40 A.2d 864 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1944
Argued December 12, 1944. The compensation authorities found that claimant entered defendant's employ on November 19, 1935, and continued therein until February 29, 1940, when he became totally disabled by silicosis contracted in defendant's quarry and sand crushing business. Accordingly, having ascertained that claimant had been exposed to a silica hazard for more than four years during a period of eight years next preceding the date of disability, the authorities awarded compensation in the statutory maximum sum of $3,600 divided between the original claim and the claim of his widow, the claimant having died during the pendency of his claim. The exposure having continued for less than five years, the *565 awards were made solely against the employer. The employer's contention that the Commonwealth is obliged to pay one-half of the awards was overruled by the referee, the board, and the court below, and this is the sole question presented by the appeal of defendant and its insurance carrier.
The contention is founded upon the punctuation of the Occupational Disease Act of June 21, 1939, P.L. 566, § 308(a),
The short and complete answer to the argument is that no significance attaches to the punctuation of a statute. The legislature does not enact the punctuation which appears in the printed statutes. Bills introduced in the legislature may contain punctuation marks but they are entirely deleted by the printer. The printed bills which the legislature considers and passes and the Governor approves are totally devoid of punctuation marks. They are inserted later in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth when copies of the laws *566
are prepared for the printer of the Pamphlet Laws, but they have no legislative sanction. For these reasons the legislature has expressly commanded that its intention shall not be controlled or affected by the punctuation. Statutory Construction Act of May 28, 1937, P.L. 1019, § 53, 46 P. S. § 553. Com. v. Bienkowski,
Appellants suggest that if the legislature intended that the specific diseases should be treated in the same way as other occupational diseases there was no occasion for mentioning the specific diseases since they were already included within the statutory definition of occupational diseases, and that its purpose could have been accomplished by simply providing that compensation should be awarded for any occupational disease which developed to the point of disablement after an exposure of five or more years. From this premise, it is argued that there is thus manifested a legislative intent to place the specified and the miscellaneous diseases in different categories, and that therefore the five year requirement applies only to the latter. But this argument fails to take into account that the specified diseases, silicosis, anthraco-silicosis and asbestosis, are treated differently in preceding sections (e.g. § 301) of the Act. For reasons which President Judge KELLER has clearly and comprehensively stated in Rando v. State Workmen's Ins. Fund,
Judgments affirmed.