Court Opinion

ID: 9868562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:41:25.485827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:50.547271
License: Public Domain

*407On Petition to Reheae.
We have been presented with a very earnest petition to rehear, and while it raises no question that was not dealt with in the original opinion, we will respond briefly to the complaint with respect to the failure of the employee to give the thirty days’ written notice.
Counsel undertake to differentiate this case from the case of Vester Gas Range & Mfg. Co. v. Leonard, 148 Tenn., 665, 257 S. W., 395, because in that case the insurance company paid the claimant $97.50. ■ When that sum was paid the claimant, however, the thirty days’ period had expired, and it was not paid in recognition of any liability, which it expressly denied at the time, but most likely, realizing that its conduct constituted a waiver, it paid same, as stated in the written settlement, by way of compromise, and for the purpose of preventing petitioner from further prosecuting his claim.
In Ezell v. Tipton, 150 Tenn., 309, 264 S. W., 357, it was said: “There was evidence offered by petitioner which tended to show that defendant learned of the accident within a few minutes after it occurred and employed physicians to give petitioner treatment and was present when they dressed his hand and arm, and prepared him for removal to a hospital in the city of Memphis where he could secure proper and adequate surgical treatment. Defendant accompanied petitioner to Memphis, employed a surgeon to treat his injury, engaged a room at a hospital for him, and remained at the hospital while petitioner ’s hand was being amputated. He paid his hospital and surgical bills. There is also evidence tending to show that defendant agreed to continue petitioner in *408his employ indefinitely at his regular weekly wage of $24 per week after his recovery from the injury sustained.”
The court announced its conclusion in the following language: “We think the evidence tends to show that petitioner was misled by the promise of defendant to continue him in his employ, made immediately subsequent to the injury, and that petitioner’s failure to give the statutory notice cannot be relied on by defendant. We think the promise and subsequent conduct of the defendant afforded a reasonable excuse for failure to give defendant written notice of the accident, and that the trial court was correct in so holding.”
• In Corpus Juris, Treatise on Workmen’s Compensation Acts, p. 6', it is said: “The compensation acts are based on a new theory of compensation distinct from the existing theories of damages, the underlying conception being one of insurance. The liability created has no reference to negligence or tort, and the compensation awarded is intended neither as a charity nor as a penalty. The trend of authority is toward regarding the obligation as contractual or gwasi-contractual, although it has been said that critically considered it is more properly placed in a class by itself. ’ ’
In Smith v. Van Noy Interstate Co., 150 Tenn., 25, 262 S. W., 1048, 35 A. L. R., 1409, it was held that the obligation was contractual in its nature.
Treating the present case from that standpoint, the decisions of this court in other insurance cases support the conclusions arrived at.
In Ligon’s Administration v. Insurance Co., 87 Tenn,, 344, 10 S. W., 769, in considering the usual" provision *409in fire policies requiring written proof of loss within a stated period, as a condition precedent to the bringing; of suit, this court said:
“Such stipulations are eminently proper, and should be sustained, and are by the courts upheld; but, being a provision for the benefit of the insurance company, can be waived by the latter, and will be held by the courts as waived where the conduct of the company has misled, and was such as might well have misled a reasonable prudent man, or where it is manifest that the company had already been put in possession of all the information that said clause was intended to furnish, and made no request for more specific details until after the lapse of an unreasonable time, leaving the insured to suppose that no further demands would be made. ’ ’
The second syllabus to Insurance Co. v. Norment, 91 Tenn., 1, 18 S. W., 395; is as follows: “The condition in a life and accident policy requiring that ‘immediate written notice of an accidental injury or death’ shall be given to the insurer at his home office is treated as either waived or sufficiently complied with in a suit upon the policy for assured’s death, where the assured, having sustained his injury about the first of April, gave verbal notice thereof to the local agent some time in May following which was promptly communicated to the home office by the agent through a letter, and thereafter the insurer, through his agents and physicians, made thorough examination of the case both before and after assured’s death.”
The court, in its opinion, said: “The purpose of such notice is to give the insurer opportunity to investigate for itself the cause and extent of the injhry. This actual *410notice was received by the company, and the case in fact investigated. The jury might well, on the facts shown as to this investigation, both before and after death of assured, find that written notice had been waived and that actual notice had been given within a reasonable time. ’ ’
After a review of the many decisions upon this question, we find that in most jurisdictions it is held that where the employer had actual knowledge of the injury, and suffered no prejudice by the failure of the employee to give written notice, the giving of such notice is excused. The decisions of this court have not gone that far, nor is it necessary in the instant case. When, in addition to knowledge and lack of prejudice, the employer makes an investigation, files a written report, has the employee treated by its physician, and retains him in its employ, we hold that this constitutes a waiver of notice, or affords a sufficient excuse for not giving written notice.
The construction by the courts of the various compensation acts, with respect to notice of the injury, have been summed up by Mr. Bradbury in his book on Workmen’s Compensation (3d Ed.), p. 928, as follows:
“Nearly all the compensation acts provide two distinct steps as a basis for a claim, as to which different limitations apply. They all require that notice of the injury must be given by the employee to the employer, but the penalties for failure to give notice are varied. The requirements in this particular are not technical. In most cases knowledge on the part of the employer of the injury makes it unnecessary for the employee to give notice. Even though notice is not given and the employer *411is without knowledge this will not tar a claim, as a rule, unless the employer has teen prejudiced by lack of .notice. In many instances also the failure to give notice will not bar a claim if the failure was due to excusable neglect. If, however, there are no extenuating circumstances for failure to comply with the statute as to giving notice of an injury and the employer has been prejudiced then such failure may be sufficient to entirely bar a claim.
“The provision as to making a claim for compensation, however, is usually a statute of limitations. That is if an affirmative claim is not made within a specific period after the injury or after the last payment of compensation, then the claim is forever barred. The same liberal rules are not applied upon failure to make a claim that are usually applied upon failure to give notice of an accident. Usually there is discretion to relieve a workman from his default for failure to give notice of any injury while failure to make a claim brings into effect an absolute statute of limitations from.the operation of which relief cannot be granted.”
Counsel for the company, in effect, seeks to induce this court to treat the provision of the act, as to the thirty days’ written notice, just as we have construed the one year provision in Graham v. J. W. Wells Brick Co., 150 Tenn., 660, 266 S. W., 770.
This we are unable to do because such, in our judgment, was not the legislative intent, and is in conflict with the weight of authority.
As stated in the original opinion, we are of the opinion that the company has suffered no imposition in this case, rt.d\ that the merits have been reached.
Tl|ie petition to rehear will be denied.