Court Opinion

ID: 9735483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:18:06.977069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:59.121583
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Woodside, J.:
The shabby treatment and horrible housing facilities so frequently afforded itinerant farm workers engenders sympathy for them. This, along with the equities which favor the claimant in this case, causes my heart to desire a result which my mind cannot reach. I should like to see the claimant recover, but to permit him to do so does such violence to established principles of law, particularly those relating to statutory construction, that I must dissent.
As stated in the majority opinion, agricultural employes were specifically excluded from workmen’s *343compensation prior to the Act of July 18, 1935, P. L. 1316, which permitted an employer of agricultural workers to, thereafter, elect to be subject to the workmen’s compensation law by filing an application and having it approved by the board. This the defendant did.
By §506 of the Act of June 4, 1937, P. L. 1552, the provision permitting election was specifically repealed. Section 104 of that Act again specifically excluded agricultural services from the workmen’s compensation law. The Law of 1937, therefore, completely separated the defendant and his employes from the workmen’s compensation law. The Act of 1935, supra, was repealed. The Act of 1937 specifically said that the Workmen’s Compensation Act did not apply to employers of agricultural workers. It not only repealed the right of agricultural employers to elect to be subject to the Workmen’s Compensation Act, but it took from under the act those who had previously elected to be subject to it. The defendant here and his employes were not then subject to the workmen’s compensation law. The contractual relationship, referred to in the majority opinion, was terminated; the statutory provision making it possible for the defendant and his employes to be subject to the Workmen’s Compensation Act was repealed.
We are not dealing with the repeal and reenactment of a law. We are interpreting an act which was passed two years after a similar act had been specifically and entirely repealed. The Act of 1939 was not a “reenactment” of the Act of 1935 as that term is used technically. It was the enactment of a new law, albeit, like one which had previously been repealed. Thereafter, the legislature could not make an employer of agricultural personnel subject to the workmen’s compensation law by merely reenacting the provisions *344of the Act of 1935. The Act of 1939 did not attempt to breathe life into a void contract or a repealed statute. It operated prospectively, only. See Statutory Construction Act of May 28, 1937, P. L. 1019, §56, 46 PS §556. It was necessary, therefore, for an employer to take some positive action subsequent to the effective date of the Act of 1939. This the defendant never did, and, therefore, he was not subject to the Workmen’s Compensation Act at any time after 1937 when the Act of 1935 was repealed.
The question here is whether the employer is liable under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. This is not a procedural matter, but a question of liability.
Whether we look to the law of contracts or the law of statutory construction, every rule or theory I know leads inevitably to the conclusion that the contract or statutory provision which made the employer subject to the Workmen’s Compensation Act was nullified by the Act of 1937, and that the Act of 1939 could not give life to that which no longer existed.
I believe that the claimant here could sue in trespass at common law but that he has no claim under the Workmen’s Compensation Act.