Court Opinion

ID: 9814575
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 23:56:56.29458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:58.154900
License: Public Domain

APPLICATION FOR REHEARING
No 3308. Decided Feb 20, 1941
By GEIGER, PJ.
This Court rendered an opinion in this matter, on the 28th of January, 1941, sustaining the demurrer. An application for rehearing is filed on the ground that the statute in question is unconstitutional. Applicant, on the first page of his brief states that inequality exists between (a) silicosis claimants and claimants of other occupational diseases, and further states that the question raised and which has been unanswered and undecided by the Court is: Can the Legislature classify 22 different types of occupational diseases and say that 21 of them shall be paid on the same basis as any other injury or death claim, but number 22 (silicosis) shall be paid in an entirely separate and different manner. It is the contention of counsel for relator that such a law is Unconstitutional.
The basis for the application for the rehearing is that the Court in its decision did not pass upon the main question involved. We have re-read the opinion and are convinced that had counsel read carefully the decision of the Court there would have been no difficulty in discovering the Court’s ruling upon the question.
The question upon which counsel seeks a definite ruling of the Court is whether or not for 21 different occupational diseases there may be one *47schedule of payment and for the 22nd there may be a different and less productive schedule of payment, without violating the Constitution. We are of the opinion that such provision does not violate the Constitution, as we intended to make plain in our former decision. The Legislature might within the limits of the constitutional authority have omitted entirely to provide for the disease from which the decedent suffered. There are 22 diseases enumerated as occupational diseases and there are probably many which have been omitted. This does not render the act unconstitutional. Due to the peculiarities of this trouble, which the Legislature recognized, it was within its constitutional rights to provide a different and less compensation.
The Court now finds that this provi-sion is not violative of the Constitution.
BARNES and HORNBECK, JJ., concur.