Court Opinion

ID: 9590208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:52:34.6173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:04.931243
License: Public Domain

*743Grady, C. J.
(dissenting) — I would be in accord with the result reached by the majority opinion if § 5, chapter 115, Laws of 1951, p. 289, was original legislation instead of being amendatory. The title to the act is as follows:
“An Act relating to industrial insurance; providing workmen’s compensation in case of injury or death; and amending sections 51.32.050, 51.32.060, 51.32.090, 51.32.080, and 51.32.160, R.C.W.”
If the act had been original legislation, its effect would be to bar all claims for aggravation of injury not made within five years after the establishment of the rate of compensation by the department of labor and industries. However, the legislature did not see fit to treat the subject of limitation upon the making of claims for aggravation by a separate and original enactment, but chose to do so by amending various sections of the workmen’s compensation act, including the one relating to limitation periods, just as it had done on former occasions. As an original piece of legislation, its effect would have been to have barred the claim of appellant, because on June 28, 1946, his compensation was established, and he did not make a claim for aggravation until January 9, 1953, which date was after the expiration of the five-year limitation period. However, the result is entirely different under the amended legislation. This is made clear by the history of the limitation legislation.
Section 5 (h) of the original act, Laws of 1911, chapter 74, p. 345, provided for readjustment of compensation for' aggravation upon the application of a beneficiary, but it contained no limitation period within which a claim therefor must be made.
By chapter 310, Laws of 1927, p. 813, the legislature amended several sections of the workmen’s compensation act, including the one relating to the making of claims for aggravation, so as to provide a three-year limitation period for the making of claims therefor. The legislature considered two classes of workmen: (1) a workman whose injury became aggravated after his rate of compensation had been established subsequent to the passage of the amendment; *744and (2) a workman whose rate of compensation had been established prior to the passage of the act. Workmen in the first class were required to make their claims for aggravation within three years after the establishment of the rate of compensation. As to them the act operated prospectively. Workmen of the second class, by a proviso which operated retroactively (sometimes referred to as a saving clause), were given three years from the taking effect of the act within which to make claims for aggravation. Later legislation amended the original workmen’s compensation act, as amended, and followed the same pattern, but changed the limitation period from three to five years. In all of these amendatory enactments, the workmen were classified for the purpose of time limitation as above stated — the legislation as to the first class operating prospectively, while the other class was covered by a proviso operating retrospectively.
When the amendatory act of 1949 was passed, appellant belonged to the second class, in that his rate of compensation had been established June 28, 1946. He was given a period of five years from the taking effect of the act within which to make his claim for aggravation. This act was approved by the governor March 19, 1949, and took effect ninety days thereafter, so that appellant had until June 17, 1954, within which to make claim for aggravation.
If § 5 of the amendatory act of 1951 had been an original enactment, appellant’s claim would have become barred on June 28, 1951, and his claim made January 9, 1952, would have been barred. The act of 1951 applies only to workmen in class one. It does not legislate with reference to class two. By omitting therefrom the proviso contained in the act of 1949, it repealed the limitation period as to class two, with the result that there is now no limitation period affecting such class. The status of class-two workmen is now the same as under the original act of 1911.
We have decided that, when a section of a statute is amended by an act which purports to set out in full all it is intended to contain, any matter which was in the original *745section but not in the amendatory section is repealed by the omission. Adams County v. Scott, 117 Wash. 85, 200 Pac. 1112; Spokane & Eastern Trust Co. v. Hart, 127 Wash. 541, 221 Pac. 615; Henry v. McKay, 164 Wash. 526, 3 P. (2d) 145, 77 A. L. R. 1025; State ex rel. Gebhardt v. Superior Court, 15 Wn. (2d) 673, 131 P. (2d) 943.
Chapter 115, Laws of 1951, specifically amended a designated section of the act of 1949 “to read as follows: ” In Henry v. McKay, supra, we discussed the repealing effect of an amendatory statute as distinguished from an independent statute and stated:
“ ‘An amendatory act has a repealing force, by the mechanics of legislation, different from that of an independent statute. Repugnancy is not the essential element of implied repeal of specifically amended sections. The rule is: “Where a section of a statute is amended, the original ceases to exist, and the section as amended supersedes it and becomes a part of the statute for all intents and purposes as if the amendments had always been there.” 25 R. C. L. 907.’ People v. Lowell, 250 Mich. 349, 230 N. W. 202.
“ ‘Where a section of a statute is amended by an act which purports to set out in full all it is intended to contain, any matter which was in the original section but not in the amendatory section is repealed by the omission.’ Spokane & Eastern T. Co. v. Hart, 127 Wash. 541, 221 Pac. 615.”
Section 5, chapter 115, Laws of 1951, having repealed- by omission therefrom the limitation period affecting a workman in class two, and having made no provision with reference to the time within which his claim must be made, the claim of appellant is not barred by any statute. If the legislature had intended to bar the claim of appellánt and those similarly situated, it would have enacted original and direct legislation operating retrospectively in express terms or by necessary implication; but having chosen to treat the subject of limitation by the amendatory process, it must be said as a matter of law that it intended to and did provide that there should be no limitation period for making claim for aggravation by those workmen falling within class two.
The judgment should be reversed.