Opinion ID: 1177447
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: election of employer to come within the provisions of chapter 232, session laws of kansas, 1927.

Text: To the Commissioner of Workmen's Compensation: You are hereby notified that Commissioners of Riley County, Kansas, Manhattan, Kansas, hereby elect to come under the provisions of Chapter 232, Session Laws of Kansas, 1927, being `An act relating to workmen's compensation'; that said Commissioners of Riley County, Kansas, is an employer of labor, and is engaged in the business of building roads, bridges, culverts, etc., city of ________ and in the county of Riley, in the State of Kansas. In Kopplin v. Sedgwick County Comm'rs, 139 Kan. 837, 32 P.2d 1058, (decided June 9, 1934), this court, in considering the authority of a municipality to elect to come under the Workmen's Compensation Act, held: Municipalities, in the exercise of their normal functions and not engaged in trade or business, do not operate under the workmen's compensation act, and they are not authorized by said act to elect to come within its provisions and be bound thereby. (Syl.) and in the opinion said: ... Municipal corporations have only such powers as are expressly granted or necessarily incident to those granted ( State, ex rel., v. City of Coffeyville, 127 Kan. 663, 274 Pac. 258), and at no place in the various acts with reference to municipal corporations is there any grant of power to them to elect to come within the provisions of the workmen's compensation act, which on its face and under decisions of this court rendered, in part, prior to the amendments relied on, did not apply to municipal corporations. In the recent case of Simpson v. Kansas City, 137 Kan. 915, 22 P.2d 955, it was held that _________ `Municipalities, in the exercise of their normal functions and not engaged in trade or business, do not operate under the workmen's compensation act.' (Syl.) (p. 840.) In 1935, following rendition of the foregoing decisions, the Workmen's Compensation Commissioner addressed a communication to all counties, including Riley County, informing them that their elections were invalid. That notice read: There was filed in the office of the Commissioner of Workmen's Compensation an election by Commissioners of Riley County, Kans., engaged in the business of road, bridge, culvert constr., to operate under the Kansas Workmen's Compensation Act, said election being filed the 21st day of July, 1931. For reason stated in bulletin inclosed said election is invalid and not binding. If perchance notices have been posted advising employees they are subject to the supervision of the compensation act, it might be well to withdraw such notices. For injuries sustained by employees where insurance has been carried there may be a right of action by the injured direct again to the insurance carrier on the policy, but, even so, the proceeding would not be before the Commissioner of Workmen's Compensation. (For information as to this see Robertson v. Labette Co., 122 Kan. 486, and again 124 Kan. 705.) The bulletin enclosed with the foregoing communication read: