Court Opinion

ID: 9656093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:35:28.771785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:28.176531
License: Public Domain

Thomas Gallagher, Justice
(dissenting).
I am of the opinion that respondent is entitled to compensation under M. S. A. 1945, § 251.04 and that § 246.29 does not constitute a bar thereto. Section 251.04 provides:
“If, upon the evidence produced at the hearing mentioned in section 246.29, the industrial commission finds that such employee is suffering from tuberculosis contracted m the institution by contact with tuberculous inmates therein, it shall order the director of the division of public institutions to apply for the admission of the employee to the state sanatorium for consumptives * * (Italics supplied.)
It is to be noted that § 251.04 does not require a finding that the claimant referred to therein had become ill while employed m the *78institution for the claimant to be entitled to compensation. It is true that § 246.29 requires the superintendent of a state institution to report to the director of the division of public institutions any employee who has contracted and become ill from tuberculosis while employed in the institution, but that is merely so that proper claims for compensation can be filed therefor. Thereafter under § 251.04 the essential finding to entitle such an employee to compensation is not that he became ill from tuberculosis while employed in the institution but rather that he “contracted” tuberculosis while thus employed. Section 246.29 is clearly but a procedural or administrative enactment, while § 251.04 sets forth the essential requisites which entitle such employee to compensation.
Tuberculosis is known to be a progressive disease and often its presence is unknown to the person afflicted therewith until some years after it is contracted. With this in mind, I feel that under § 251.04 the legislature clearly intended that an employee who had actually contracted the disease while employed in a state institution by virtue of coming in contact with tubercular patients therein was eligible for compensation without the need of establishing illness to the point of incapacity while thus employed.