153 A. 159 | Conn. | 1931
The record discloses that Wheeler was injured while employed by a corporation known as The New England Transportation Company as a *511 driver of one of its passenger busses which was in collision at a grade-crossing in Torrington, with a train operated by the defendant corporation. This action was brought by him to recover damages for those injuries. One of the defenses to the action was that the plaintiff had received full compensation for his injuries from the employer-corporation, under the operation of the Workmen's Compensation Act, and that such employer-corporation was a corporation "subsidiary" to the defendant corporation. This was demurred to on the ground that it did not appear that any privity existed between the plaintiff and the defendant nor that the stated relation between these corporations was such as to prevent suit by this plaintiff against the defendant. The overruling of this demurrer raises the only question presented by this appeal. This demurrer was filed March 14th, and a petition of the employer-corporation to be joined as coplaintiff, was granted by the court on March 28th. In this state of the record our only source of information as to the facts, is the pleadings, from which it appears that the plaintiff Wheeler has received compensation from the employer-corporation under the terms of the Workmen's Compensation Act; that the present action for damages is brought under the provisions of General Statutes, § 5231, which permits such action where it appears that the injury was sustained under circumstances creating legal liability in "some other person than the employer." That section further permits the employer to be joined as party plaintiff, the damages recovered, if any, to be apportioned as therein provided. Admittedly there are here two corporations. All we know from this record, of the relation of one to the other, is contained in the second paragraph of the so-called "Third Defense" which is as follows: "Plaintiff has received full compensation *512 from a corporation subsidiary to the defendant corporation, as an employee of said subsidiary corporation, for the injury alleged in the complaint, under and by virtue of the statutes in such case made and provided."
The contention of the defendant is summed up in the closing words of its brief as follows: "Parent and subsidiary represent the same purse. For many purposes they are considered in law to be the same person. The spirit of the Act, in the light of its purpose, requires that they be so considered here." A "subsidiary" corporation is one in which another corporation owns at least a majority of the shares, and thus has the control. Webster's New International Dictionary.
We only know, then, that the defendant is a majority stockholder in the employer-corporation. There is nothing to permit the inference that there is a merger, or that the legal identity of either has been in any way affected by the fact that the employer-corporation has become a subsidiary of the defendant. It would be pure assumption on our part to consider that they "represent the same purse," and equally an assumption to say that there existed between them any such relation as that which was brought about by the mergers recited in Connecticut Co. v. New York, N. H. H.R. Co.,
There is error, the judgment is set aside and the cause remanded to the Superior Court to be proceeded with according to law.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.