Court Opinion

ID: 9847253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:56:39.490345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:04.452765
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Judge,
dissenting. In view of what is held in Royal Indem. Co. v. Coulter, 213 Ga. 277 (98 SE2d 899), by which we are bound, I must disagree. In that case the Supreme Court asserted that "the notice required is notice of an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment, and mere notice that an employee is suffering an injury from an accident does *367not meet the requirement of the statute.”
Dr. Brown, who treated claimant, testified that in giving a history of his injury, the employee related that he had noted the pain in his back during the day, while at work. He diagnosed the problem as a ruptured disc, but could not say what might have caused it; it could have come gradually over a period of years.
Mr. Roach, the employee testified: "I told [Mr. Rex Corry] that I hurt myself. Q. Did you tell him how you hurt yourself? A. He didn’t ask me. He just started — he said 'What’s the matter?’ I just said I’m getting stiff. He started helping me; help me finish the last round. Q. You had back trouble for many years, haven’t you? A. No, I got hurt one time, yes sir.” He also testified that Dr. Pope, to whom he went for treatment, thought at first that his trouble was bursitis and treated him for that, but later decided that it was a disc. He had reported in as being "sick” in October, November, December and in January — working only some four or five weeks during that period, and made no claim of accidental injury until after the company gave him a separation notice in February because of continued absences from work. He now says that he suffered an injury January 13, 1969, the day he had the conversation with Mr. Corry.
Mr. Rex Corry, the employee’s supervisor, testified that on an occasion in January Mr. Roach did say that he had a catch in his back, that he had been to the doctor who had said that it was bursitis in the hip, that he had been given a shot for it and would go back the next day for another, and that he had said nothing about having suffered any accident or hurting himself on the job.
If we take as true the testimony of the employee, it does not meet the test of the Coulter case concerning the requirements of notice. He did not tell his supervisor when, how or where he had hurt himself. What he says he did could amount to no more than "mere notice that he was suffering [from having hurt himself].” He did not say that it had been accidental. He did not say that it had occurred on the job. This, under the Coulter case, "does not meet the requirement of the statute (Code § 114-303).”
Judge Hall has written a special concurrence in which is pointed out the rule delineated by the Supreme Court in the Coulter case, and has collected our own cases since that time show*368ing that in some of them we have followed the Supreme Court, as the law directs that we must, while in others we have blandly ignored the Supreme Court and followed our own notion as to what the law should be. Whether our notion coincides with that of the Supreme Court or not is immaterial. There can be no consistency or stability in a rule of law if courts below the level of the highest are free to ignore its ruling and roam at will according to their own fancy. The rule of stare decisis, as it applies between that court and those below it, is and should be hard and fast. Otherwise this court and the superior courts, as well as the numerous others down to the justice court, may, according to their own notion or idea as to what the rule in any situation should be, promulgate a dozen — yea, even a hundred — different and varying rules for their own jurisdictions. Is that what we are to have here? How may lawyers now advise their clients concerning this rule? Upon what is the employer and employee to depend? As for me, I think the system under which we are placed by law is the correct one, and so long as I can know and understand what the Supreme Court has ruled in any instance, I shall follow it. My view finds expression in Southern Bell Tel. &c. Co. v. Parker, 119 Ga. 721, 728 (47 SE 194), where it was asserted: "While, perhaps, we are authorized to take for granted that statutes are not intended to operate harshly or unreasonably, still we can not ignore the well-established rules of construction, with reference to which statutes must be deemed to have been framed; else we might fall into the error of substituting our own views of the reasonableness of a statute for those of the General Assembly, by which the measure was, supposedly, deliberately discussed and considered before being enacted into law.” Rulings of the Supreme Court affording construction of a statute must likewise be honored; they should not be ignored. See Standard Oil Co. v. Harris, 120 Ga. App. 768, 769 (172 SE2d 344) and dissent in Argonaut Ins. Co. v. Almon, 120 Ga. App. 869, 870 (172 SE2d 624).
"Very weighty considerations underlie the principle that courts should not lightly overrule past decisions. Among these are the desirability that the law furnish a clear guide for the conduct of individuals, to enable them to plan their affairs with assurance against untoward surprise; the importance of furthering fair and *369expeditious adjudication by eliminating the need to relitigate every relevant proposition in every case; and the necessity of maintaining public faith in the judiciary as a source of impersonal and reasoned judgments. The reasons for rejecting any established rule must always be weighed against these factors.” Moragne v. States Marine Lines, 398 U. S. 375, 403 (90 SC 1772, 26 LE2d 339).
This is not to say that we should refrain from pointing out what we conceive to be error or illogic in a ruling, or an inconsistency, inequity or unfairness, giving reasons, in the expectation that change may come, or find a logical exception to exist. But until a change does come or one can justify an exception to the rule it is our duty to follow it.