92 S.W.2d 620 | Mo. | 1936
In the Circuit Court of Clay County, Missouri, the appellant filed a petition alleging a common-law action for damages for loss of services, companionship and society of his wife, by *861 reason of personal injuries sustained on October 28, 1931, while she was employed by respondent. The appellant claimed he was damaged in the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars.
Respondent's answer alleged, in substance, that the appellant's wife was an employee and the respondent an employer within the scope of the Workmen's Compensation Act (Sec. 3299 et seq., R.S. 1929); that if she was injured as alleged, such injury was by an accident arising out of and in the course of her employment; that appellant's wife had filed a claim and had been awarded compensation under the act; and that by virtue of Section 3301, no right existed in appellant to maintain an action for loss of services under the circumstances pleaded.
Appellant's reply admitted that the injury to his wife was compensable under the act and that she had filed a claim before the commission. The reply also alleged that the act did not refer to or in any manner abrogate the common-law right of action of a husband of an employee for medical expense and loss of his wife's services and society, and further alleged that if the act did take away such common-law right of action, it was unconstitutional and void because it deprived appellant of his constitutional right to a hearing before a constitutional court and deprived him of property without due process of law.
Respondent filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, which was sustained and judgment was entered for respondent. Appellant has appealed from that judgment.
[1] The sole question on this appeal is whether or not the husband's common-law right to recover damages for loss of the services and consortium of his wife, resulting from respondent's negligence, is lost for the reason that she received compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law of this State. It must be conceded that, unless the Compensation Act has taken away the husband's common-law rights in that particular, the husband would be entitled to maintain this action. To uphold its position the respondent relies upon Section 3301, Revised Statutes 1929; the pertinent parts are as follows:
"If both employer and employee have elected to accept the provisions of this chapter, the employer shall be liable irrespective of negligence, to furnish compensation under the provisions of this chapter for personal injury or death of the employee by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, and shall be released from all other liability therefor whatsoever, whether to the employee or any other person. The rights and remedies herein granted to an employee, shall exclude all other rights and remedies of such employee, his wife, her husband, parents, personal representatives, dependents, heirs or next kin, at common law or otherwise, *862 on account of such accidental injury or death, except such rights and remedies as are not provided for by this chapter. . . ."
In discussing this section we shall refer to the first sentence as the "release clause;" the first clause of the second sentence as the "exclusion clause;" and the following clause of the second sentence, "except such rights and remedies as are not provided for by this chapter," as the "exception clause."
If the "exception clause" just quoted had been eliminated, it would be clear that the Legislature intended to abrogate the husband's common-law right to recover for the loss of his wife's services. The language is clear and unambiguous and could have no other meaning. By its terms then it would exclude any right or remedy that might be available to the employee, his wife, her husband, parents, personal representatives, dependents, heirs or next kin arising out of the common law or otherwise on account of accidental injury or death. The question for us to decide is the proper construction to be given this exception clause.
[2] This section has been construed by our Springfield Court of Appeals in the case of Sharp v. Producers' Produce Co.,
"In construing a statute the legislative intent must be kept in mind, if it may be ascertained, and the whole act, or such portions thereof as are in pari materia, should be construed, together. [Keeney v. McVoy,
"The title to the Workmen's Compensation Act, as shown on page 490, Laws of 1927, reads in part, as follows: `An Act to provide a system of workmen's compensation; prescribing the manner of election and rejection of the act and the effect thereof; . . . defining the rights and liabilities of employers and employees electing to accept or reject the act, and of third persons in connection therewith.' It is indicated by the foregoing extract from the title that the Legislature, in enacting a Workmen's Compensation Law, intended, not only to define the rights of the employer and employee, but of third persons as well. In attempting to carry out that intent, Section 3301 (supra) was written. No other section of the law is applicable. The release clause defines the rights of all persons by the simple process of declaring they have none in the event the employer furnishes compensation. The same is true of the exclusion clause. Both are in harmony with the intent of the Legislature as expressed in the title to the act. But plaintiff argues that the exception *863 clause limits the preceding clauses and preserves the rights of the husband at common law because the common-law right of the husband is not `provided for.' We do not understand the words `provided for' to mean `compensated for.' It is common legal parlance to refer to different parts of a statute as `provisions' thereof. In the title to this act itself the Legislature uses the words `provide,' `defining,' `prescribing,' `regulating,' and `providing for,' indiscriminately, thus showing there was no intent to give to the words `provided for' any different meaning from other synonymous words used in the title and in the body of the statute. One definition of the word `provide' as found in Webster's New International Dictionary, is `to stipulate.' It is in that sense we believe the Legislature used the words `provided for' in the exception clause. It follows that, if a right or remedy be completely destroyed by the act, it would be `provided for' or `prescribed' or `defined,' as we interpret those words.
"The question then arises whether or not the statute covers or provides for the right of the husband to recover at common law for loss of services of his wife, either by destroying it completely or in any degree. It is our opinion the release clause and the exclusion clause were intended to take away this common-law right of the husband. If that be true, what meaning is to be given the exception clause? If the exception clause means that the foregoing release and exclusion clause are limited thereby, then, in so far as the rights of the wife, husband, parents, etc., are concerned, the release clause and exclusion clause have no meaning whatsoever. Plaintiff's contention would result in placing the Legislature in the absurd position of saying in one breath, so to speak, that the husband's sole common-law right to recover for loss of services of his wife is destroyed and in the next breath, by said exception, saying we do not intend that this shall include his common-law rights. There is only the one common-law right of the husband in this respect, and the Legislature either destroyed it by the release and exclusion clauses or the language used means nothing. Our Supreme Court has said: `Although it is a rule of construction that all the words used in a statute must be given a meaning and a purpose if it can be reasonably done, yet when the main purpose of the statute appears it must not be defeated in order to give effect to words that seem useless or out of place.' In re Ferguson's Estate,
The appellant contends that the Sharp case was improperly ruled and cites several cases which we will discuss.
The first case he relies upon is our case of Womach v. City of St. Joseph,
Also the cases of Furnish v. Mo. Pac. Ry. Co.,
In the case of King v. Viscoloid Co.,
"In our statute there is no direct enactment taking away the parent's right of action, and we find nothing which takes it away by necessary implication. The Legislature simply have not covered the case, as in Parsons v. Merrill, 5 Met. 356. If they had chosen not to leave the parent's right of action unaffected, they might have taken it away altogether; they might have made some stated division of the allowed compensation between the minor employee and his parent; they might have provided (like the Rhode Island Legislature) that the election between the statutory remedy and that given by the common law should be made by the parent of a minor employee and should bind both parent and child. How can the court say which if either of these courses would have been adopted by the Legislature? It seems plain that neither one of them can be held to have been manifestly intended by the language of the act. But we have no right to conjecture what the Legislature would have enacted if they had foreseen the occurrence of a case like this; much less can we read into the statute a provision which the Legislature did not see fit to put there, whether the omission came from inadvertence or of set purpose."
In the case of Roxana Petroleum Co. v. Cope,
In the appellant's reply brief, he cites the case of our Kansas City Court of Appeals in the case of Miller v. Savoy Hotel Co.,
[3] The appellant contends that "The Workmen's Compensation Act, Chapter 28, Revised Statutes 1929, and each and every section thereof, and amendments thereto of the Laws of 1931, pages 382 to 384, inclusive, are unconstitutional and void and for the reason that it is in conflict with and in violation of Sections 1, 22, and 23 of Article VI and Article III of the Constitution of Missouri in that it deprives the plaintiff of a hearing in a constitutional court." These contentions have been overruled by this court in DeMay v. Liberty Foundry Co.,
[4] The appellant also claims that this act violates the due process clauses of the State and Federal Constitution. "We need not, therefore, elaborate the rule that the Constitution does not forbid the creation of new rights, or the abolition of old ones recognized by the common law, to attain a permissible legislative object." [Silver v. Silver,
We think the judgment of the circuit court was correct. It is, therefore, affirmed. All concur.