Court Opinion

ID: 9864897
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:16:07.180182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:31.320598
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bouck,
dissenting.
On April 3, 1935, the judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court in the workmen’s compensation case of Frank v. Industrial Commission, 96 Colo. 364, 43 P. (2d) 158, became final.
What the opinion meant and what happened thereafter in the district court and before the Industrial Commission by way of attempted compliance with the judgment will best appear by quoting verbatim from the brief filed in the present proceedings by counsel for the Black Diamond Fuel Company, the claimant’s employer (italics in this opinion being mine):
“Some of the circumstances connected with this case have already been before this court in [the Frank case, supra], in which a judgment of the District Court, affirming an award of the Commission denying the claim as barred by the statute of limitations, was reversed and the cause remanded with directions.
*534" Only the briefest reference to such part of the record as was before the Court on its previous review is believed to be necessary, as an inducement to the narration of later proceeding’s and to call attention to evidence referred to in testimony at later hearings.
“The claim for compensation asserted in this case is for disability resulting from an accidental injury, which this Court has held was shown to have been incurred by the claimant, while, lifting a mine car, October 11,1932.
“At the only hearing held prior to the decision of this Court above referred to, the claimant was the only witness and the testimony as to the nature of the accident indicated only a muscular strain from lifting — no blow, fall, wounding, or other mishap. * * *
“Upon receipt of the mandate of this Court in Frank vs. Industrial Commission, supra, and in compliance therewith, the District Court entered its judgment (ff. 176-181), vacating the award of the Commission and ordering the holding of further hearing or hearings on the issue of how much compensation should be awarded the claimant, upon evidence upon the amount of disability he has sustained as a result of his accidental injuries. * * *
“Before taking up the separate discussion of the several specific points relied upon for reversal of the judgment of the District Court, a consideration of the law of the case as settled by the decision of this Court in Frank v. Ind. Com., 96 Colo. 364, 43 Pac. (2d) 158, seems to be in order.
‘ ‘ The only question presented to the Court in that case was, whether the claim for compensation was barred by the statute of limitations or was saved from that fate by the furnishing of medical attention.
“In its opinion, however, the Court went beyond that question and, in addition to holding that the claim was not barred, settled, as the law of the case, the following propositions :
“1. That the injury of the claiinant was compensable;
*535“2. That the only issue remaining to be determined was how much compensation should be awarded.
“We find no definition of the term compensable, injury, but submit that the first of the above propositions can mean nothing else than that the claimant had received a personal injury under such circumstances as would entitle him, in the event of any disability for more than ten days resulting therefrom, to compensation at the rate fixed by law, based upon his average earnings. In other words, such ‘compensable injury’ is only one of the factors necessary to support an award of compensation; the others being physical disability of more than ten days duration and average earnings sufficient to entitle the claimant to the rate awarded.
“This proposition seems self-evident, in view of the Workmen’s Compensation Law, and was certainly recognized by the mandate of the Court that a hearing be had to determine the amount of compensation to be awarded. This could only mean, to determine the disability caused by the accidental injury and the average weekly wages of the claimant. Obviously, a determination of the amount of disability sustained by the claimant as the result of his accident includes a determination whether any disability resulted therefrom.

“These two issues, of disability resulting from the accidental injury and the average weekly wages of the claimant were the only ones to be determined, and it is the findings upon these two issues, and the award based thereon, that are in question herein.”

The foregoing was obviously a fair and accurate interpretation of the opinion in the first Frank case, supra. In fact, it seems to me the only reasonable interpretation. Entering upon the hearing held in accordance with the directions of this court, the employer’s attorney complied fully with his understanding as expressed by his above quoted words. The commission’s referee likewise had a clear comprehension of what was legally required. The record now before us shows that with the *536active aid of the employer’s attorney the referee ably carried out the instructions of the court, promptly overruling objections of the claimant’s attorney, who unsuccessfully urged a much broader interpretation of the Frank opinion than the one properly given it by his opponent and by the referee.
Counsel’s interpretation was not an after-thought or mere lip service. The record of the hearing itself contains the following:
“I simply call attention,” said the employer’s attorney, “to the judgment of the District Court, directed to the Commission, under which this hearing is being held, which is for the purpose of taldng testimony to determine the degree of temporary and permanent disability which this man sustained by reason of his accidental injury. Now, if some of these things are not from an accidental injury, evidently they have to he segregated. * * * The order of the Court, to which I called your Honor’s attention, is to determine the disability due to the accident. Obviously, some of these conditions he has are not due to the accident. * * * The only order directed to this Commission, out of any court, is that of the District Court, entered in compliance with instructions from the Supreme Court, with instructions as to what they should do. * * * I will read the entire paragraph containing the order: ‘It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed by the Court that the entire record in the above entitled case be sent back to the Commission, and it is hereby sent back to the Commission, which Commission is directed to hold further hearing or hearings solely on the issue of how much compensation should be awarded to the Claimant, the same to be based solely upon evidence taken before such Commission or the Referee thereof upon the amount of disability that the claimant has sustained as a result of his accidental injuries.’ Now, compensation isn’t paid for anything but accidental injury.
“Do I gather,” asked the referee, addressing the claimant’s attorney, who had objected to his opponent’s correct *537attitude, ‘ ‘ that it is your contention that the Commission is not permitted, under these rulings, to go into the cause of the various disabilities of the claimant, but that we have to assume, that all of his disabilities are due to accidental injury and find accordingly? In order to comply with the order of the Court, the Commission has jurisdiction to hear evidence on the disabilities and to segregate, if necessary, the disabilities due to accident, as established by the Supreme Court, and those due to other causes. For that reason I will permit Mr. West to go ahead with his examination. ’ ’
The employer’s attorney also stated: “Whether [claimant’s] present disability is due to that accident is all we are limiting ourselves to. * * * There isn’t any dispute that he received what the Supreme Court considered an injury sufficient to give him some disability, perhaps, and that it is compensable if he has any disability.”
Further testimony was accordingly taken on behalf of the claimant. It was duly limited to the scope we. had prescribed, but was freely tested and elaborated by full cross-examination at the hands of skillful counsel, who introduced no witnesses of his own. The issue of the proper compensation for such injury if any as the evidence might show to have resulted from the industrial accident in question was thus duly inquired into, and an award was duly entered by the referee.. This award was in due course adopted and approved by the commission. An action brought by the employer in the district court led to a judgment affirming the commission’s award and this judgment is before us now for review.
The only contentions raised by the petition for review were (1) that the commission failed to find any disability of the employee to have been the result of accidental injury, (2) that the evidence does not support the commission’s finding as to the amount of the claimant’s average weekly wages, and (3) that the commission erred in finding the existence and extent of temporary and perma*538nent disability, because those findings are not supported by any evidence of any disability caused by accidental injury. These are also the only issues or contentions covered by the assignment of errors in this court, as they were the only ones presented by the complaint filed in the District Court.
This court has not been given authority either by statute or by rule to disregard the issues actually presented in appellate proceedings and to decide a case on issues of its own making. However, here the majority reaches back to a case finally disposed of more than twenty months ago and now entirely of its own motion retries the issues there when the present record discloses that this court is repealing the doctrine of “the law of the case” which the. plaintiff in error unqualifiedly accepted.
In Colorado the principle of “the law of the case” is neither new nor obsolete. See. the case of Lee v. Stahl (1889), 13 Colo. 174, 177, 22 Pac. 436, 437, citing with approval the opinion of Mr. Justice Belford in Union Mining Co. v. Rocky Mountain National Bank (1873), 2 Colo. 248, 266, and also similarly citing Davidson v. Dallas, 15 Cal. 75 (which cites approvingly the cases of Washington Bridge Co. v. Stewart, 3 Howard [U. S.] 413, and Ex parte Sibbald, 12 Peters [U. S.] 488), and Table M. T. Co. v. Stranahan, 21 Cal. 548.
The principle has since, been uniformly reaffirmed. Trinchera Co. v. Trinchera Dist., 89 Colo. 170, 174, 300 Pac. 614, 615; Smith v. Windsor R. & C. Co., 88 Colo. 422, 424, 298 Pac. 646, 647; Farmers Co. v. Fulton Co., 81 Colo. 69, 70, 255 Pac. 449; Zambakian v. Leson, 79 Colo. 350, 354, 246 Pac. 268, 269; Long v. People ex rel., 33 Colo. 159, 160, 79 Pac. 1132; Tibbetts v. Terrill, 26 Colo. App. 64, 68, 140 Pac. 936, 938; German American Co. v. Messenger, 25 Colo. App. 153, 158, 136 Pac. 478, 480; First Nat. Bank v. Manhattan L. Co., 21 Colo. App. 256, 257, 267, 120 Pac. 1112 (see court opinion 1112-1113 and Judge Walling’s concurring opinion 1115); Board of Public *539Works v. Denver Tel. Co., 16 Colo. App. 505, 506, 66 Pac. 676, 677.
The judgment of the Denver District Court approving the award should I think have been affirmed as a whole, since that court and the commission carefully followed the directions of this court, and the evidence and findings are obviously sufficient to support the award. I fail to see how, if anything like the same evidence comes before the Industrial Commission at the next hearing, that body can avoid making the same award. There should sometime be an end to litigation. The repetition and duplication of administrative (if not judicial) action now required by the majority opinion furnish, I fear, a sad commentary on the “summary” nature of the procedure required by the statute in workmen’s compensation cases.
For the various reasons stated I respectfully dissent.