Court Opinion

ID: 9691291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:23:21.295484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:18.038481
License: Public Domain

North, J.
(concurring in affirmance). While I am in accord with the result reached by Mr. JusticeDethmers, I am of the opinion that our decision-might also be bottomed on a ground which seems to me clearly tenable and which is herein noted.
The 6-months limitation (CL 1948, § 412.15 [Stat Ann 1949 Cum Supp § 17.165]) which Mr. Justice-Bushnell cites and on which he relies, has been in the statute for many years. Its material provisions were in the workmen’s compensation law as originally enacted in 1912. See PA 1912 (1st Ex Sess), No 10, pt 2, § 15 (CL 1915, § 5445). This statute provides only for a limitation of time within which “proceedings for compensation for an injury under this act shall be maintained.” At the time it was en*377acted compensation was payable only to an employee who had suffered a compensable injury, or to his dependents in event of his resulting death. It was only to them when compensation was sought that the limitation applied as embodied in the statute by the legislature. More than 30 years later the legislature by PA 1943, No 245, enacted an additional section (CL 1948, § 412.8a [Stat Ann 1949 Cum Supp § 17.158 (1)]), which provides:
“If death results from the injury and the employee shall leave no dependents within the meaning of this act, the employer shall pay or cause to be paid the sum of $1,000, less any amount paid to the employee as compensation during his lifetime for the injury which resulted in death. Such sum shall be paid into the State treasury of this State to be held as a second-injury fund and applied solely to the payment of compensation as hereinafter prescribed in this section. If an employee has at the time of injury permanent disability in the form of the loss of a hand or arm or foot or leg or eye and at the time of such injury incurs further permanent disability in the form of the loss of a hand or arm or foot or leg or eye, he shall be deemed to be totally and permanently disabled and shall be paid, from the funds provided in this section, compensation for total and permanent disability after subtracting the amount of compensation received by the employee for both such losses. The payment of compensation under this section shall begin at the conclusion of the payments made for the second permanent disability. Such payments shall be made upon the order of the compensation commission.”
Payments, under the above section, to the State “to be held as a second-injury fund” are not payments of “compensationInstead they are payments into a fund held by the State. Such payments are not measured in amount by the character or extent of the employee’s injury or by the amount of his earn*378ings, which are essential to awarding compensation. Instead payments into the State fund are fixed in an arbitrary amount by the legislature, and such payments are not obtained by “proceedings for compensation for an injury” which is the statutory proceedings provided in section 15, part 2, of the workmen’s compensation law (CL 1948, § 412.15) to which the 6-months limitation in that section applies. The section above quoted, which was added to the statute in 1943, providing for a second-injury fund to be held by the State contains no reference to the 6-months limitation. It does not provide the time within which the State shall apply for such payments or a time within which employers must make the payments. We find no justification'for.implying or reading into that section the 6-months limitation. We therefore conclude that the limitation in section 15, part 2, of the workmen’s compensation law (CL 1948, § 412.15) is not applicable to the statutory provision (CL 1948, § 412.8a) for payments into “a second-injury fund” to be held by the State.
I am in accord with Justice Dethmers’ conclusion that it was proper to take additional testimony be-for the deputy commissioner, and that there was competent evidence in support of the commission’s finding that the employee’s death resulted from a compensable injury and that he left no dependents. The award is affirmed, with costs to appellee.
Boyles, Dethmers, Btttzel, and Carr, JJ., concurred with North, J.