Court Opinion

ID: 9683192
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:24:10.66171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:46.121145
License: Public Domain

Ethridge, J.,
Dissenting:
I do not see how the Legislature could state more clearly than it has in Section 30 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act that the employer and his insurance carrier have an independent right of action and claim to be indemnified by a third party tort-feasor. Miss. Code 1942, Section 6998-36. In my view the controlling opinion interprets Section 30 contrary to the manifest legislative intent, and reaches a result which deprives the employer or carrier in the circumstances of any indemnification from a third party who has negligently killed an employee. The majority decision is placed necessarily upon a subrogation theory. Yet Section 30 says nothing* whatsoever about subrogation. It grants to an employer or his compensation insurance carrier an independent claim and right against the tort-feasor, irrespective of whether the compensation dependent of the deceased employee would otherwise have a right of action under the wrongful death statute. Miss. Code 1942, Section 1453.
The issue is whether an employer or compensation insurance carrier is entitled to be reimbursed under Section 30 for compensation payments made by them to a dependent who is not the next of kin of the deceased employee under the wrongful death act, from proceeds of a judgment against a third party tort-feasor. There is no *399question that the Legislature has the power to provide for such indemnification. A right to sue for causing death is purely a creature of statute. So the answer must he determined from a reading of Section 30. It states that the employer or insurer ‘ ‘ shall he entitled to repayment of the amount paid by them as compensation. ’ ’ It further says that “any amount recovered by the injured employee or his dependents (or legal representative) from a third party shall be applied” by first paying reasonable costs of collection, and “the remainder, or so much thereof as is necessary, shall be used to discharge the legal liability of the employer or insurer.”
Section 30 again states that the employer or compensation carrier “shall have the right to maintain an action at law against any 'other person responsible for such injury or death”, in the name of the employee’s beneficiaries or in their own name. The last paragraph of Section 30 further gives the employer or insurer a right of action against the third party for payments made by them into the second injury fund, “which right may be enforced in the action heretofore provided for or by an independent action. ’ ’ In brief, Section 30 provides several times in the first three paragraphs that the employer or carrier have a right of action for indemnity against the negligent third party. It does not limit the carrier’s claim to subrogation by statutory assignment. That theory, with deference, is read into the statute by the majority opinion.
Complex and lengthy statutes are often subject to varying interpretations, but the legislative intent here could not be more clearly stated: It is to vest in the employer and carrier a right of action against and of indemnity from a third party tort-feasor, for compensation payments it has made to a dependent of a deceased employee. The right exists whether or not the dependent has a cause of action under the wrongful death statute.
*400The provisions of Section 30 are sui generis. They are not like those of any other third party act. So the decisions from other states are, in general, not controlling or even persuasive. The Mississippi statute controls. Many states give an injured employee or his next of kin an election to claim under either workmen’s compensation or in tort. New York had a provision of this type. It was applied in Zirpola v. T. & E. Casselman, Inc., 237 N. Y. 367, 143 N. E. 222 (1924), which is quoted at length by the controlling opinion as being persuasive in its reasoning. However, Zirpola was based upon an entirely different statute. Illinois and Maryland, with statutes somewhat similar to that of Mississippi, affirm the employer’s right to be indemnified under the present circumstances. Storrs v. Mech, 166 Md. 124, 170 A. 743 (1934); In Re Shield’s Estate, 320 Ill. App. 522, 51 N. E. 2d 816 (1943).
Board of Commissioners of Port of New Orleans v. City of New Orleans, 223 La. 199, 65 So. 2d 313 (1953), reversing the Court of Appeals in 58 So. 2d 306, is perhaps the most recent case dealing with the employer’s right to indemnity from a third party, even though the deceased employee’s dependent has no right of action under the wrongful death statute. The Supreme Court of Louisiana held that the right to bring the suit was specifically granted by statute. The dependent’s incapacity to sue is neither expressly nor impliedly imposed on the employer from whom she received compensation. It was said: “By the provisions of the compensation statute the employer paying- compensation, as pointed out above, is granted an independent right to assert the cause of action.through a direct suit against the tort-feasor and obtain recovery to the extent of his obligation to the employee or dependent.” Malone, Louisiana Workmen’s Compensation Law and Practice (1951), Section 367, Supp., discussing this case at length, recognizes that it “reaches a fair and equitable conclusion. A wrongdoer, *401not the blameless employer, should ultimately bear the cost of compensation” for the dependent.
The majority opinion places squarely the loss upon the employer or insurer, and not the wrongdoer. It does this upon a subrogation theory which is never mentioned in the statute. So far these reasons I must dissent.
Gillespie, J., joins in this dissent.