Court Opinion

ID: 9772675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:26:03.171951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:46.938798
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
Defendant has filed a motion entitled “Motion to Remand for Retrial in the Furtherance of Justice to Develop Issues Shown by the Opinion to be Material.” Defendant says on a retrial it can “show that a regular, constant and substantial portion of its business is ‘engineering work’.” Thus defendant seeks to have a retrial to permit it to produce evidence which was available to it at the original trial on its defense of applicability of the Kansas Workmen’s Compensation Act. It has long been our rule that “No appellate court shall reverse any judgment, unless it believes that error was committed by the trial court against the appellant, materially affecting the merits of the action.”' Sec. 512.160 RSMo, V.A.M.S., now Rule 83.13(b), V.A.M.R. Defendant’s motion and suggestions in support show no error committed against it which prevented it from presenting any such evidence. Therefore, this motion is overruled.
Defendant has also filed a Motion for Rehearing or in the Alternative Transfer to the Court en Banc, mainly re-arguing matters raised by the original briefs and ruled in the opinion. Defendant has claimed throughout that the applicability of the Kansas Workmen’s Compensation Act was for the trial court to rule as a matter of law. Plaintiff contends that this was a defense involving fact issues which had to be submitted to the jury. We agree that it could have been ruled as a matter of law if facts, making it applicable, had been shown by plaintiff’s evidence or if defendant had obtained admissions of them (see McKay v. Delico Meat Products Co., 351 Mo. 876, 174 S.W.2d 149, 155); but this was not done. Defendant makes the argument that we should consider, with plaintiff and the man working with him, all its employees engaged in any hazardous work under the Kansas Act although engaged in other work than “engineering work”; but defendant admits there is no Kansas decision so holding. (Defendant relies on Larson on Workmen’s Compensation, 773 Sec. 52.33.) In any event, the trouble with this contention is that it was not definitely shown by plaintiff’s evidence that defendant had five or more workmen employed in hazardous work “within the State of Kansas continuously for more than *343one month at the time of the accident” as required by Sec. 44-507, G.S.1949. It is true that defendant had evidence to so show but as plaintiff points out the credibility of such evidence was for the jury to determine. (See Simmons v. Kansas City Jockey Club, 334 Mo. 99, 66 S.W.2d 119, 121, 122.) Therefore, if defendant desired to rely on the defense of the applicability of the Kansas Act, it should have submitted the fact issues on which it depended. Defendant says it was misled by the position plaintiff took concerning the effect of the Missouri Workmen’s Compensation and its rejection by defendant. However, regardless of any position taken by plaintiff, defendant had the responsibility to show facts which made the Kansas Act applicable (unless they appeared from plaintiff’s evidence or were admitted) and to submit the issue by a proper instruction.
As to the other matters raised in this motion, we reaffirm the rulings made in our opinion.
The motion for rehearing or to transfer to Banc is overruled.