Court Opinion

ID: 9885550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 13:07:16.134554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:55.068620
License: Public Domain

*565Fuld, J.
(dissenting). The self-insured employer herein, South Buffalo Railway Company, contests the jurisdiction of the Workmen’s Compensation Board to make an award of compensation for the benefit of the injured employee, on the ground that at the time of the accident the employee was a railroad worker engaged in duties directly affecting interstate commerce, and that the exclusive remedy for any injuries sustained by him was an action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (Act, § 1; U. S. Code, tit. 45, § 51). The employer was denied an opportunity before the Board to present evidence in support of its jurisdictional objection, and the issue on this appeal is the validity of that objection on the facts asserted by the employer.
If the Railway Company had challenged the jurisdiction of the Board prior to the making of any award, that challenge, it is indisputable, would have been sustained, since, on the facts posited, the Federal Employers’ Liability Act provides the exclusive remedy. The Board’s jurisdiction in this case is being upheld by this court solely because of the fact that three prior temporary awards of compensation were made by the Board and paid by the employer without any jurisdictional objection being raised and that the employer continued to make payments of compensation — without the compulsion of any award — at the rate previously awarded until shortly before the hearing at which the final award of disability compensation now challenged was made. The employee died about two weeks after the employer ceased making payments.1
On the strength of the employer’s acquiescence in, and payment of, the three temporary awards, and its continuation of payments subsequent to the third temporary award, the Workmen’s Compensation Board made a finding of fact that the employer had “ waived ” its jurisdictional objection and was further precluded from asserting such objection by reason of loches and estoppel. The Appellate Division similarly relied *566on the doctrines of waiver, loches and estoppel in affirming the Board’s determination.
It is not entirely clear whether the decision of this court is predicated on the theory of waiver or on the view that the facts establish a binding executory accord between the parties. Whichever be the basis of the decision, I am constrained to dissent.
We all agree that Congress, by enacting the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, pre-empted the field of liability for injuries to railroad employees whose duties are in furtherance of, or “ directly ” or “ closely * * * affect ” interstate commerce, to the exclusion of regulation by the states. (See New York Central R. R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 147, 152, 153; Erie R. R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 170, 172; Matter of Baird v. New York Central R. R. Co., 299 N. Y. 213, 215, 216; Matter of Wright v. New York Central R. R. Co., 288 N. Y. 719, certiorari denied 317 U. S. 668.) If the duties of the injured employee in this case were in furtherance of interstate commerce or directly or closely affected it, then obviously the state agency had no jurisdiction of the subject matter of his claim. (See Matter of Baird v. New York Central R. R. Co., supra, 299 N. Y. 213, 216; Matter of Newham v. Chile Exploration Co., 232 N. Y. 37, 42; Matter of Doey v. Howland Co., 224 N. Y. 30, 38, certiorari denied 248 U. S. 574.)
We are all further agreed upon the fundamental principle' that a determination made by a tribunal that is without jurisdiction of the subject matter is a nullity, and that the lack of jurisdiction cannot be waived or overcome by the consent or agreement of the parties. (See Matter of Doey v. Howland Co., supra, 224 N. Y. 30, 39; Matter of Newham v. Chile Exploration Co., supra, 232 N. Y. 37, 42; cf. Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U. S. 237, 244; United States v. Corrick, 298 U. S. 435, 440.) In such circumstances, this court has held, ‘ ‘ it is elementary that no agreement, waiver or stipulation could confer upon the state of New York or its courts or commissions, jurisdiction which it does not and cannot possess.” (Matter of Newham v. Chile Exploration Co., supra, 232 N. Y. 37, 42.)
The court, however, reaches the result it does herein in reliance upon an amendment to section 113 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law enacted in 1922, subsequent to the Doey *567and Newham decisions (supra), authorizing awards to be made by the Workmen’s Compensation Board of this state “ in respect of injuries subject to the admiralty or other federal laws in case the claimant, the employer and the insurance carrier waive their admiralty or interstate commerce rights and remedies ”. The constitutionality of this statutory provision has, strangely enough, never been passed upon by this court.
In Fitzgerald v. Harbor Lighterage Co. (244 N. Y. 132), the only case in which we have heretofore had occasion to consider the amended statute, we found it “ unnecessary to determine whether waiver in accordance with this section [§ 113] would supersede the remedy in admirality ”, since we concluded that the facts did not establish a “ waiver ” of the kind required by the statute (244 N. Y., p. 136).
Considered purely as a matter of ‘1 waiver ’ ’, I am unable to see how the mere declaration by the state legislature that the parties may “ waive ” the state’s lack of jurisdiction of the subject matter, can have any added force, when the acts of the parties, relied upon as constituting the waiver, would, in the absence of the statutory declaration, be entirely ineffectual to confer jurisdiction. If the state is excluded from the particular sphere of action, it follows that the state is powerless by its own fiat to confer jurisdiction on itself or on its tribunals.
The parties may, of course, enter into a valid agreement for a release or a compromise or an accord and satisfaction of the employee’s claims under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. The binding effect of such an agreement would ordinarily be determined by our local law of contracts. The state would undoubtedly have power to legislate with respect to the requisites and binding effect of such an agreement, as it has, for example, done in the case of executory accords generally (Personal Property Law, §§ 33-a, 33-b). It is, however, clear that the facts in this case do not suffice to establish either a release or a compromise or an accord or satisfaction effectual under our common law of contracts or under section 33-a of the Personal Property Law.
The court is apparently interpreting section 113 as giving binding effect, as an executory accord, to an express or even implied agreement by the parties to accept any award that *568might thereafter he made by the state tribunal in lieu of a determination of the employee’s claim in accordance with the federal statute. I cannot subscribe to such a strained reading of the language of that section, which speaks, and unequivocally, only in terms of “ waiver ”, and which, indeed, has already been construed by this court as a statute relating to “ waiver ”. (See Fitzgerald v. Harbor Lighterage Co., supra, 244 N. Y. 132, 136-137.) Moreover, the effect of such an interpretation is so far-reaching as to permit any express or implied agreement between the parties to submit to the jurisdiction of the Board to serve as a device for circumventing the jurisdictional limitations on the powers of the state and its tribunals.
If we put aside section 113, it is plain that under our settled course of decision nothing short of an actual accord and satisfaction, evidenced either by express agreement of the parties or by the payment by the employer or insurance carrier, and the acceptance by the employee, of a final award of the Workmen’s Compensation Board would operate to extinguish the employee’s claims under the federal statute and thereby supplant the federal remedy. (See, e.g., Brassel v. Electric Welding Co., 239 N. Y. 78.) Thus, we have squarely held that the “ acceptance of an award not final is at most an accord, and not a satisfaction, with the result that the cause of action for damages continues unextinguished, though subject to a set off to the extent of partial payments ”. (Fitzgerald v. Harbor Lighterage Co., supra, 244 N. Y. 132, 135; see, also, Larscy v. Hogan & Sons, 239 N. Y. 298.)
Whether or not any special significance is to be assigned to section 113 in this regard, Fitzgerald v. Harbor Lighterage Co. (supra, 244 N. Y. 132) impresses me as decisive of the issue now presented. That case involved a stevedore who, injured while working on a vessel in navigable waters, filed a claim for disability compensation with the state compensation tribunal. Two awards were made and paid, covering a period of almost a year, and the case was then placed on the “ final adjustment calendar ”. Before a final award was made, the employee commenced a suit for damages under the federal act. The court, in an opinion written by Judge Cardozo, held that, since no final award had been made, the acceptance of the temporary awards constituted “ at most an accord, and *569not a satisfaction,” with the result that the employee’s claim under the federal act was not extinguished as a matter of contract law, and that there was likewise no sufficient basis for a finding of a waiver within section 113, even if that section were valid.
Section 33-a of the Personal Property Law, enacted in 1937 (L. 1937, ch. 77), subsequent to the Fitzgerald decision (supra), gives effect to an executory accord ££ to accept at some future time a stipulated performance in satisfaction or discharge in whole or in part of any present claim, cause of action, contract, obligation, or lease, or any mortgage or other security interest in personal or real property,” ££ provided the promise of the party against whom it is sought to enforce the accord is in writing and signed by such party or by his agent.” (Emphasis supplied.) Broad as its provisions are, however, that section is plainly not applicable in the present case, since there is no promise in writing signed by either of the parties involved, or by an agent, agreeing that payment of any award to be made by the Board shall be in satisfaction or discharge of the employee’s claims under the federal act.
In enacting section 33-a, the legislature altered the law with respect to executory accords only to the extent that such an accord will be recognized as valid if embodied in a writing-signed by the party against whom it is sought to be enforced, or his agent. Notwithstanding that explicit restriction, the court is apparently effecting an extension of the law beyond the limitations deliberately fixed by the legislature. If such a further change in the law is deemed desirable, the remedy lies with the legislature. Certainly, no basis is to be found in section 113 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law for imputing to the legislature an intention to extend the pertinent rule in this regard in the field of compensation claims by employees subject to the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
Moreover, the court’s decision seems necessarily to be grounded on an implied finding as to the existence of an agreement between the parties in the nature of a binding executory accord. Even assuming that the court has the power — which I very much doubt (cf. Murray Co. v. Lidgerwood Mfg. Co., 241 N. Y. 455, 458; Shohfi v. Shohfi, 303 N. Y. 370; Matter of McGrinder v. Sullivan, 290 N. Y. 11; Cohen and Karger, Powers *570of the New York Court of Appeals [1952], pp. 496-497) — to imply such a finding, when the Board, which alone has jurisdiction to pass upon any issues of fact in proceedings before it, did not make any such finding, but based its decision solely on a finding of waiver, loches and estoppel on the part of the employer, the decision in essence means that the almost invariable consequence of acceptance and payment of a temporary award is that the court will thereupon imply an agreement to supplant the federal with the state remedy. All the factors which are stressed in the majority opinion as predicates for implying such an agreement in this case are in essence to be found in almost any case in which one or more temporary awards of compensation have been paid and accepted. In other words, the mere fact that even one temporary award has been paid and accepted without protest is apparently now to be invested with the force of a binding commitment by the parties to, submit themselves to the aegis of a tribunal completely without jurisdiction in contravention of the settled principle that neither waiver nor the consent or agreement of the parties can serve to confer jurisdiction where none exists.
I go further. Even if section 113 were to be given full effect in this case, the facts do not establish the requisite elements of the “ waiver ” envisaged by that section.
In Fitzgerald v. Harbor Lighterage Co. (supra, 244 N. Y. 132), as noted above, though the employee accepted payments under two temporary compensation awards covering a period of almost a year, and though no jurisdictional objection was voiced by any of the parties at the time of the making of such awards, this court held that section 113, even if valid, did not operate to extinguish the employee’s right of action under the federal act, since “ the waiver which it contemplates has never been announced.” Thus, the court (per Cardozo, J.), declared (pp. 136-137): “ Claimant, employer and insurance carrier must unite in foregoing their admiralty remedies before the statute will be operative, if its validity be assumed. * * * We put aside the question whether waiver by the claimant within the meaning of this section is sufficiently established by the election to file a el aim, unaccompanied by express disclaimer of admiralty remedies. Even if this be assumed, the defendant is not *571helped unless employer and Insurance carrier by some definitive expression have renounced their remedies as well. We see no basis for a finding that renunciation was effective when this action was begun. The employer had paid provisional or interlocutory awards for temporary disability. It may have been moved to this course by charity or by indifference or by dislike of litigation. Its acquiescence would not have barred it from appearing at the final hearing and contesting the claim for any sufficient cause including lack of jurisdiction. * * * In the setting of the context, it [§ 113] imports a concurrent evidence of intention having the force of an agreement to forego one set of remedies and abide by another. Until that intention is announced by all who must participate, a waiver by any one of them is inchoate and revocable.”
The mere payment and acceptance of temporary awards can no more be given the effect of a “ renunciation ” of the federal remedy herein, than they were in the Fitzgerald case (supra), notwithstanding the longer period covered by the payments in this case. The court’s opinion in Fitzgerald cannot be read as assigning controlling importance to any one of the factors urged by Judge Conway (supra, pp. 553-554), and to distinguish that case on the grounds suggested is to ignore its basic rationale that the mere payment of temporary awards, amounting to 1 ‘ acquiescence ”, does not constitute a waiver or a renunciation by the employer of the right to challenge the unauthorized assumption of jurisdiction by the Board.
The order of the Appellate Division and the decision of the Workmen’s Compensation Board should be reversed and the proceeding remitted to the Board for consideration of the objections raised by the employer to the Board’s jurisdiction over the subject matter of this claim.
Loughran, Ch. J., Lewis, Desmond, Dye and Froessel, JJ., concur with Conway, J.; Fuld, J., dissents in opinion.
Order affirmed.

. This appeal does not involve any claim for death benefits, though I note that the employer did announce that it would contest the Board’s jurisdiction to entertain such a claim if any were filed by the employee’s widow. And I also note that the employer does not seek the return of any payments already made.