Court Opinion

ID: 9808782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:50:42.941987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:33.188843
License: Public Domain

HoKe, J.,
concurring: In Barden v. R. R., 152 N. C., 319, and several other cases, where a similar question was presented, it was contended for tbe company that a receipt of benefits, under tbe provisions of tbe relief department, by an employee who was a member, should operate as an absolute bar to any action, by said employee, to recover damages for injuries caused by tbe negligence or other wrong of tbe company. Being of tbe opinion that to allow tbe receipt of benefits tbe effect contended for would, in nearly every instance, be in direct violation of our statute law, Revisal, sec. 2446,1 concurred in tbe decision declaring tbe provision void. Tbe statute in question'enacts, in substance, that any employee of any railroad company operating in this State who shall suffer injury to bis person, or tbe personal representative of any such employee who has, in tbe course of bis employment, been killed by tbe negligence, carelessness, or incompetence of any other employee, or by any defect in tbe machinery, ways, or appliances of tbe company, shall be entitled to maintain an action against such company, and then concludes with tbe provision, “That any contract or agreement, expressed or implied, made by any employee of tbe company to *73waive the benefit of tbis section shall be null and void.” True, there are numerous decisions of the courts elsewhere that the receipt of benefits, under the provisions of this charter or scheme known as the relief department, shall operate as a bar to the action, basing their ruling, chiefly, on the position that the acceptance of benefits is in the nature of an adjustment after the injury; but, in my view, the position is untenable here, for the reason that to allow the receipt of benefits the effect of an absolute bar, resort must be had to the stipulations of the contract by which the injured employee became a member, and so comes directly within the prohibition of the statute referred to. While not directly presented, because the Court - was upholding the provisions of the Federal statute as to companies engaged in interstate commerce avoiding a similar stipulation, this view was suggested in a recent case before the Supreme Court of the United States, R. R. v. Maguire, 219 U. S., at page 566, in which Associate Justice Hughes, delivering the opinion, said: “The acceptance of benefits is of course an act done after the injury, but the legal consequences sought to be attached to that act are derived from the provision in the contract of membership. The stipulation, which the statute'nullifies, is one made in advance of the injury, that the subsequent acceptance of benefits shall constitute full satisfaction of all claims for damages,” etc.
From the principle here suggested and on the view of this relief department and the acceptance of benefits under it which has been always heretofore presented, I am of opinion that the case of Barden v. R. R., supra, was properly decided and might be allowed to prevail now, as a correct and forcible statement of the law controlling the subject.
In the present cause, while disapproving Barden’s case to the extent that it holds the provision in question absolutely void, the principal opinion by Associate Justice Allen now decides that the acceptance of benefits by an injured employee, having a right of action against the railroad company, whether regarded in the nature of a release or an accord and satisfaction, may be successfully assailed in the courts for fraud, undue influence, or oppression, and that, on such issue joined, the *74entire facts may be presented, including the circumstances under which, the employee became a member, as well as those more directly attendant upon the transaction, and that, in some instances, this fraud may be inferred when there is such gross disproportion between the amount received and the extent and value of the claim as to make it clear that no fair adjustment has been had nor one that in equity and good conscience should be allowed to stand. From this opinion and two on the same subject and under differing facts, by the same learned judge, at the present term, Nelson v. R. R. and Wacksmuth v. R. R., I am convinced that a wise and workable rule has been found and established by which the beneficent feátures of this department may be preserved and proper and adequate relief afforded to injured employees having meritorious claims, and therefore concur in the opinion as written.