99 So. 430 | La. | 1923
This is a suit by an injured employee for compensation under Act No. 20 of 1914, as amended by Act No. 243 of 1916 and Act No. 38 of 1918.
The plaintiff was employed by the defendant as a teamster, doing hauling in the oil fields of Caddo parish, and while so employed he got his left leg broken just below the knee.
The defendant admits the contract of employment, and admits that the plaintiff was receiving wages at the rate of $4.50 per day, or $31.50 per week of seven dáys. It is also admitted that the plaintiff’s leg was broken as alleged, and while the plaintiff was performing services arising out of and incidental to his employment in the course of his employer’s trade and business.
The defense is that the business in which defendant was engaged and for which plaintiff was employed was not hazardous, and did not come within any of the trades, occupations, and businesses designated and defined in the compensation statute. In the alternative it is alleged that, if any compensation is due' at all, it cannot be for a period longer than eight weeks, that being the maximum time for such a break of the leg thoroughly to unite and heal; that any delay beyond that period was caused by the diseased condition of plaintiff’s blood. The district judge was of the opinion that the business in which the defendant was engaged and for which plaintiff was employed was not included in the statute, and he rejected the plaintiff’s claim for that reason.
The statute provides compensation for injuries received by:
“Every person performing services arising out of and incidental to his employment in the course of his employer’s trade, business or occupation in the following hazardous trades, businesses and occupations.” Act No. 20 of 1914, § 1.
Then follows a list of the trades, businesses, and occupations which are defined as hazardous and which are specifically brought within the terms of the statute. The list may be divided into six groups, and is preceded by the statement:
“The operation, construction, repair, removal, maintenance and demolition of,” etc. Id.
The first group includes oil, gas, sulphur, salt, and other wells, lumber yards, building material yards, derricks, bridges, etc. The second group includes logging and lumbering. The third, fourth, and fifth have no application. The s.ixth group includes the installation, repair, erection, removal, or operation of boilers, engines, and other forms of machinery. '
The petition in this case alleges, the evidence established, the defendant admits, ami the trial judge concedes in his written opinion that the business, trade, and occupation of the defendant before, at the time of, and during the term of plaintiff’s employment and injury was the hauling, removing or removal, transferring, and transporting by mule teams and wagons in' the different oil fields, including that of Oaddo, logs, timbers, boilers, engines, pumps, pipes, and all other forms of machinery and material, supplies, and appliances necessary for the construction, operation, repair, maintenance, demolition, and removal of oil and gas wells and' oil and gas well derricks.
It would be a very narrow and strained construction of the statute, to say that a workman who moved the derrick timber and who was injured while unloading such timber was not engaged in a hazardous business, while the workman who immediately proceeded to erect the derrick with the timber was embraced within the- terms of the statute. "
The work of demolishing or tearing down of an oil well outfit and derrick is entirely distinct from the act of carrying away or the removal to 'another place of the machinery and appliances thus torn down. The workmen, however, engaged in both the tearing down and in- the removal are equally within the terms of the statute, and neither should be excluded therefrom. Again we repeat in this connection that, it is placing too strict a construction and too narrow a limitation on the' statute to say that the workman who delivered the engine and boiler on the ground was not within the terms of the statute, while the workman who immediately proceeded to install the ehgine and boiler was embraced therein.
In considering the workman’s compensation statute, in Dick v. Gravel Logging Co., 152 La. 993, 95 South. 99, we said:
“It is humane in its purpose, and its scope should be enlarged rather than restricted. Its provisions should be liberally construed, so as to include all services that can be reasonably said to come within them.”
The medical testimony is to the effect that an ordinarily healthy man would recover from such an injury as a broken leg and be able to return to work in about eight weeks. The physicians say that the delay beyond that period in plaintiff’s case was due to the fact that he was suffering from dormant syphilis, and that the condition of his blood prevented the rapid' uniting and knitting of the broken parts together. It is on this showing that it is urged that plaintiff should not receive compensation for more than eight weeks.
The plaintiff had both bones in his leg broken. The accident occurred November 18, 1918, and the break had not entirely healed at the time of the trial in the lower court, which was six months after the accident. At the time of the trial he was still unable to do any work, and it was the opinion of some of the physicians that he would be entirely well within five or six months, while others fixed an earlier date.
In Behan v. Honor Co., 143 La. 348, 78 South. 589, L. R. A. 1918F, 862, this court said:
“The fact that an employee, injured in performing services' arising out of and incidental to his employment in the course of his employer’s occupation, was already afflicted with a dormant disease that might some day have produced physical disability is no reason why the employee should not be allowed compensation, under the employers’ liability statute, for the injury which, added to the disease, superinduced physical disability.” .
The above was quoted with approval in Fox v. United Chemical & Organic Products Co., 147 La. 866, 86 South. 311; Hicks v. Meridian Lumber Co., 152 La. 976, 94 South. 903.
The plaintiff is entitled to recover compensation as for temporary total disability to do work of any reasonable character, under subsection (a), § 8, of Act 38 of 1918.
It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the judgment appealed from be annulled, reversed, and set aside, and that plaintiff now have judgment against defendant for the sum of $16 per week not exceeding 300 weeks, beginning with the week ending December 2, 1918, with 5 per cent, per annum interest on the weekly payments from date they are due respectively until paid, less a credit of $144 paid on same.
Rehearing refused by Division A, compos: ed of O’NIELL, O. J., and ROGERS and BRUNOT, JJ.