Court Opinion

ID: 9686745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:04:38.647327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:21.864052
License: Public Domain

Brown, J.
(dissenting). I submit, with all respect, that unless we overrule California Packing Co. v. Industrial Comm. (1955), 270 Wis. 72, 70 N. W. (2d) 200, we are controlled by it and it requires a setting aside of that part of the examiner’s order which attempted to reserve jurisdiction *484to award further compensation benefits if the employee’s condition changed for the worse. Both the Industrial Commission and the learned trial court so interpreted the California Packing Co. opinion and mandate.
In California Packing Co. v. Industrial Comm., supra, and in the case now before us, we have to consider an order declaring a partial permanent disability and an award of compensation made on the basis of the permanent disability so found. In both cases there was also an order reserving jurisdiction to increase the benefits if the employee’s condition should deteriorate. In neither case was there any evidence of the likelihood of such change; all the evidence in each case was to the effect that the condition had become static. The time, then, had come for a final order. Under such circumstances in California Packing Co. v. Industrial Comm., supra, we said (p. 77): “. . . the order based on the finding of 64 per cent permanent disability was a final order; and that the commission may not reserve jurisdiction to award further benefits.” The learned trial court had (p. 73), . . set aside that portion of the commission’s order which reserved jurisdiction . . . and confirmed the order awarding the 64 per cent permanent disability.” A¥e affirmed.
If jurisdiction may not be reserved, it seems to me that jurisdiction must end and the order made in reliance on jurisdiction which does not exist is void and a nullity. The commission and the learned trial court so interpreted our opinion and our mandate in California Packing Co. v. Industrial Comm., supra. Court and commission retained that portion of the present order which was a final order while setting aside the part attempting, without supporting evidence, to reserve jurisdiction to act further.
The learned trial court, in the present case, well said:
“The application of the plaintiff for additional compensation, and which is the subject of this review, was dismissed *485by the commission for want of jurisdiction in accordance with the rule established in the case of California Packing Co. v. Industrial Comm., 270 Wis. 72. In this case the court held that where the commission finds and fixes the extent of permanent partial disability after the healing period is over it becomes a final order and the commission thereafter is without jurisdiction to treat such an order as an interlocutory one, not for the same disability, and reserve jurisdiction to make any further order.”
Believing that that is what we determined in California Packing Co. v. Industrial Comm., supra, I consider the judgment below should be affirmed.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Chief Justice Martin joins in this dissent.