Court Opinion

ID: 9855334
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:22:56.663685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:41.218224
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HARRISON:
I concur in the foregoing opinion of Mr. Justice Castles.
Mr. Justice Adair by his dissent does not agree with the legislature’s definition of “injury,” but I feel our duty is not to substitute our judgment for theirs, but to apply the law as it is written.
Mr. Justice John C. Harrison likewise does not agree with the definition of “injury” as set forth in section 92-418, R.C.M. *4701947, and quotes from Dosen v. East Butte Copper Mining Co., 78 Mont. 579, 254 P. 880. That quotation was before the court in Kerns v. Anaconda Copper Mining Co., 87 Mont. 546, 549, 289 P. 563, 564, and the court stated:
“The theory of the Workmen’s Compensation Act (Rev. Codes 1921, § 2816 et seq. [now R.C.M.1947, § 92-101 et seq.], as amended) is that loss occasioned to an employee, by reason of an injury, shall not be borne by him alone but directly by the industry and indirectly by the public, and to accomplish the result intended, its provisions must be liberally interpreted. Dosen v. East Butte Mining Co., 78 Mont. 579, 254 P. 880. However, while every provision of the act will be liberally construed in order to carry out its humanitarian purpose and such compensation as the act permits will at all times be awarded, the Industrial Accident Board and the courts are bound by the provisions of the act and cannot award compensation in a case for which no provision is made in the act (Page v. New York Realty Co., 59 Mont. 305, 196 P. 871), or disregard the plain provisions of the act (Chmielewska v. Butte & Superior Min. Co., 81 Mont. 36, 261 P. 616).
“The act is not framed on the theory of life insurance for employees, but on that of compensation for injuries sustained in the course of employment. Landeen v. Toole County Refining Co., 85 Mont. 41, 277 P. 615. In each case arising under the act, the burden rests upon the claimant to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the injury or death resulted (a) from an industrial accident (b) arising out of and (c) in the course of employment. Wirta v. North Butte Mining Co., 64 Mont. 279, 210 P. 332, 30 A.L.R. 964; Nicholson v. Roundup Coal [Mining] Co., 79 Mont. 358, 257 P. 270.”
MR. JUSTICE DOYLE concurs.