190 P. 331 | Or. | 1920
Lead Opinion
This case presents many intricate propositions, and for that reason we have given a more than usually extended statement of the contentions of the parties as they appear from the pleadings.
The evidence indicates that at the time the accident occurred the deceased was captain of the steamship “Klamath,” and an employee of the Klamath Steamship Company, a California company, and that the ship, at the time of the accident, was taking on a load of timber being shipped by defendants; the lumber was being delivered entirely by the employees of the receiver. Neither the decedent nor any employee of the steamship “Klamath” had any part therein. But the employees of the Klamath Steamship Company were obliged to be about the work carried on by the receivers in order to receive the lumber as it was delivered by the receivers. The two sets of employees in their work intermingled. The contract of sale provided that the lumber should be placed on the wharf within reach of the ship’s tackle by the seller. When the lumber was delivered and placed in reach of the ship’s tackle by the receivers, the duties of the employees of the steamship began, namely, to load the lumber on the ship.. The employees of the steamship took up the work where the receivers stopped. In fact, as the cars loaded with lumber were placed on the wharf in reach of the ship’s tackle, the servants of the steamship would, by means of the slings and tackle, remove the lumber from the cars into the hold of the ship. The employees of the receivers and the employees of the steamship, including the steamship’s employee, the decedent, thus met on common ground, and both, by the necessities of their duties, were obliged to work on the wharf, on and about the tracks, and around the machinery where the operations were being carried on.
The only evidence introduced tended to show that deceased was standing on the edge of the wharf in a
In view of the able and exhaustive analysis of our Employers’ Liability Act by Mr. Justice Harris, in Turnidge v. Thompson, 89 Or. 637 (175 Pac. 281), which covers every phase of the question as to the persons who are within or without the act, we deem any attempt at further analysis or distinction unnecessary. Prom the lucid interpretation in that case and in other cases hereafter mentioned, we deduce the rule that the Employers’ Liability Act does not extend to the protection of the general public as such, but that it does extend its protection to employees of the particular person owning or operating dangerous machinery or engaged in hazardous employments, and to other persons or employees of other corporations whose lawful duties require them to be or work about such machinery, or expose themselves to the hazards of the machinery or appliances in use by the owner thereof.
Such, when considered with reference to the case then in hand, was the holding in Clayton v. Enterprise Electric Co., 82 Or. 149 (161 Pac. 411), which, with the limitation given above, is approved in Turnidge v. Thompson, 89 Or. 637 (175 Pac. 281). See,
Prom these authorities we conclude that if the other elements authorizing recovery are present, the deceased was a member of that class on behalf of which a recovery is authorized by the act.
The paragraphs quoted in the statement give in great detail the manner in which the work of loading was carried on; point out its defects and omissions, and how they might have been remedied or avoided; and the abstract shows no demurrer or objection to the pleading before trial, and the case was tried apparently upon the theory that it was sufficient. Under the circumstances we think the pleading was sufficient. This being the case, the question as to whether the work was hazardous or in fact involved risk or danger, became a question for the jury: Wolsiffer v. Bechill, 76 Or. 516 (146 Pac. 513, 149 Pac. 533); Yovovich v. Falls City Lbr. Co., 76 Or. 585 (149 Pac.
Those sections of the California act which are supposed to bear upon this contention are found in Chapter 176 of the statutes of California for 1913, as amended by Chapters 541, 607 and 662, Laws of 1915, and are as follows:
“Sec. 12. (a) Liability for the compensation provided by this act, in lieu of any other liability whatsoever to any person, shall, without regard to negligence, exist against an employer for any personal injury sustained by his employees arising out of and in the course of the employment and for the death of any such employee if the injury shall proximately cause death in those cases where the following conditions of compensation concur: * *
“Sec. 73. (a) All proceedings for the recovery of compensation, or concerning any right or liability arising out of or incidental thereto, or for the enforcement against the employer or an insurance carrier of any liability for compensation imposed upon him by this act in favor of the injured employee, his dependents or any third person, or for the determination of any question as to the distribution of compensation among dependents or other persons or for the determination of any question as to who are de
“75a. The commission shall have jurisdiction over all controversies arising out of injuries suffered without the territorial limits of this state in those cases where the injured employee is a resident of this state at the time of the injury and the contract of hire was made in this state, and any such employee or his dependents shall be entitled to the compensation or death benefits provided by this act.
“Sec. 31. The making of a lawful claim against an employer for compensation under this act for the injury or death of his employee, shall operate as an assignment to the employer of any right to recover damages which the injured employee, or his personal representative, or other person, may have against any other party for such injury or death, and such employer shall be subrogated to any such right and may enforce in his own name the legal liability of such other party. The amount of compensation paid by the employer or the amount of compensation to which the injured employee or his dependents is entitled shah not be admissible in evidence in any action brought to recover damages, but any amount collected by the employer, under the provisions of this section, in excess of the amount paid by the employer, or for which he is liable, shall be held by him for the benefit of the injured employee or other person entitled.”
Whether or not the legislative authority of the State of California extends to providing for compensation for an injury inflicted by one citizen of that
But in this case a different question arises. The accident and death occurred in this state, and the defendants are receivers of a corporation located in this state. As a corporation resident in this state is suable here only, they are in fact sued here. In this state a right of action for tort is not assignable. Plaintiff, who was a resident of California, could not have gone to California and made an assignment of an interest in her claim for damages against defendants to a resident of that state, or to the Klamath Steamship Company, which could have authorized it to bring an action in our courts to recover damages for the death of Captain Borvik. Such an action would be contrary to the policy of our laws and against the decisions of our courts. While courts, as a matter of comity, will usually enforce a right arising out of a statute of another state, they will .not do so where the statute infringes upon the law of the forum: 5 B. C. L., § 8, and cases there cited.
It is conceived that the statute of California can give the Klamath Steamship Company no higher or greater right than it could have obtained by private contract with plaintiff, and that could never have gone to the extent of authorizing it to sue in its own name in our courts on account of a tort committed to the damage of plaintiff. It may also be noticed that plaintiff is not divested by the California statute of
The views above expressed render unnecessary any discussion as to the sufficiency of the supplemental complaint filed by plaintiff, or the validity of the evidence offered in support of it. Neither is it necessary to discuss the validity of plaintiff’s claim against the Klamath Steamship Company beyond saying that, in view of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Southern Pac. Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205 (61 L. Ed. 1086, Ann. Cas. 1917E, 900, L. R. A. 1918C, 451, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 524, see, also, Rose’s U. S. Notes), it seems clear that the Industrial Accident Commission of California had no jurisdiction to entertain plaintiff’s claim against the steamship company, and that if that company has failed to prosecute an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, or has lost that privilege by sleeping upon its rights, it has been guilty of such laches
Since the original draft of this opinion was prepared, we have received the advance sheets containing the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Knickerbocker Ice Co., Plaintiff in Error, v. Lillian E. Stewart, Defendant, 253 U. S. 149 (64 L. Ed. 834, 40 Sup. Ct. Rep. 438), decided May 17, 1920, in which it is held that even Congress cannot constitutionally authorize a state Industrial Accident Commission to take cognizance of marine torts; thus settling the question in accordance with the views above expressed.
In any case .these defendants are not liable ta be harrassed by another action after the present suit is disposed of. Beyond that contingency it is a matter of no consequence to defendants whether the action is brought by plaintiff or by the steamship company.
It will be noticed that the alleged award by the California Industrial Accident Commission is not pleaded by way of mitigation or reduction of damages ; but as a bar to this action. As such it is ineffective. Defendant’s motions for abatement, non-suit, and directed verdict were, therefore, properly overruled.
The argument in support of appellants’ contention is stated as follows:
“Whatever duty the defendants owed Captain Rorvik was not a duty they owed to him as a member of the public. Captain Rorvik docked the steamship ‘Klamath’ at our dock for the purpose of loading it with lumber we had sold to he loaded on that steamship, and thereby there arose certain legal duties that the defendant owed to the deceased, hut all those legal duties were and are well defined by laws other than the duties laid down by our Employers ’ Liability Act. The act did not add to or take away any of these duties.
“By this instruction the jury were told that the plaintiff could recover if decedent was a member of the public as such, and if the work the receiver was doing was one involving a risk or danger to the public as such, if the decedent was rightfully upon the premises, etc. The vice of this instruction lies in the fact that the Employers’ Liability Act does not embrace the public as such, and the instruction states that it does.”
If there existed a controversy as to the surroundings or the reason for the decedent’s presence on the wharf, or his relation to the subject matter, the instruction objected to might have had a tendency to mislead the jury; but, in view of the evidence actually given, it tended to narrow, rather than extend, the limit of defendants’ liability.
In a subsequent instruction Judge Tucker explained what he meant by the term, “a member of the public,” in the following language:
“The defendants in their answer claim, in effect, that it was not necessary for the decedent, the captain of the ship, in the discharge of any of his duties at the time he was hurt, to stand in front of the pile of lumber which was piled close to the edge of this dock, and that he received the injuries that resulted in his death from his own carelessness and negligence in standing in this narrow place. And if you believe, gentlemen of the jury, from a preponderance of the evidence in this case, that the duties of the captain did not require him to stand in this narrow place, and you further find that it was carelessness and negligence on his part to stand in this place when there were other places upon the dock that he could have stood with safety, and you believe from a preponderance of the evidence that he sustained his injury, which resulted in his death, because of his own carelessness and negligence, and that there was not any negligence on the part of the defendants contributing to the injury, then your verdict should be in favor of the defendants."
Several other objections to instructions are specified, but they all find their basis in the theory of the nonapplicability of the workmen’s compensation law to the circumstances of the case at bar, or to the ruling of the court as to the effect of the claim and award under the provisions of the California Compensation Act. If the writer is wrong in his views as to the force and effect of either of these, then the court below was wrong, and this opinion is not the law. As we view the law, the objections are not well taken.
“If you find from a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff is entitled to recover in this case, it will then become your duty to consider and assess her damages. In determining the amount of the damages, you are instructed that if she is entitled to recover she is entitled to damages equal to the pecuniary loss resulting to her from the death of her husband. The value of the decedent’s life is the net amount which the decedent would have saved from his earnings by his skill and bodily labor in his calling during the residue of his life, had he survived, taking into consideration, from the evidence submitted, his age, health, ability, habits of industry and sobriety, and mental and physical skill, so far as they affect his capacity for earning money by rendering service to others or accumulating property. All this must depend upon the evidence that has been produced before you on that subject. The amount of damages, how
We see nothing wrong in this instruction. The plaintiff was decedent’s wife and only heir. Her damages would be an amount equal to the pecuniary loss resulting to her from the death of her husband, and that amount would be such a sum as he probably would have accumulated if he had been permitted to live to the limit of his life expectancy. There is no absolute method of computing the damages in a case of this kind. It would be within the bounds of speculation to imagine that in spite of health conditions and habits, both shown to have been good, there was a possibility that he might die sooner than the life expectancy tables indicated, by some accident on land or sea and incident to his profession, or that his accumulations might be swept away by bad investments, leaving him to die a pauper, or that plaintiff might have died before him, or any one of many possible contingencies. The rule adopted by the court was one more likely to work out justly in practice than any other that can be formulated, and is sanctioned by authority: McClaugherty v. Rogue River Electric Co., 73 Or. 135 (140 Pac. 64, 144 Pac. 569).
This has been an exceedingly interesting and difficult case. The facts are scarcely contested, but the questions of law involved are intricate, and their examination has consumed much time and labor; but, after a thorough consideration of them, we feel assured that no mistake has been made to the prejudice of defendants, and the judgment of the lower court will therefore be affirmed. Affirmed.
Rehearing
former opinion sustained January 25, 1921.
In the original opinion we said:
“We deduce the rule that the Employers’ Liability Act does not extend to the protection of the general public as such, but that it does extend its protection to employees of the particular person owning or operating dangerous machinery or engaged in hazardous employments, and to other persons or employees of other corporations whose lawful duties require them to be or work about such machinery, or expose themselves to the hazards of the machinery or appliances in use by the owner thereof.”
“This,” the defendants concede in their petition for a rehearing, “is a clear, concise, and correct statement of the law as we understand it,” but the defendants insist, “This law was not followed in this case.” According to the contention of the defendants, “the complaint was drawn, and the case tried so far as plaintiff is concerned, and the jury was instructed upon the theory that the Employers’ Liability Act of the State of Oregon extended to the protection of the general public as such.”
“In this connection, I instruct you that, if you find the decedent, at the time he received the alleged injuries, was upon the wharf of the North Pacific Lumber Company, defendant, and was in charge of the loading of the steamship ‘Klamath,’ either upon the express or implied invitation of the receiver, and that as captain of the said steamship his duties in respect thereto required that he be upon the wharf, that in that event he was a member of the public and as such was entitled to whatever protection the law provides for the public. Or if you find that the decedent was in charge of the loading of the vessel, and that the vessel was being loaded at the said wharf at the express or implied invitation of the receiver, that by reason thereof the decedent was entitled to go upon the wharf if it was reasonably necessary for him so to do in order to superintend the loading of the vessel, and while upon the wharf under such conditions he was a member of the public, he was, as a matter of law, rightfully upon the wharf.”
The uncontradicted evidence shows that at the time of the accident the decedent was engaged in the work of superintending the loading of the ship. Captain Rorvik was not a loiterer, nor a trespasser, nor a mere idle member of the public; but he was engaged in work at the very moment of his hurt. He was in very truth a workingman at the time when and the place where he was hurt. The right of the plaintiff to recover was in the final analysis made to depend upon whether Captain Rorvik was rightfully upon the wharf, and his right to be on the wharf was in turn made to depend upon whether he was there performing work upon the express or implied invitation of the defendants. The charge, taken in its entirety, is sufficiently clear, and it is not likely that the jury was or could have been misled to the extent of believing
Thus it appears not only that we cannot say as a matter of law that the tort was a maritime rather than a land tort, but it also appears that the defendants themselves concede, and, indeed, insistently contend, that it was a land tort; and consequently we must agree with the contention of the defendants that we cannot say that the tort was a maritime tort. Prom this conclusion it follows as a natural sequence that there was nothing in the character and nature of the tort to prevent the Workmen’s Compensation Act of California (Stats. 1913, p. 279) from operating. By the same token we must also conclude that there was nothing in the character or nature of the tort to prevent the plaintiff from invoking our Employers’ Liability Act or to deprive the trial court of authority to award damages, unless some reason, other than the character of the tort, can be pointed out: See The Albion (D. C.), 123 Fed. 189; The Straybo, 98 Fed. 998 (39 C. C. A. 375). In short, the character of the tort does not render the California Compensation Act inoperative, nor does it prevent the enforcement of our Employers’ Liability Act.
The second point urged by the defendants involves the contention that the award made under the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Insurance and Safety Act of California precludes the plaintiff from prosecuting or maintaining this action. It will be recalled that Captain Rorvik, the husband of the plaintiff, was injured on August 3, 1916, and died five days afterwards, on August 8th. The plaintiff, on October 27, 1916, presented to the Industrial Accident Commission of California her claim for compen
Section 31 of the California Compensation Act in substance declares that the making of a lawful claim against an employer for compensation shall operate as an assignment of any right of action the employee may have against a third person, and the employer is subrogated to the right of the employee and the employer may enforce in his own name the legal liability of the third person; but the statute also provides that any amount collected by the employer, in excess of the amount paid by the employer, or for which he is liable, shall be held by him for the benefit of the injured employee or other person entitled." The defendants argue that, by force of the California statute, any right of action that Mrs. Eorvik may have had against the lumber company was automatically assigned to the steamship company, the employer of the decedent, when she filed her claim against the steamship company. The plaintiff counters by arguing that the right of action conferred upon her by our Employers' Liability Act would not survive her death,
“I signed a paper saying that from what I won in this suit I would reimburse them [the steamship company] for any amount they might be paid, or that I might win in the courts there, which I haven’t won so far."
We adhere to the conclusion reached in our original opinion, and it follows that the judgment from which the defendants have appealed must be affirmed.
Affirmed.
Former Opinion Sustained on Rehearing.