Court Opinion

ID: 9794288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:03:15.697344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:40.641766
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CASTLES:
I dissent. Not having had the opportunity to express my views when the majority opinion was filed, I wish to do so now.
The 1961 Legislative Session is now meeting, but in this opinion the majority of this court has taken over legislative duties by amending the statutes. The statute, R.C.M. 1947, § 92-418, specifically excludes “contraction of disease” from workmen’s compensation by specific definition. How the majority of this court can ignore such a plain, unequivocal legislative definition is beyond this writer’s comprehension. If this can be done, one wonders why a legislative session is necessary.
The language of two sections of the Montana Workmen’s Compensation Act is involved in this case. R.C.M. 1947, § 92-614, provides, in part:
“Every employer * * * shall be liable * * * to an employee * * * who shall receive an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment *' * Emphasis supplied.
“Injury”, as used in the Workmen’s Compensation Act, is defined as follows in section 92-418:
“ ‘Injury’ or ‘injured’ refers only to an injury resulting from some fortuitous event, as distinguished from the contraction of disease.” Emphasis supplied.
It is recognized that the Workmen’s Compensation Act is to be liberally construed in favor of the workman. R.C.M. 1947, § 92-838; Murphy v. Anaconda Co., 133 Mont. 198, 321 P.2d 1094. However, this court may not disregard plain provisions of the statute under the guise of liberal interpretation. State ex. rel. Magelo v. Industrial Accident Board, 102 Mont. 455, 59 P.2d 785; Geary v. Anaconda Copper Min. Co., 120 *599Mont. 485, 188 P.2d 185. From the express language of section 92-418 it is clear that the contraction of a disease such as poliomyelitis is not an “injury” within the contemplation of the Montana "Workmen’s Compensation Act. For this reason compensation should be denied in the instant case.
Claimant has pressed several arguments upon the court in attempting to justify an award. She has cited Montana decisions which she claims have allowed compensation where there is a disease involved. She has also cited decisions from other jurisdictions allowing compensation where the specific disease of poliomyelitis is involved.
This court has held that there may be compensation for the results of a disease where the disease has been aggravated or accelerated by an injury arising out of and in the course of the employment. Nicholson v. Roundup Coal Min. Co., 79 Mont. 358, 257 P. 270; Murphy v. Industrial Accident Board, 93 Mont. 1, 16 P.2d 705; Gaffney v. Industrial Accident Board, 129 Mont. 394, 287 P.2d 256; Young v. Liberty National Insurance Co., 138 Mont. 458, 357 P.2d 886. However, this is much different than allowing recovery for the mere contraction of disease where no “injury” is involved within the statutory language.
Claimant has cited certain decisions of this court where recovery was granted for conditions of heart disease. However, these cases recognized that there was an “injury” within the statutory language which was caused or contributed to by the employment. Rathbun v. Taber Tank Lines, Inc., 129 Mont. 121, 283 P.2d 966, held that an unexpected internal heart failure from stress and strain constituted a “fortuitous event” and therefore an “injury” within the statutory language. Murphy v. Anaconda Company, 133 Mont. 198, 321 P.2d 1094, held that heart failure which resulted from the usual stress and strain of the employee’s work constituted an “injury” within the statute. However, these cases are not comparable to the fact situation in the instant ease.
*600Claimant, and the majority opinion, has cited decisions of other jurisdictions where recovery was allowed in cases involving the disease of poliomyelitis. Some of these decisions allowed compensation where an injury arising out of and in the course of the employment caused the contraction of poliomyelitis. In none of these cases was there involved a statute similar to the Montana statute. Claimant has stressed the California decision of Los Angeles County v. Industrial Accident Comm., 13 Cal.App.2d 69, 56 P.2d 577, which allowed compensation to a nurse who was working in a hospital where there were active cases of poliomyelitis present. In that case, there was also much evidence of the existence of the disease among the doctors and nurses working in the hospital. However, the California statutes on the subject are much different than those of Montana. In California, (West’s Ann. Cal. Labor Code, § 3201 et seq.) compensation is allowed for an “injury” arising out of and in the course of the employment, but at the time the Los Angeles County case was decided “injury” was defined as follows by the California statutes: “The term ‘injury,’ as used in this act, shall include any injury or disease arising out of the employment * * Emphasis supplied. Cal.Stats.1919 ch. 471, § 3(4), p. 911. So it is evident that the California statutes defining “injury” expressly include contraction of disease within the definition, whereas, the contraction of disease is expressly excluded from the definition of “injury” in the Montana statute. For this reason, any California cases on the subject have no application in Montana. The same is true of Colorado where the majority opinion relies on Industrial Commission v. .Corwin Hospital, 126 Colo. 358, 250 P.2d 135.
We can perceive of no case which would more clearly fall within the exclusion of the language “as distinguished from the contraction of disease” than the instant case. In holding this claim to be compensable, the statutory language is being abrogated and the result is nothing but gross judicial legisla*601tion. From the language of section 92-418 it is clear that the legislature did not intend to include the contraction of disease within the ambit of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. This legislative intent is further evidenced by the recent passage, in 1959, of the Occupational Disease Act by the legislature which is now codified as R.C.M. 1947, §§ 92-1301 to 92-1368. This act authorizes compensation for the contraction of certain specified occupational diseases where there is a direct causal connection between the employment and the contraction of the disease. It should be noted that poliomyelitis is not one of the specified occupational diseases for which compensation is allowed. When this Occupational Disease Act was passed the Legislature intended to allow compensation for certain diseases which were caused by the employment and must have realized that diseases were not, at that time, within the scope of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Legislature obviously did not intend to include the infectious, contagious, contact type disease of poliomyelitis within the coverage of the Montana Workmen’s Compensation Act by the plain language of section 92-418.
In addition to the above reason for denying compensation, the claimant has also failed to sustain her burden of proof in proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, a causal connection between the employment and the contraction of the disease. See Landeen v. Toole County Refining Co., 85 Mont. 41, 277 P. 615; Kerns v. Anaconda Copper Min. Co., 87 Mont. 546, 289 P. 563.
Claimant is attempting to show a causal connection between the employment and the contraction of the disease because of the nature of the deceased’s work. The nature of the employment, from the evidence, necessitated his being outside in the hot sun. It was claimed that the deceased ate his lunches at the city shops which were near hobo jungles and a storm-sewer outlet. It was also claimed that flies abounded in the area. There was some evidence that the garbage trucks sometimes *602contained human fecal matter, and that they were parked in the shop area during the lunch hour.
Concerning the causal connection, the testimony of four doctors was offered into evidence. The two doctors called by the claimant as witnesses were both attending physicians at the time of deceased’s death. The two doctors called as witnesses for the Board had not been attending physicians but were qualified as having special knowledge concerning the disease of poliomyelitis. All of the doctors testified that poliomyelitis is a contact, epidemic-type of disease and that the primary method of contracting it is through person-to-person contact. All of these witnesses agreed that the virus could exist in human excreta. They testified that fatigue was not a factor which would make a person more susceptible to the contraction of the disease. The testimony concerning flies was to the effect that they have not been considered much of a factor during epidemics and they have also not been considered a major source from which the disease could be contracted. It is significant that when claimant’s witnesses were tendered a hypothetical question which included the conditions and surroundings of the deceased’s employment, and were asked if this contributed to the death of deceased they would not so testify. One of these doctors testified that he could not say where, how, or when the deceased contracted the disease and that it was possible the deceased contracted it at home or going to or from his job as well as on the job. The other doctor called by the claimant testified, concerning this same hypothetical question, that the factors could possibly be related to the contraction of the disease by the deceased but probably they were not. The testimony of the doctors who testified for the Board was, in essence, that the deceased would have been more likely to have contracted the disease in his contact with other people, either at home or at a funeral which he had attended, than to have contracted the disease because of the conditions of his employment.
*603The claimant has not sustained her burden of proving the causal connection between the employment and the contraction of the disease by the above-evidence.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court should be reversed and the order of the Industrial Accident Board, denying compensation, should be reinstated.