Court Opinion

ID: 9792235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:25:30.602871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:41.284960
License: Public Domain

Foster, J.
(concurring specially) — While I agree fully with the court’s cónclusion the evidence was insufficient to sustain a verdict that the decedent was in the course of his employment, this case offers no occasion to apply the rule that the superior court on review may only decide questions actually decided by the department.
The case cited, Leary v. Department of Labor & Industries, 18 Wn. (2d) 532, 140 P. (2d) 292, and the many others announcing similar conclusions are based upon Cole v. Department of Labor & Industries, 137 Wash. 538, 243 Pac. 7. Cole’s claim was rejected because there was no accident. The only issue on appeal, therefore, was whether an accident had occurred or not, but the court went farther and submitted to the jury the extent of disability. This the superior court had no jurisdiction to do because that issue had not been decided by the supervisor of industrial insurance.
That is made manifestly plain by Boone v. Department of Labor & Industries, 174 Wash. 123, 24 P. (2d) 454, in which an application to reopen an industrial insurance claim was denied by the department on the ground there had been no increase in the disability since the closing of the claim. The court held, however, the extent of the disability inhered in the decision that there had been no increase in the disability, and, consequently, the superior court did have jurisdiction on appeal to determine the extent of the disability.
On an appeal denying the compensability of an industrial insurance claim, any evidence touching upon that issue is admissible, and it is not to be rejected upon the hypothesis that that particular facet of the inquiry had not been considered by the board. The issue is one of jurisdiction and not admissibility of evidence.
*281The jurisdiction of the board of industrial insurance appeals is appellate only and not original. By the terms of Laws of 1951, chapter 225, § 7, p. 685 [cf. RCW 51.52.070], the notice of appeal to the board of industrial insurance appeals from the decision of the supervisor of industrial insurance defines the issues in any industrial insurance appeal.
The supervisor of industrial insurance, among other things, rejected this claim on the ground the decedent was engaged in the commission of a crime at the time of his death. Evidence was received upon that issue before the board of industrial insurance appeals, and the court in instruction No. 14, set out in the margin,2 submitted that issue to the jury to which an appropriate exception was taken. That issue was drawn in controversy by every device known to the industrial insurance law. The rule of the Cole case, and others following it, has to do with issues decided by the supervisor of industrial insurance, but has no possible application in this case.
Hill, C. J., concurs with Foster, J.

“You are instructed that if an injury or death results to a workman from the deliberate intention of the workman himself to produce such injury or death, or while he is engaged in the attempt to commit, or the commission of a crime, neither the workman nor the widow or child of the workman shall be entitled to receive any payment whatsoever from the industrial insurance accident fund.”