependent, during dependency, in the manner ordered by the court, while the employee is an inmate in such institution.'
Schedule (E) defines 'Permanent Total Disability'. Subdiv. 3 fixes the amount of compensation for such disability other than as defined in Schedule (E) and provides that 'this compensation shall be paid during the period of such permanent disability not exceeding four hundred weeks; payments to be made at the intervals when the earnings were payable as nearly as may be', and, 'with the consent of the circuit judge, may be made monthly or quarterly.'
Schedule (F) provides for 'Compensation for Death after Disability' as follows: 'In case a workman sustained an injury occasioned by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment and during the period of disability caused thereby death results proximately therefrom, all payments previously made as compensation for such injury shall be deducted from the compensation, if any, due on account of death.' This schedule was amended by Act No. 355, appvd. and effective on September 7, 1955, Acts 1955, p. 855, by adding the following paragraph:
'If a workman has sustained a permanent disability, the degree of which has been agreed upon by the parties or has been ascertained by the court, and death results not proximately therefrom, his widow and/or dependent children shall be entitled to the balance of the payments which would have been due and payable to the workman.'
It is to be noted that Act No. 355 became law after the employee's death on September 4, 1955. Hence the amendment has no bearing on this case except such relevancy as it may have in determining the intent of the legislature with respect to the Workmen's Compensation Act as it existed prior to the amendment. Appellee argues that the amendment simply had the effect of intercepting the balance of the judgment in favor of the 'widow and/or dependent children' instead of said balance going to the deceased employee's personal representative. In other words, the amendment should not be taken as a legislative recognition that there was no right of survivorship in the unpaid balance prior to the amendment but rather that its purpose was to take away an already existing survivorship in favor of the personal representative and give it to the widow and dependent children. This argument necessarily presupposes a legislative intent, in the absence of such amendment, that unaccrued installments of an award survive in favor of the personal representative. We are unable to agree with this interpretation of the Act.
Schedule (G) provides that average weekly earnings shall be the basis of benefits.
Schedule (H) prescribes a percentage increase for a dependent wife and dependent child or children and provides that such increase 'shall be paid only during the dependency of the dependent upon whom such increase is based.'
Section 283, Act No. 563, § 2, appvd. Aug. 29, 1951,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Tennessee Coal & Iron Division, U.S. Steel Corp. v. Hubbert
...right in the widow and dependent children to the installments accruing after Hubbert's death. We have so held. United States Steel Corporation v. Baker, 266 Ala. 538, 97 So.2d 899; Woodward Iron Co. v. Horton, 267 Ala. 449, 103 So.2d 717. The precise point at issue, then, is whether the 195......
-
Duran v. Goff Group, 2070763.
...his dependent's claim results from his death. Wade & Richey v. Oglesby, 251 Ala. 356, 37 So.2d 596 [(1948)]; United States Steel Corp. v. Baker, 266 Ala. 538, 97 So.2d 899 [(1957)]. "The right of the surviving dependents does not arise until the death of the workman, while his right accrued......
-
Weaver v. Kimberly-Clark Corp.
...However, our courts have also frequently limited the scope of the abovestated general rule. See, e.g., United States Steel Corp. v. Baker, 266 Ala. 538, 97 So.2d 899 (1957) (holding that the court cannot extend the statute beyond its legitimate scope); Kroger Co. v. Millsap, 280 Ala. 531, 1......
- Kingry v. McCardle, 4 Div. 857