Court Opinion

ID: 9855335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:22:56.667187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:42.002934
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ADAIR
dissenting:
On March 28, 1963, William L. James, while performing his assigned duties as a lumber stacker for and in the employ of *471the Y. K. V. Lumber Company, sustained and suffered most painful injuries to his back. On the following morning and because of his back injuries he was scarcely able to get out of his bed. Thereupon James promptly consulted and was examined and treated by a medical doctor following which James continued to work for his aforesaid employer for three more days, being until April 1, 1963, when he ceased work until May 13, 1963, when he once more resumed his work for and with the Y. K. V. Lumber Company, but seven days later, to-wit, on May 20, 1963, the injured employee, William L. James, filed with the Montana Industrial Accident Board his claim for benefits which claim was denied by the Board on the alleged ground that the workman James had not suffered an “industrial accident.”
On July 16, 1963, the Board made its findings of fact and conclusions of law and issued an order denying the injured workman’s claim for benefits. Next, the injured workman petitioned the Board for a rehearing on his claim which petition and request the Board denied.
Thereupon the injured workman James appealed to the District Court of the Fourteenth Judicial District of the State of Montana, and at the hearing on the appeal the District Court sought additional testimony regarding the accident and injuries resulting therefrom, which was supplied in writing by the injured claimant, William L. James, but before the injured claimant could sign the answers given by him to the interrogatories submitted, such injured claimant died.
Following claimant’s death the District Court made its findings reversing the Industrial Accident Board, and on February 26, 1964, allowed the claim of the deceased claimant James.
Now, on the instant appeal by the employer, V. K. Y. Lumber Company, by the insurance carrier, Glacier General Assurance Company, and by the Industrial Accident Board of Montana, the judgment rendered by the District Court of the Fourteenth Judicial District is reversed and the claim made by the injured *472employee, William L. James, now deceased, is denied upon the authority of this court’s decision in the case of Lupien v. Montana Record Publishing Co., 143 Mont. 415, 416, et seq., 390 P.2d 455, wherein this court reversed the judgment rendered by the District Court of Lewis and Clark County awarding workmen’s compensation to the widow of an employee of twenty-seven years who died on the job and “while expending approximately twice the physical effort that it was customary for him to use in .doing his work.”
I registered my dissent to this court’s opinion in Lupien v. Montana Record Publishing Co., supra, and I now register my dissent to this court’s opinion in the instant case of James v. Y. K. Y. Lumber Company, Glacier General Assurance Company, and the Industrial Accident Board.
In my opinion the judgment of the District Court of the Fourteenth Judicial District with the Honorable Nat Allen, District Judge presiding, was correct and such judgment should be affirmed.