Case ID: wash_125/html/0349-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mackintosh, J. Holcomb, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

[No. 17837.
    Department One.
    June 22, 1923.]
    Frances H. Farr, Appellant, v. The Department of Labor and Industries, Respondent. 
      
    
    Master and Servant (20-1)—-Workmen’s Comfensation—'Right to Benefits—Statutes. Under Rem. Comp. Stat., § 7675, of the industrial insurance act, compensation cannot he awarded for the death of an officer of the employer company who had never been carried on the payroll submitted to the department, and where, prior to his death, no'premiums had been paid on his pay and no notice in writing had been given to the department that he was on the payroll, as required by the act.
    Same (121-2)—Remedies Under Workmen’s Comfensation Act— Reversal of Order—Notice of Hearing. The department of labor and industries, being impowered by Rem. Comp. Stat., §§ 7698 and 7703, to make and put into effect necessary rules for the administration of the industrial insurance act, has jurisdiction upon erroneously allowing a claim, to reverse its original allowance without any notice of hearing to the claimant (Holcomb, J., dissenting).
    Appeal from a judgment of the superior court for Mason county, Wilson, J., entered September 7, 1922, upon findings in favor-of the defendant, affirming an order of the department of labor and industries denying a claim for compensation under the workmen’s compensation act, tried to the court.
    Affirmed.
    
      Hastings & Stedman, for appellant.
    
      The Attorney General and John H. Dunbar, Assistant, for respondent.
    
      
      Reported in. 216 Pac. 20.
    
   Mackintosh, J.

Q. W. Farr was killed at the camp of Fredson Brothers Logging Company, and the appellant, his widow, presented an application for compensation under the act. The application was first granted, and thereafter denied on the ground that Mr. Farr was an officer of the Fredson Brothers Logging Company and that no written notice had been'received by the department of labor and industries prior to his death that he was being carried on the pay roll. From this action an appeal was taken to the superior court, which affirmed the order of the department, and from that judgment this appeal is prosecuted.

The court found that Mr. Farr was an officer of the logging company, to wit; superintendent and secretary, and that he had never been carried on the pay roll submitted to the department; that no premiums had been paid by the logging company on his pay, and that the department had received no notice in writing, prior to his death, that he was on the company’s pay roll. By § 7675, .Rem. Comp. Stat. [P. C. § 3470], it is provided :

“Any individual employer or any member or officer of any corporate employer who shall be carried upon the pay-roll at a salary or wage not less than the average salary or wage named in such pay-roll and who shall be injured, shall be entitled to the benefit of this act as and under the same circumstances as and subject to the same obligations as a workman; Provided, that no such employer or the beneficiaries or dependents of such employer shall be entitled to benefits under this act unless the director of labor and industries prior to the date of the injury has received notice in writing of the fact that such employer is being carried upon the pay-roll prior to the date of the injury as the result of which claims for compensation-are made.”

The testimony will not permit of any holding other than that made by the superior court, and under those circumstances it is impossible to grant any relief to the appellant.

Question is made of the right of the department to reverse its original allowance in favor of the claimant without any notice of hearing. We take it that, under §§ 7698 and 7703, Rem. Comp. Stat. [P. C. §§ 3489, 3493], the department of labor and industries is charged with the duty and given the power to establish and put into effect such rules as are necessary in the efficient administration of the industrial insurance act, and we can find nothing in the procedure followed in this case inconsistent with that purpose, and, as a matter of fact, were any other rule of procedure adopted, it would, in the majority of cases, render the administration of the act cumbersome and inefficient.

Judgment affirmed.

Main, C. J., Bridges, and Mitchell, JJ., concur.

Holcomb, J.

(dissenting) — "While the result in this case is probably right, and the last result reached by the department of labor and industries was probably right under the facts shown in this case and the law applying, the action of the department in reversing its first decision without notice or hearing was arbitrary and unauthorized.

Although it was doubtless impossible to have made any further or different showing in this case, in many cases it would be, and the claimants should not be arbitrarily prevented from so doing. The law does not so intend. I therefore cannot concur in the decision approving of such action without notice or hearing.