Title: Wimer v. Miller

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Reversed and remanded July 15, 1963.
*26 E.R. Bashaw, Medford, argued the cause for appellant. On the brief were Jones, Reeder & Bashaw, Medford, and Yates & Murphy, Roseburg.
Cleveland Cory, Portland, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Rockwood, Davies, Biggs, Strayer and Stoel, George H. Fraser and Richard A. Franzke, Portland.
Before ROSSMAN, J., presiding, and PERRY, SLOAN, O'CONNELL, GOODWIN, DENECKE and LUSK, Justices.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
ROSSMAN, J.
This is an appeal by the plaintiff Donald W. Wimer from a judgment of the circuit court which dismissed this action. The latter sought recovery of damages from the defendant, a physician, upon charges that while the plaintiff was under the defendant's professional care for an injury to his right wrist the defendant, through negligent treatment, inflicted new injuries upon the plaintiff. The defendant's answer denied all allegations of negligence and averred that after the plaintiff was injured in an industrial accident while in the employ of an employer subject to the *27 Workmen's Compensation Act the Industrial Accident Commission engaged the defendant's services in behalf of the plaintiff. The answer alleged that August 17, 1960, the Commission "granted plaintiff a permanent partial disability award" and that he accepted it. Continuing, the answer alleged:
The answer prayed that plaintiff take nothing by his complaint and "that plaintiff's action be dismissed." The reply admitted that the plaintiff was injured while in the employ of the Johns-Manville Corporation and that he received an award under the Workmen's Compensation Act on August 17, 1960. Virtually all other averments of the answer are denied.
Stipulated facts which the parties submitted to the trial court reveal the following. February 17, 1959, the plaintiff, while in the employ of the Johns-Manville Corporation, sustained an accidental injury to his right wrist. The plaintiff's employer was subject to the Workmen's Compensation Act (hereafter termed "the Act") and was a contributor to the State Industrial Accident Fund. Following the injury plaintiff filed with the State Industrial Accident Commission (hereafter "the Commission") an application for benefits under the Act and consulted the defendant for the purpose of receiving treatment for his injury. It was during the course of this treatment that the alleged negligence which, it is claimed, resulted in a permanent disability occurred. Plaintiff received benefits *28 under the Act until August 12, 1960, at which time the Commission made an award for permanent partial disability which was based upon an evaluation of plaintiff's condition as of that date. The Commission also reimbursed the defendant physician for his services to the plaintiff.
February 8, 1961, the plaintiff filed this action for damages. As an affirmative defense the defendant contended that since the plaintiff filed for and accepted a final award for the injury under the Act, he is barred from maintaining the action. The plaintiff denies that the award he accepted was for the injuries alleged to have arisen from the defendant's negligent treatment. He contends that the award was solely for the consequences of the original injury. The issue which the parties submitted to the trial court and which must be decided upon this appeal is: after the Commission has made and the injured workman has accepted a final award for injury incurred in the course of his employment, may he recover from a negligent physician damages for the aggravation of the original injury.
ORS 656.154 (1) provides:
*29 From ORS 656.312 we quote as follows:
It will be noticed that those two sections of our laws offer no interference to the maintenance of an action of this character if (1) the defendant is "a third person" and (2) he was not "at the time of the injury, on premises over which he had joint supervision and control" with the Johns-Manville Corporation and was not "an employer subject to ORS 656.002 to 656.590." No one contends that the defendant had "joint supervision and control" with the Johns-Manville Corporation over the premises where the plaintiff was injured if we deem the premises as either the place where the original injury occurred (the Johns-Manville plant) or the place where the aggravation occurred (the defendant's medical office). Nor does any one contend that the defendant was "an employer subject" to the Workmen's Compensation Act.
ORS 656.316 states:
It is not claimed that the Commission made any effort to require the plaintiff to make an election. It is apparent, of course, that the plaintiff instituted this action and that the latter is an effort "to recover damages" as that term is employed in ORS 656.312, supra.
The defendant contends that a physician whose negligence results in aggravation of the original injury is not a "third person" within the purview of the statute and that in any event the plaintiff's acceptance from the Commission of the final award for his injury constituted an election to take the award in lieu of any damages he may have been entitled to. He concludes that the "election" bars plaintiff from maintaining this action.
1, 2. In the absence of a clear legislative intent to the contrary, this court is bound to give to the words of a statute their natural and ordinary meaning. Blalock v. City of Portland, 206 Or 74, 291 P2d 218 (1955). It is a maxim so well established as to require no citation of authority that a statute is to be construed as a whole and that effect must be given to the overall policy which it is intended to promote.
ORS 656.004, which is the preamble to our workmen's compensation law, reveals in unmistakable language that the purpose of the Act is to define the rights and liabilities of employers and their employees who have sustained injuries in the course of their employment. That section also makes it clear that the degree of certainty brought by the Act into this phase of industrial relations was intended to benefit the *31 public as a whole by reducing the volume of litigation and thus diminish the cost to the taxpayer. It is only in this role as taxpayers that third persons, that is, persons other than the employer and his injured employee, are designated as beneficiaries under the Act.
We quote the following from Schumacher v. Leslie, 360 Mo 1238, 232 SW2d 913 (1950):
We consider this conclusion sound and applicable to our Act. Nothing in the Act persuades us that we would be justified in placing upon the term "third person" a meaning other than the usual one. The Act is intended to govern those who stand to each other in the relationship of employer and employee. All others are third persons to this relationship and, unless specifically referred to in the Act, have neither benefits nor liabilities thereunder. See, generally, Note, Malpractice Actions and Workmen's Compensation, 36 Virginia Law Review 781; Seaton v. United States Rubber Co., 223 Ind. 404, 61 NE2d 177 (1945); Baker v. Wycoff, 95 Utah 199, 79 P2d 77 (1938); Suter, Malpractice and the Workmen's Compensation Acts, 17 Insurance Counsel Journal 259; Leidy, Malpractice Actions and Compensation Acts, 29 Michigan Law Review 568. As was said in Fauver v. Bell, 192 Va 518, 65 SE2d 575:
At common law an injured employee whose injury had been aggravated through the negligence of a physician could tack onto his claim for damages against his employer his claim against the physician. It was reasoned that the physician's negligence was a proximate result of the original injury. But the law also recognized the workman's right to keep the two claims separate and to sue the employer for his negligence and the physician for the consequences of his malpractice. Pollock on Torts (13th ed.) pp 485-487; Suter, Malpractice and the Workmen's Compensation Acts, supra; Leidy, Malpractice Actions and Compensation Acts, supra; Virginia Law Review, Malpractice Actions and Workmen's Compensation, supra.
The following is taken from Industrial Commission v. Standard Insurance Co., 370 P2d 156 (1962):
We have noted that at common law an injured workman in a situation such as the one before us had two causes of action: one against his employer and the other against the negligent physician. The Act confers upon the employer immunity from an action for *33 damages. Nowhere does it confer upon the negligent physician a similar immunity. It must be concluded, then, that the injured workman's cause of action against the physician remains.
A further basis for this conclusion appears from the provisions of ORS 656.154 (1) which have been set forth above. That section specifically confers upon two classes of third parties immunity from suit (1) third persons in the same employ as the injured employee and (2) "such third person if he or his workman causing the injury was, at the time of the injury, on premises over which he had joint supervision and control with the employer of the injured workman and was an employer * * *" subject to the Act. The fact that the legislature specifically conferred immunity upon two classes of third persons warrants an inference that it intended all other third persons to be subject to the general terms of the section which provide for actions by injured workmen against third parties. 2 Sutherland, Statutory Construction, § 4915, p 412.
3. We conclude that a physician in the position of the defendant in the case before us is a third person within the purview of the Act and as such is amenable to an action for damages by an injured workman.
We have noted that the defendant also contends that regardless of whether a person in his position be deemed a third person, the plaintiff is barred from proceeding with this action as a consequence of his acceptance of a final award for his injury from the Commission. In support of this contention defendant relies principally upon the cases of McDonough v. National Hospital Association, 134 Or 451, 294 P 351 (1930) and Williams v. Dale, 139 Or 105, 8 P2d 578 (1932). The McDonough decision met with partial *34 concurrence; the Williams case had a dissent. The Williams case, which is almost indistinguishable on its facts from the case at bar, held that when an injured workman accepted compensation for the whole injury, the aggravation by a negligent physician was a part of the original injury and the workman could not recover damages from the physician. In arriving at its result in the Williams case, the court proceeded under the assumption that the acceptance by the workman of a final award under the Act constituted an election and that the workman thereby waived his cause of action against the negligent physician. We proceed to consider whether such an assumption may reasonably be made under existing statutes.
ORS 656.314 says:
ORS 656.318 says:
*35 ORS 656.320 provides that an election by the injured workman not to proceed against the third party operates as an assignment of his cause of action against that person to the Commission.
ORS 656.324 (2) states:
Permeating the above-quoted sections of the Act is the assumption that the injured workman would be receiving or have received benefits under the Act prior to the institution of an action for damages against a third person. In commenting upon these and related sections, Justice McALLISTER (now Chief Justice McALLISTER) in the case of Manke v. Nehalem Logging Co., 211 Or 211, 301 P2d 192, 315 P2d 539, said on behalf of this court:
We adhere to this cogent statement of the law under the Act. The right to elect between remedies was granted the injured workman as a benefit rather than a burden. To thrust upon the average worker the dilemma of choosing between damages which might take several months or years to realize and the certain payments to be received under the Act would convert the benefit into a burden. In some cases the evidence of the physician's negligence might not manifest itself until some time after a final award had been accepted.
4. We do not deem the acceptance by an injured workman of benefits under the Act to be an election not to proceed against a third party  in this instance a physician. A review of the McDonough decision in 13 Oregon Law Review 72 stated:
We have noted that the McDonough and Williams cases proceeded under an assumption that an acceptance by the workman of a final award under the act constituted an election and that the workman thereby waived his cause of action against the negligent physician. Whatever merits that assumption may have had under the Oregon Code of 1930, under which those cases were decided, have vanished in light of subsequent alterations to the Act. See, generally, Moore, *37 Third Party Recovery from Malpracticing Physicians, 2 Willamette Law Journal 48. Such assumption is clearly indefensible under the present statute. The material change in the subsequent legislation renders the McDonough and Williams cases inapplicable to the one now at bar.
5. Although we have mentioned several sections of our Workmen's Compensation Act, we wish to make it clear that plaintiff did not derive the cause of action mentioned in his complaint from any provision of that act. His cause of action came to him from the common law, and our purpose in mentioning the Workmen's Compensation Act has been to show that through amendments of it since the announcements of the holdings in McDonough v. National Hospital Association, supra, and Williams v. Dale, supra, those decisions no longer prevent an injured workman who is the victim of malpractice from enforcing his cause of action against the physician whose negligence injured him.
We are aware of no reason why a negligent physician should not be held liable for his failure to have acted with reasonable care. The defendant would place the burden for a physician's negligence upon the Commission and through the Commission upon the employer. We do not believe that the Act contemplates this result.
The plaintiff is entitled to proceed with this action.
The judgment of the circuit court is reversed and the cause is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.