Court Opinion

ID: 9631610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:44:32.022762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:08.762135
License: Public Domain

TAYLOR, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
Liability under a hospital contract is described and limited by the contract. The employer’s liability is fixed by statute, § 72-307 I.C., so that when the employer enters into a contract of employment, the statute is read into it and becomes a part of the contract of employment. Neither the hospital nor the doctor, agreeing to furnish medical and hospital service, is a party to the contract of employment. Neither assumes any obligation, statutory or otherwise, arising out of that relationship. The hospital contract is expressly authorized by the statute. § 72-308 I.C. This section expressly provides that, as to the hospital *144or doctor, the employer and employee waive the provisions of § 72-307 I.C. The second paragraph of § 72-308 provides what the hospital contract must contain. That is the only provision of the Workmen’s Compensation Law which can be read into that contract. No contention is made here that the contract does not meet the requirements of the statute. The contention that the requirements of § 72-307 I.C. should be read into the hospital contract, and can be looked to to determine the liability thereunder, must be described as no less than absurd for two reasons: first, § 72-307, by its own terms, is limited to the liability of “the employer”; second, by the waiver provision in § 72-308 the legislature has expressly declared that the provisions of § 72-307 are not to be regarded as a part of such contract. The majority opinion recognizes that Dr. Longanecker’s liability is limited by the contract. Accordingly, the majority agrees that home nursing cannot be awarded because not covered by the con- ■ tract. But still, the majority looks to § 72-307'as well as the contract, and to care “necessitated as a direct result of the acci■dent”, to support the conclusion of liability -for continued medical and hospital care.
The hospital contract, among other things, provides: “but nothing herein shall be held to require the association to provide * * * any service or care for * * incurable conditions.”
The majority argues that the recurrent pressure sores, urinary flare-ups, and other interruptions of bodily function, though inevitable, are not incurable because they can be temporarily reduced or even eliminated for periods of time; that it is the predisposition to such conditions that is incurable. So a distinction is to be drawn between “incurable predispositions” and the “incurable conditions” ruled out by the contract. To me such argument is entirely specious. It is an attempt to draw a distinction without a difference. The claimant’s condition has long since become static. His condition is admittedly incurable. The services and care periodically required for these periodic eruptions are nothing more nor less than “service or care for * * * incurable conditions” contemplated by the contract and in plain and unambiguous terms eliminated from the services and care therein agreed to be rendered.
Here a liability to care for incurable conditions is imposed by the majority in spite of the contract to the contrary. We had assumed that no principle of law was settled with more finality, or more universally accepted by the courts, than that which declares the plain provisions of a contract must be accepted, and that courts are not at liberty to make or modify contracts for the parties. So fundamental is this right of freedom of contract, that it was made the object of protection by both the federal, Art. 1, § 10, and state, Art. 1, § 16, constitutions. Not even the legislature could thus violate this contract and impose a liability which the parties contracted against.
*145It is idle to talk of the obligation of industry to take care of its injured. That is not the question here. All the parties to this appeal and the Industrial Accident Board as well, recognize that the employer and his surety have been released from all liability by reason of this contract. No claim is asserted against them. Here the liability is being imposed upon the doctor who agreed to render medical service to the injured employee, within the limits of the contract. In such a situation it is beside the point to call attention to the admittedly pathetic and urgent need of the claimant for such service. No matter how sore the need, nor how pressing the circumstances, in no case is the court justified in violating the fundamental law. It is the court’s highest purpose to preserve that law inviolate.
If the Workmen’s Compensation Law in respect to hospital contracts needs revision in order to provide protection and relief in cases such as this, it is the prerogative of the legislature, not of this court, to amend the law.
The cause should be sent back to the board with instructions to determine what is a reasonable time within which the doctor is required to furnish medical, surgical and hospital care and nursing, in the hospital, as provided by the contract, and to limit its award to the period between the accident and the time when claimant’s condition became static and incurable.