Court Opinion

ID: 9581620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:16:53.014409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:08.297554
License: Public Domain

Hall, Judge,
dissenting. The Workmen’s Compensation Act was not enacted for the purpose of preserving chastity, but “to alleviate human suffering and to contribute to human need when accidental injury is suffered in the manner prescribed by the statute.” Lumbermen’s Mutual Cas. Co. v. Griggs, 190 Ga. 277, 288 (9 SE2d 84). An actual dependent is a dependent in the same way a rose is a rose. The question here is not whether the claimant is given a right by the Workmen’s Compensation Act (the evidence supports the award), but rather whether *605there is anything in the Act which prohibits her from receiving the award.
There is no provision under the Act which states that a claimant forfeits his or her rights under the Act for violating sex laws, drug laws, alcoholic beverage laws, traffic laws, gambling laws, etc. On the contrary, the Act must be liberally construed in favor of the claimant. Neither the board nor the courts are empowered under the Act to go on a puritanical witch hunt with the avowed purpose of scouring the claimant’s so-called unclean hands. Both should confine the inquiry to the question of actual dependency under the Act and should not go looking under or into the claimant’s bed.
The award is not based upon any finding of conclusive dependency (that of a wife) but upon actual dependency. The evidence clearly supports this finding and a reversal grounded upon the claimant’s so-called morals, casts this court into the role of Keystone Cops.
In my opinion the trial court properly affirmed the award of the board granting the claimant compensation under the Act based on her actual dependency upon the deceased employee.