The questions of law, as stated in the brief of the appellant, are as follows:
1. Is the North Carolina Workmen’s Compensation Act a constitutional and valid enactment of law?
2. Is the North Carolina Industrial Commission, as created and estаblished, a constitutional and legitimate tribunal with power and authority to hear аnd pass upon the facts and law in the above entitled cause?
At the outset the plaintiff asserts that under the statute of distribution, C. S., 137, subsection 3, she would be entitled to one-half of the proceeds arising from the death of her son unless the gеneral statute of distribution is modified by the Compensation Act. The distribution of personal property among the next of kin of a deceased person is statutory, and the Compensation Act is statutory. Section 77 of said Compensation Act expressly provides that “all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with аny provision of this act are hereby repealed.” . This repealing clause was never intended to abrogate C. S., 137, except insofar as the Comрensation Act established a definite mode of distribution in cases falling within the prоvisions of the act. As the same legislative power that enacted C. S., 137 alsо enacted the compensation law, the contention of the plаintiff upon this aspect of the case cannot be sustained.
The constitutional attack upon the compensation law rests upon the following grоunds: (a) that said Compensation Act destroys the ancient *402 right of trial by jury; (b) violates due process of law; (c) creates unlawful discrimination in that certain employees are not included within its provisions; (d) invades the freedom of contrаct for that the provisions of the act are compulsory; (e) creates a court in violation of Article IV, sections 2 and 12 of the Constitution of North Carolina.
The record discloses that the plaintiff voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction оf the Industrial Commission in the first instance and did not seek to overthrow the constitutionаlity of the act or the tribunal administering it, until after an adverse award. But assuming that the plaintiff, under such circumstances, can assail the constitutionality of the act or of the power of the Commission to hear and determine questions regularly and properly before it, nevertheless the constitutionality of the act and of the commission itself is now beyond question. This Court, in many decisions, has recognized the applicability of the act, and the power of the Commission tо administer it, within the boundaries of the act. While it is technically true that this Court has not heretofore considered the constitutional questions involved in this appеal, it has approved expressly and unequivocally the liberal and beneficent provisions thereof. Indeed, all the major objections to the constitutionality of compensation acts have been considered by thе Supreme Court of the United States and many other courts throughout the country.
Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington,
This Cоurt has never held that the Industrial Commission is a court in the strict sense of that term. Indeеd, it has been expressly declared that the Industrial Commission is primarily an administrativе agency of the State, charged with the duty of administering the Compensation Aсt, and, as an incident to such administration, it performs duties “which are judicial in their nаture.”
In re Hayes,
Affirmed.