Court Opinion

ID: 9711749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:38:18.816591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:07.251956
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(dissenting). Sec. 102.12, Stats. 1947, provides in part as follows:
“Regardless of whether notice was received, if no payment of compensation (other than medical treatment or burial expense) is made, and no application filed with the commission within two years from the date of the injury or death, or from the date the employee or his dependent knew or ought to have known the nature of the disability and its relation to the employment, the right to compensation therefor shall be barred, except that the right to compensation shall not be barred if the employer knew or should have known, within the two-year period, that the employee had sustained or probably would sustain permanent disability.” (Italics ours.)
The majority opinion construes the italicized portion of the foregoing quoted statute as applying only to cases of occupational disease and not to injuries received as a result of industrial accident. These words of the statute are plain and unambiguous and I can see no necessity for resorting to any statutory history in order to construe their meaning.
The learned trial judge in construing such words of the statute as applied to the plaintiff employee stated:
“Even though he does not file within two years from the date of injury, he is entitled to have a determination on the merits if he files within two years from the date when he knew or ought to have known the nature of the disability, and its relation to the employment, even though this may have been three or four years after the date of injury.”
I fully agree with the learned trial court’s interpretation of the statute as applied to the plaintiff employee in the instant case. It seems to me that the statutory construction favored *324by the majority opinion, which would exclude such provision of the statute from having any application to industrial accident cases, violates the rule of construction which this court has so many times stated, i. e., that provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act are to be as liberally construed to effect the beneficent purposes intended as it reasonably can be. Kiel v. Industrial Comm. (1916), 163 Wis. 441, 445, 158 N. W. 68; Ronning v. Industrial Comm. (1925), 185 Wis. 384, 387, 200 N. W. 652; and Johnson v. Wisconsin Lumber & Supply Co. (1931), 203 Wis. 304, 234 N. W. 506, 72 A. L. R. 1279.
As well stated by Mr. Chief Justice Rosenberry in Johnson v. Wisconsin Lumber & Supply Co., supra (p. 310) :
“It has been said over and over again in workmen’s compensation cases that the act should be liberally construed, and a consideration of the cases indicates that a most liberal construction has been placed upon it in order that the injured workmen may be compensated for injuries incident to their employment.”
In the instant case the plaintiff employee lost no time from work from the date of the injury on April 22, 1948, until July, 1951, when he had a recurrence of severe swelling to his right knee and consulted two physicians. One diagnosed the condition as a “ruptured cartilage” and the other as a “possible torn cartilage,” and both recommended surgery. The plaintiff employee then promptly filed his application for compensation with the commission under date of July 27, 1951. It was not until the examination of these two physicians in July, 1951, that plaintiff claims that he had any intimation that the condition of his knee was due to a ruptured or torn cartilage.
The foregoing facts would support a finding that plaintiff did not know until July, 1951, “the nature of the disability.” If this is so, his application was filed within two years of the time that he did know the nature of his disability.
*325The fact that this court by prior decisions has construed the afore-quoted language of the statute as applying only to industrial disease and not to industrial accident should not deter us from refusing to follow such past precedents if we are convinced that they were erroneous. No rule of property or principle of law applicable to commercial transactions is involved.
For the reasons hereinbefore stated, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court, which remanded the proceedings to the Industrial Commission to make a finding “as to whether the employee knew or ought to have known the nature of the disability and its relation to the employment.”
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Broadfoot concurs in this dissenting opinion.