Court Opinion

ID: 9846994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:51:51.163775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:58.438665
License: Public Domain

Foster, J.
(dissenting) — The court’s decision announced today should have been made twenty-five years ago when *47Metcalf v. Department of Labor & Industries, 168 Wash. 305, 11 P. (2d) 821, was filed. It would have been as right then as it is wrong now. The ancient aphorism, “Better late than never,” is not always true, and if there be justification for the comment by the cynical wag that “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” certainly this court is not so contaminated.
While the employer’s exemption from the common-law liability for personal injuries is the quid pro quo for premium liability,2 nevertheless, the right to the compensation is not limited to those circumstances in which there was previous tort liability; but, on the contrary, the declared legislative purpose was to afford compensation for all fortuitous results, excluding only the contraction of a disease.3 Instead of leaving the entire loss to rest upon the injured workman or his family, where it previously fell by chance, the basic theory of all industrial insurance and workman’s compensation acts is that the cost of accidents is a part of the cost of production, and should be socialized and paid by the ultimate consumer in the price of the finished product. No difference exists between industrial insurance premiums, the payroll, repair cost, plant costs, depreciation, or any other item of cost;4 or as this court said forty-one years ago,5 a workman is the soldier of *48organized, industry accepting a kind of pension in exchange for absolute insurance on his master’s premises.
It was. in 1914, three years after the enactment of the industrial insurance act, that the court was first called upon to interpret the word “injury.”6 The court leaned heavily upon the English decisions in reaching the conclusion that injury included everything except the contraction .of disease. The workman in Zappala v. Industrial Ins. Comm., 82 Wash. 314, 144 Pac. 54, sustained a hernia while pushing a handtruck. Although the truck stuck and some extraordinary effort was called for, such was not a decisive factor. The industrial insurance commission contended no accident occurred because he did not slip or fall and nothing struck him, and that he was performing only his ordinary work.
The cqurt, in the process of inclusion and exclusion, said that, in construing the act, compensation was provided for every injury regardless of fault, and that the legislature enjoined upon the courts a liberal interpretation and declared in no uncertain terms if the truck gave way while being used, the cost would be the employer’s, but it could not accept the contention of the industrial insurance commission that if the man pushing the truck breaks, there is no injury within the meaning of the industrial insurance act. The conclusion was reached that any unexpected happening disabling a workman was compensable.
When a discharged employee in revenge shot and killed the foreman who had discharged him, the industrial insurance commission rejected the claim of a widow on the ground that an accident, to be compensable, must arise out of the employment; and to solve that problem, in Stertz v. Industrial Ins. Comm., 91 Wash. 588, 158 Pac. 256, the court found it necessary to explore the entire social and legal philosophy upon which the industrial insurance act was founded.
*49The court commented on the fact both employers and employees had suffered under the common-law system from heavy judgments “of which half was opposing lawyers’ booty”; that both wanted peace; and that the employer was willing to pay on many claims where in the past there had been no liability at all; and, on the other hand, workmen relinquished their right to compensatory damages in order to get a small sum in all cases without litigation. All agreed, said the court, the blood of the workman was part of the cost of production which should be borne by industry, and workmen craved the then new system because of a horror of lawyers and judicial trials and wanted compensation not only safe but sure. The court said “fortuitous event” was the strongest term that could be found and was employed by lawyers for positive strength, “a term in truth that is selected when one wishes all of ‘accident’ and more” and summed the whole matter in the never-to-be-forgotten sentence:
“Under our statute the workman is the soldier of organized industry accepting a kind of pension in exchange for absolute insurance on his master’s premises.”
Shadbolt v. Department of Labor & Industries, 121 Wash. 409, 209 Pac. 683, is next in point of time (1922). Shadbolt, in the regular routine of moving shingle blocks, rested them on the right side of his abdomen in the region of his appendix. He felt pain in the abdomen, nausea and vomiting ensued, causing his removal to the hospital, where later the same evening, he was operated for a ruptured appendix. The department’s contention was that a particular occurrence identifiable in point of time to which an injury can be attributed, was the basic test for determining whether an injury had occurred or not, and further, this was negatived by the continued routine pressure.7
*50Upon facts thus briefly summarized, the court held even though the appendix was diseased, and in the ordinary course of events would have ruptured without any external pressure, a compensable accident had occurred because the continued pressure accelerated the rupture.
The three opinions just reviewed clearly indicate the court of that day was of the view the English decisions reflected the correct philosophy that any unforeseen disability resulting from exertion, of whatever degree, which caused disability or death, was compensable, regardless of the state of health of the employee involved.
Such was the state of the law, both statutory and de-cisional, when the first heart case reached this court in February, 1926, fifteen years after the enactment of the industrial insurance act.
The workman in Frandila v. Department of Labor & Industries, 137 Wash. 530, 243 Pac. 5, collapsed while chopping a root at the bottom of a ditch in which he was working, and died from heart disease within fifteen minutes after being removed from the’ ditch. The defense contended there was no injury because there was no unusual strain or exertion, but that his death was occasioned by slow, progressive disease or hardening of the arteries. Many decisions were reviewed, but the court relied principally on Clover, Clayton & Co. v. Hughes, (1910) App. Cases (L. R.) 242, in which the workman burst an aneurism of the aorta while he was tightening a nut with a wrench. There was no strain or exertion out of the ordinary. The aneurism was sufficiently developed so it might have burst during sleeping hours. The court said if the degree of exertion is too great for the man undertaking it to withstand and death occurs, it is compensable.8
*51Eleven months later, when the legislature convened, the statute defining “injury” was amended to read:
“The word ‘injury’ as used in this act means a sudden and tangible happening, of a traumatic nature, producing an immediate or prompt result, and occurring from without, and such physical condition as results therefrom.” Laws of 1927, chapter 310, § 2, p. 818.
Five years elapsed, however, before the court was required to decide whether the amended definition of “injury” changed the rule of law announced in the Frandila and preceding cases, that an accident occurs whenever a man undertaking work is unable to withstand the exertion required to do it whatever may be the degree of exertion used, or the condition of the man’s health.
The writer of this dissent was assistant attorney general and counsel for the appellant department of labor and industries in the Metcalf case, which was appealed upon the single proposition that the 1927 amended definition of “injury” changed the law and abrogated the rule announced in Frandila v. Department of Labor & Industries, supra. The issue was expressly limited by the following passage from the attorney general’s brief:
“The amended definition of ‘injury’ manifests an apparent attempt on the part of the legislature to get away from the results of the previous decisions of this court; that intention should be recognized. . . .
“. . . In the final analysis, the single question here presented is: Has the legislature changed the rule as announced in the Frandilla case? If it has not, this case should be affirmed; if it has, the trial court should be reversed.
The limited issue was restated in the reply brief as follows:
“No specific reply will be undertaken to either the respondent’s brief or the brief of amicus curiae, for the question here presented may not be decided by a consideration of the quoted cases from other jurisdictions, for they reflect only the same theory as that announced by this court in the Frandilla case, whereas the question here presented is, did the legislature by the amended definition of the word *52‘injury’ change that rule. If it has not, the decision of the learned trial judge is correct. If, on the other hand, the legislature has, because of the economic forces set in motion by those decisions, changed the rule, then the judgment appealed from is erroneous.”
Without quibble, equivocation, or evasion, the attorney general point-blank submitted to this court that by the new definition of “injury,” the legislature intended to change the rule announced in the Frandila and Shadbolt cases.
Metcalf died not from a heart attack, but from a cerebral hemorrhage. The court said if Metcalf’s exertion in sawing the log resulted in a sprained wrist, a torn tendon, or a dislocated shoulder, it would have been an injury within the statutory definition of that term. The conclusion was that, because his arteries were hardened and in that condition he was unable to withstand the increased strain, his death was the result of the injury within the statutory definition, and concluded in this significant sentence:
“It was not the legislature’s purpose to limit the provisions of, the workmen’s compensation act to only such persons as approximate physical perfection.”
The Metcalf case was followed almost immediately by McArthur v. Department of Labor & Industries, 168 Wash. 405, 12 P. (2d) 418, which allowed compensation for the rupture of a duodenal ulcer by overexertion.
In McCormick Lbr. Co. v. Department of Labor & Industries, 7 Wn. (2d) 40, 108 P. (2d) 807 (1941), for the first time the attorney general took the position that the 1927 amendment of the definition of the word “injury” did not change the rule announced in the earlier cases, and that the question was no longer open because of the intervening decisions.9
*53The case was heard En Banc, and again the court reviewed the entire judicial history of the problem but refused to recede from the position announced in the prior cases.& ***10 Any vestige of doubt should have been removed by Merritt v. Department of Labor & Industries, 41 Wn. (2d) 633, 251 P. (2d) 158, in which the court again reviewed all of the cases and declared the rule had been uniformly followed, and again declined to recede.
By repeated decisions covering a period of more than forty years, the decisional law of the state is that:
“An accident arises out of the employment when the required exertion producing the accident is too great for the man undertaking the work, whatever the degree of exertion or the condition of the workman’s health.”11
We are told that stare decisis does not apply to statutory construction, and it is said that Petersen v. Department of Labor & Industries, 40 Wn. (2d) 635, 245 P. (2d) 1161, sustains this view. The court was not there concerned with stare decisis nor its application in the field of statutory construction, and indeed, no decision was made upon that point nor could have been.
On the contrary, stare decisis applies most vigorously in the field of statutory construction. The summary of 21 C. J. S. 388, § 214, is as follows:
“The doctrine of stare decisis applies with full force to decisions construing statutes or ordinances, especially where *54the construction has been long acquiesced in, and decisions construing other statutes are authoritative if such statutes are nearly identical with the one under review.”
and it is said in 14 Am. Jur. 287, § 66:
“It has been said that the court of last resort of a state will not overrule one of its prior decisions construing a statute where the legislature has held several sessions since such decision without modifying or amending the statute, because it may be claimed justly that the legislature has acquiesced in the decision, and therefore a fair case is presented for the application of the doctrine of stare de-cisis.”
I am very greatly indebted to Mr. Fred W. Catlett for his painstaking study12 in which he points out that stability in the law is its most desirable attribute, and, if this were not so, we should have a government of men and not of law.13 Legal scholars agree with the statement of Mr. Justice Brandéis: “It is more important that the applicable rule be settled than that it be settled right.”14 Stability in the decisional law construing statutes is as important as stability in decisions affecting real property, for the meaning of the statutes should not change with the personnel of the court.'
Harmonizing with the prevailing current of judicial opinions in the United States, the decisional law of this state is that the construction placed upon a statute by this court becomes a part of the statute itself. Indeed, this court said so in Yakima Valley Bank & Trust Co. v. Yakima County, 149 Wash. 552, 271 Pac. 820:
“It is a familiar rule of statutory construction that, when *55á statute has once been construed by the highest court of the state, that construction is as much a part of the statute as if it were originally written into it.”
Other Washington cases are collected in the margin.15
Moreover, we have here the re-enactment in 1939 in haec verba of the 1927 definition of the word “injury,” during which interval there were ten more uniform decisions by this court. Under such circumstances, the legislature is conclusively presumed to be familiar with the decisions construing the statute and to have adopted the statute as so construed. This court said as much in In re Lindholm’s Estate, 6 Wn. (2d) 366, 107 P. (2d) 562:
“It may therefore be assumed that, by reenacting the proviso, the legislature adopted the construction placed thereon by this court in the Sherwood case.”
Such is the plain statement in 2 Lewis’ Sutherland Statutory Construction (2d ed.) 929, 930, § 499 (333).16
Specifically, this court recently held itself bound by the prior construction of the word “employer” in the industrial insurance act, because the legislature had not changed the definition in the intervening nine years. Such was the decision in Nyland v. Department of Labor & Industries, 41 Wn. (2d) 511, 513, 250 P. (2d) 551. Here, however, the body of decisional law construing the statute is not only extensive, but the interval of time is three times as great.
A change in the statute as interpreted by this court over a quarter of a century, may not be made by a change in judicial interpretation without encroaching on the function of the legislature. It is now beyond the sphere of judicial action and exclusively within the domain of the legislative *56branch of the government. Such was the rule announced by the supreme court of Kansas in the following six unequivocal sentences:
“Courts do not write legislation. That is the function of the legislature. Our duty is to declare and apply legislative acts and to construe statutes and constitutions in accordance with the will of the law-making power where its construction becomes necessary. When such construction has been given to a law and finally established as a part thereof, it is as much a part of it as if embodied therein in plain and unmistakable language. When that situation exists, it is the province of the legislature alone to change the law if it deems advisable. The courts should not attempt it.” State v. One Bally Coney Island No. 21011 Gaming Table, 174 Kan. 757, 258 P. (2d) 225.
The question has arisen in at least ten other states and in each instance similar conclusions were reached. Those states are Idaho,17 Indiana,18 New Jersey,19 Wisconsin,20 Montana,21 Arizona,22 Alabama,23 Mississippi,24 Missouri,25 and Texas.26
*57Anyone familiar with our industrial insurance problem during the six-year interval between the Frandila and Met-calf cases, knows the amendment of the “injury” definition in 1927 was an expression of legislative dissatisfaction with the Frandila decision and a legislative manifestation that another and different rule of law should control.
The writer of this dissent, appealed the Metcalf case for that purpose alone, and advised the court in language incapable of misunderstanding, but this court decided otherwise and has adhered to that construction for the intervening quarter of a century, so that it is now an integral part of the statute itself and can only be changed by the legislature.
The powerful argument of Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone in his dissent in Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61, 76, 90 L. Ed. 1084, 66 S. Ct. 826, is most apropos:
“It is the responsibility of Congress, in reenacting a statute, to make known its purpose in a controversial matter of interpretation of its former language, at least when the matter has, for over a decade, been persistently brought to its attention. In the light of this legislative history, it is abundantly clear that Congress has performed that duty. In any case it is not lightly to be implied that Congress has failed to perform it and has delegated to this Court the responsibility of giving new content to language deliberately readopted after this Court has construed it. For us to make such an assumption is to discourage, if not to deny, legislative responsibility. By thus adopting and confirming this Court’s construction of what Congress had enacted in the Naturalization Act of 1906 Congress gave that construction the same legal significance as though it had written the very words into the Act of 1940.”
But we are told that the legislature adopted the construction of the statute in the Mork case (Mork v. Department of Labor & Industries, 48 Wn. (2d) 74, 291 P. (2d) 650) by the re-enactment of the definition of “injury” in Laws of 1957, chapter 70, § 12, p. 277, after the decision in the Mork case.
The answer to this is twofold: (1) The court in the Mork opinion, which was a Departmental one, did not undertake to overrule the earlier cases on the subject, many of which *58were En Banc decisions; and (2) by a line of cases recently reaffirmed, the law in force at the time of the injury controls throughout the life of the claim. Bodine v. Department of Labor & Industries, 29 Wn. (2d) 879, 190 P. (2d) 89; Lynch v. Department of Labor & Industries, 19 Wn. (2d) 802, 145 P. (2d) 265; Sheldon v. Department of Labor & Industries, 168 Wash. 571, 12 P. (2d) 751; Thorpe v. Department of Labor & Industries, 145 Wash. 498, 261 Pac. 85.
The one hope of salvation and stability from this judicial morass is that the legislative branch of the government will come to the rescue.
Such are the reasons for my dissent.
Rosellini, J., concurs with Foster, J.

Mountain Tbr. Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, 61 L. Ed. 685, 37 S. Ct. 260.

Occupational diseases are not here considered.

Col. Ethelbert Stewart, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 596, p. 271.
“ . . . from requiring them to contribute reasonable amounts and according to a reasonable and definite scale by way of compensation for the loss of earning power arising from accidental injuries to their employees, irrespective of the question of negligence, instead of leaving the entire loss to rest where it may chance to fall, that is, upon particular injured employees and their dependents.
“. . . The act in effect puts these hazardous occupations in the category of dangerous agencies, and requires that the losses shall be reckoned as a part of the cost of the industry, just like the pay-roll, the repair account, or any other item of cost. ...” Mountain Tbr. Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, 61 L. Ed. 685,' 37 S. Ct. 260.

Stertz v. Industrial Ins. Comm., 91 Wash. 588, 158 Pac. 256.

The original definition of “injury” was: “The words injury or injured, as used in this act, refer only to an injury resulting from some fortuitous event as distinguished from the contraction of disease.” Laws of 1911, chapter 74, § 3, p. 346.

“This shows that before an event is an injury as defined by our workmen’s compensation act, there must be some particular time to which the injury can be attributed before the workman is entitled to compensation or else he would be unable to determine whether or not his claim was filed within one year from the injury and thus render invalid that portion of section 6604-12, quoted supra. If the appendix was ruptured by the constant pressure against respondent’s abdomen caused *50by his work in transferring blocks from the carrier to the saw, it would be an occupational disease and not be a fortuitous event, and the rule is well established that an occupational disease is not an injury or an accident, and not under the workmen’s compensation act.” Attorney General’s brief, Shadbolt v. Department of Labor and Industries, 17.

“Where a workman, not in perfect health, during the course of his employment makes an extra exertion which, in addition to his infirmity, causes an injury, such injury is a fortuitous event, and brings him within the operation of the compensation.”

Smith v. Department of Labor & Industries, 179 Wash. 501, 38 P. (2d) 212; McGuire v. Department of Labor & Industries, 179 Wash. 645, 38 P. (2d) 266; Thomas v. Department of Labor & Industries, 181 Wash. 683, 44 P. (2d) 765; Johnson v. Department of Labor & Industries, 184 Wash. 567, 52 P. (2d) 310; Pulver v. Department of Labor & Industries, 185 Wash. 664, 56 P. (2d) 701; Daugherty v. Department of Labor & Industries, 188 Wash. 626, 63 P. (2d) 434; Devlin v. Department of Labor *53& Industries, 194 Wash. 549, 78 P. (2d) 952; Bergagna v. Department of Labor & Industries, 199 Wash. 263, 91 P. (2d) 551.
“. . . So far as the law is concerned every argument advanced by the appellant and more was urged upon this honorable court in the Metcalf case and with a greater show of reason because it came just following an amendment of the statute which was thought to eliminate strain as an injury. Those arguments were there rejected and the rule there announced has been frequently reiterated. This is but a petition for a rehearing in the Metcalf case and it comes ten years late. ...” Attorney General’s brief, McCormick Lbr. Co. v. Department of Labor & Industries, 23.

“The rule above stated has been accepted in this state after much discussion and diversity of opinion. It is now firmly established, and we see no reason for departing from it.” McCormick Lbr. Co. v. Department of Labor & Industries, 7 Wn. (2d) 40, 60, 108 P. (2d) 807.

McCormick Lbr. Co. v. Department of Labor & Industries, supra.

“The Development of the Doctrine of Stare Decisis and the Extent to Which it Should be Applied,” 21 Wash. L. Rev. 158.

“The majority of this court changes on the average only once every nine years, without counting the changes of death and resignation. If each new set of judges shall consider themselves at liberty to overthrow the doctrine of their predecessors, our system of jurisprudence (if system it can be called) would be the most fickle, uncertain and vicious that the civilized world ever saw.” Hole v. Rittenhouse, 2 Phila. 411, 417-418.

Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas. Co., 285 U. S. 393, 406, 76 L. Ed. 815, 52 S. Ct. 443.

State v. Grabinski, 33 Wn. (2d) 603, 206 P. (2d) 1022; In re Lindholm’s Estate, 6 Wn. (2d) 366, 107 P. (2d) 562; State v. Gustafson, 87 Wash. 613, 152 Pac. 335. A myriad of cases are collected in the annotation 65 L. Ed. 106. For text statements see Courts, 21 C. J. S. 388, § 214; 14 Am. Jur. 287, § 66.

“The re-enactment of a statute after a judicial construction of its meaning is to be regarded as a legislative adoption of the statute as thus construed.” 2 Lewis’ Sutherland Statutory Construction (2d ed.) 929, 930, §499 (333).
See, also, Statutes, 82 C. J. S. 843, § 370 (b); 50 Am. Jur. 461, § 442, note 18.

In re Speer, 53 Idaho 293, 23 P. (2d) 239, 88 A. L. R. 1086.

Barr v. Sumner, 183 Ind. 402, 409, 107 N. E. 675, 677. “Were we of the opinion that all those consistent decisions are erroneous we would be without rightful authority to overrule them, because this court is vested with no legislative power.”

Mechanics Finance Co. v. Austin, 11 N. J. Super. Ct. 399, 78 A. (2d) 408.

Boutin v. Cardinal Theatre Co., 267 Wis. 199, 64 N. W. (2d) 848, 850; Thomas v. Industrial Comm., 243 Wis. 231, 10 N. W. (2d) 206, 210, 147 A. L. R. 103, 108. “ ‘When that situation exists it is the province of the legislature alone to change the law. The court should not attempt it, whatever may be the notions of judges as to what the law ought to be.’ ”

Converse v. Byars, 112 Mont. 372, 118 P. (2d) 144, 147. “If any change is desired it should come from the legislature, particularly as applied to wills made after the Fratt decision.”

Madrigal v. Industrial Comm., 69 Ariz. 138, 144, 210 P. (2d) 967.

Fidelity-Phenix Fire Ins. Co. v. Murphy, 231 Ala. 680, 166 So. 604, 607.

Yelverton v. Yelverton, 200 Miss. 569, 28 So. (2d) 176.

Kansas City Public Service Co. v. Ranson, 328 Mo. 524, 41 S. W. (2d) 169, 173.

Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. v. Beckley, 93 Tex. 267, 54 S. W. 1027, 1030; Thompson v. Kay, 124 Tex. 252, 77 S. W. (2d) 201, 208.