Court Opinion

ID: 9756439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:28:57.866981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:22.623429
License: Public Domain

Powers, J.,
also dissenting. I am also troubled by the majority’s decision. It rests on the proposition that the defendants, as third-party beneficiaries, were unjustly en*99riched. I cannot see how this is so because the defendants, in good faith, rendered services for which they were entitled to be compensated. Rather, it seems to me that it is the employee Woods who was the true beneficiary of the unjust enrichment which by dictum this court unanimously held in Woods v. Safeway System, Inc., 102 R. I. 493, 232 A.2d 121, gave the plaintiff a right of recovery by a civil action in the Superior Court.
Martin M. Zucker, for plaintiff.
Corcoran, Beckham & Hayes, Joseph T. Houlihan, for Newport Hospital; Moore, Virgadamo, Boyle & Lynch, Jeremiah C. Lynch, for Elie Cohen, defendants.
Moreover, confessing error in my concurrence in Woods v. Safeway System, Inc., supra, I would now hold that except for payments made pursuant to a knowingly fraudulent claim by an employee, an employer has no right to recover compensation in any of its aspects paid pursuant to a final decree of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission. Requiring an employer to be so responsible may be onerous but so are other burdens, such as taxes, that are necessarily incidental to the right to do business in an organized society.
Keeping in mind the broad social concepts of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, I can reach no other conclusion. Specifically then, I agree with the Chief Justice that the instant plaintiff has no right of recovery against the defendants in this civil action.