Case Name: Jeffrey Owen WHITE v. MALONE PROPERTIES, INC. and Carroll D. Malone, d/b/a Malone Construction Company
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1986-09-24
Citations: 494 So. 2d 576
Docket Number: No. 55195
Parties: Jeffrey Owen WHITE v. MALONE PROPERTIES, INC. and Carroll D. Malone, d/b/a Malone Construction Company.
Judges: WALKER, C.J., ROY NOBLE LEE and HAWKINS, P.JJ., and DAN M. LEE and ANDERSON, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 494
Pages: 576–583

Head Matter:
Jeffrey Owen WHITE v. MALONE PROPERTIES, INC. and Carroll D. Malone, d/b/a Malone Construction Company.
No. 55195.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Sept. 24, 1986.
David C. Frazier, Gordon, Myers & Frazier, Pascagoula, and Wayne A. Burnett, Jackson, for appellant.
Alben N. Hopkins and Lisa P. Dodson, Hopkins, Logan, Vaughn & Anderson, Gulfport, for appellees.

Opinion:
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
GRIFFIN, Justice,
for the Court:
The opinions rendered in this cause on March 12, 1986, are withdrawn and the following is substituted as the opinion of the Court:
The appellant filed a common law action in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Harrison County, seeking damages for injuries incurred in Louisiana while employed by the appellees. The Circuit Judge, in a well written opinion, sustained a motion for summary judgment in favor of the appellees and made the following findings of fact:
Appellant was a resident citizen of the state of Mississippi; appellee Malone Properties, Inc. was a Mississippi corporation and appellee Carroll D. Malone was a resident citizen of the state of Mississippi; appellant was employed by appellees at the time of his alleged injury on or about June 20, 1977; appellant sustained the alleged injury in the course and scope of his employment; on or about June 20,1977, appellant and his wife were living in the state of Louisiana and were working in the state of Louisiana; appellant was hired by appel-lees in Louisiana to work in Louisiana, worked for appellees in Louisiana exclusively and was paid by appellees in Louisiana; appellant's alleged injury was sustained in Louisiana and he was treated for the alleged injury in Louisiana; appellees had a policy of insurance issued by Fireman's Fund Insurance Company covering workmen's compensation claims with an effective period of September 1, 1976, to September 1, 1977, and various worker's compensation claims were paid under this policy to employees working in Louisiana for appellees; appellant's wife had full knowledge that appellees were covered by worker's compensation insurance, and no worker's compensation claim was ever made for appellant's alleged injury on appellees or on Fireman's Fund Insurance Company; and appellees were not domiciled in Louisiana but were doing business in Louisiana and own more than $25,000.00 in immovable property in Louisiana.
The judge's findings are amply supported by the evidence (depositions and affidavits). The only issue worthy of note in this case is the application of Louisiana's Worker's Compensation Act.
This Court has determined the question. First, in an unanimous opinion written by Judge Brady in Bethlehem Steel Company v. Payne, 183 So.2d 912 (Miss.1966), and next in an unanimous opinion by Judge Jones in L. & A. Construction Co. v. McCharen, 198 So.2d 240 (Miss.1967). In Bethlehem Steel, supra, Payne filed an action in the Chancery Court of Harrison County suing for benefits under Louisiana's Worker's Compensation Act. There, as here, the time to apply for benefits had expired under Louisiana's statutes. Payne was employed by Bethlehem Steel at the Michoud plant near New Orleans. The plaintiff was a resident of Mississippi but was employed in Louisiana on a permanent basis and was not there on any temporary assignment. Bethlehem Steel was qualified to do business in Mississippi.
In Bethlehem Steel, the Court stated:
Louisiana Revised Statutes, Title 23, section 1031.1 (1974) reads in part as follows:
D. All claims for disablement arising from an occupational disease are forever barred unless the employee files a claim with his employer within four months of the date of his contraction of the disease or within four months of the date that the disease first manifested itself.
Louisiana Revised Statutes, Title 23, section 1032 (1964) provides:
The rights and remedies herein granted to an employee or his dependent on account of a personal injury for which he is entitled to compensation under this Chapter shall be exclusive of all other rights and remedies of such employee, his personal representatives, dependents, or relations.
Judge Brady quoted with approval Stumberg, Conflict of Laws p. 148 (3d ed.1963), as follows:
Another exception which is frequently made in the decisions exists where a statute which creates a right, in the same enactment provides for the time within which suit is to be brought. In such cases a majority of the courts have taken the position that the limitation qualifies the right so that unless suit is brought within the time allowed under the foreign statute, no suit may be brought at the forum, even though the time there may be longer.
The Court continued:
In the case of Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Dixon, 168 Miss. 14, 20, 150 So. 811, 812 (1933), which was an action under the Louisiana Compensation Law, this Court held:
Thus there is introduced, as applicable to the rights of action given by the compensation statutes, the rule that, where a statute creates a right of action which did not exist under the common law and the same statute fixes the time within which action or proceedings to enforce the same may be begun, the time so fixed is not a mere statute of limitations, but is an integral part of the right thus created, is a substantive condition, so that, after the time fixed in the statute, the right to institute an action thereunder becomes extinct, not only in the state which created the right, but everywhere else.
The chancellor's finding in favor of the claimant was reversed and decree was entered here for the appellant.
In L. & A. Construction Co., supra, Tennessee's Worker's Compensation Act was construed, and the same result was reached as in Bethlehem Steel. Restatement, Conflict of Laws section 400 at 488 (1934) was quoted with approval, as follows:
No recovery can be had under the Workmen's Compensation Act of a state if neither the harm occurred nor the contract of employment was made in the state.
Argument is made that the center of gravity test should be applied. We are unable to find where such an approach is applied to worker's compensation cases. In L. & A., supra, we find the following:
Moreover, the rights, remedies, and procedure provided by the compensation laws are exclusive; and matters relating to compensation claims are governed exclusively by the provisions of the acts, and are not controlled by general rules of procedure applicable in cases in law or equity, except as specifically provided.
198 So.2d at 243.
The center of gravity rule was first recognized by this Court in Mitchell v. Craft, 211 So.2d 509 (Miss.1968), and probably more appropriately called the "most substantial relationship rule". Since it is obvious from the facts as found by the Circuit Judge that Louisiana has the "most substantial relationship" to the action alleged in this cause, then the laws of that state must be applied. Louisiana provided the plaintiff a remedy, an exclusive remedy, and this Court cannot correct his error in not pursuing what Louisiana provided for him.
There is no need for further elaboration on the law applicable to the facts in the case sub judice, however, in order to delineate the purpose of this opinion, the holdings in Bethlehem Steel, supra, and L. & A. Construction Co., supra, remain intact, and nothing is considered except the applicability of the Louisiana Worker's Compensation Act. Specifically, we do not consider Mississippi Code Annotated § 15-1-65 (1972) nor in any manner disturb the cases there annotated, or Cowan v. Ford Motor Co., 437 So.2d 46 (Miss.1983), an opinion in response to a question certified to this Court by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. § 15-1-65 is concerned only with non-resident defendants who may move to Mississippi after the accrual of an action against them in the state or country of their former residence. Here both Malone and the corporation bearing his name were subject to suit in Mississippi at the time of the alleged accident. Any reiteration or modification of that statute would be better undertaken in a case in which the statute is the crux of the matter.
AFFIRMED.
WALKER, C.J., ROY NOBLE LEE and HAWKINS, P.JJ., and DAN M. LEE and ANDERSON, JJ., concur.
ROBERTSON and PRATHER, JJ., specially concur.
SULLIVAN, J., not participating.