Amerada Petroleum Corp. v. Lovelace

1938 OK 627, 85 P.2d 407, 184 Okla. 140, 1938 Okla. LEXIS 454
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedDecember 13, 1938
DocketNo. 28348.
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 1938 OK 627 (Amerada Petroleum Corp. v. Lovelace) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Amerada Petroleum Corp. v. Lovelace, 1938 OK 627, 85 P.2d 407, 184 Okla. 140, 1938 Okla. LEXIS 454 (Okla. 1938).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

The parties will be referred to as petitioner and claimant. On the 3rd day of March, 1937, Virgil F. Lovelace sustained an accidental injury to his arm, bacb, and head while employed as a pumper for the Amerada Petroleum Corporation. He was adjusting a board from the top of a 210-barrel stocb tanb across a four-inch line running from the settling tanb to the stocb tanb, and had crawled out on the board to put on a Sbinner pipe joint clamp, when the connections brobe and he fell to the ground, a distance of approximately 15 feet. The employer reported the accident on Form 2 and stated that the employee had sustained a fracture and dislocation of the left elbow. This report was made May 12, 1937. On the same date there was received and filed a report of initial payment of compensation. This report was made on the regular Form 6 and shows payment of $18 on the 29th day of March, 1937, and a total payment of §144 up to and including the 5th day of April, 1937. It gave the nature of the injury as a left elbow fracture. On the report is a notation as follows: “Form 7 to follow.” On August 23, 1937, there was received and filed another Form 6 report of initial payment of compensation showing $18 paid March 29, 1937, to and including August 9, 1937, and on this report the nature of the injury is also given as a left elbow fracture. Under the column marbed “Re-marbs” it is stated:

“Attached hereto is the attending physician’s report showing that this claimant has been released by the attending physician and is able to do any kind of worb as of August 12, 1937. Weebly payments of compensation will be continued, the amount paid to be applied on whatever permanent disability this claimant is shown to have.”

Following this is a letter dated August 12, 1937, from the Von Wedel Clinic stating that the employee had been released from further medical care and advising that claimant could engage in any bind of work and use “this hand.” In this letter it was stated that the claimant has some permanent disability, but that the disability will be decreased considerably after he uses the hand for a period of three or four months. On August 30, 1937, the claimant filed first notice of injury and claim for compensation. Under the statement “nature and extent of injury” is given “broken arm and injured bacb and head.” On September 14, 1937, there ■was received and filed a Form 7 stipulation and receipt signed by Virgil F. Lovelace and the Amerada Petroleum Corporation. This receipt purported to cover all temporary disability up to and including August 12, 1937, and recites that it was payment for 19 weeks exclusive of the five-day waiting period. The total paid was §354.

On September 11, 1937, there was received and filed a motion in which it is stated that total temporary disability had ceased; that Form 7 had been duly signed and filed, and that claimant wished to determine the extent of the permanent disability. The first hearing on this application was held at Holdenville, Okla., on October 27, 1937. Virgil F. Lovelace was a witness for himself. At this time he was asked whether he suffered any further injury other than that to his arm, and he stated that he had injured his bacb, leg, head, and neck. Dr. John E. Munal also testified that claimant had an injury to his neck, back, and knee. Dr. Robinson likewise testified that there was a permanent injury to the back, neck, and head.

On the 27th day of November, 1937, the State Industrial Commission entered an award for 60 per cent, disability to the left arm, and in addition ordered payment of §18 per week for not to exceed 300 weeks for permanent partial disability under the *142 “other eases” provision of section 13356, O. S. 1931 (85 Okla. St. Ann. sec. 22). This order directed payment of §2,700, for the 60 per cent, disability to the arm, in a lump sum.

There is no doubt that there is competent evidence to sustain the finding of the State Industrial Commission that in addition to the disability to the arm the claimant also has a permanent partial disability as a result of the injury.

It is first urged that because no statement was made about the injury to the back and head until the filing of the employee’s first notice on August 30, 1937, the State Industrial Commission was without authority to enter any award for any injury other than to the arm. It is pointed out that neither of the physician’s reports mentioned any injury other than that to the arm. Not a single authority is cited in support of the proposition by the petitioner. We hold that this position is untenable. Where payment has been made for the temporary total disability and medical service rendered by the employer, the employee has one year in which to file his claim under section 13367, O. S. 1931 (85 Okla. St. Ann. sec. 43). The purpose of the statutory written notice provided by section 13358, O. S. 1931 (85 Okla. St. Ann. sec. 24), is to afford an opportunity to the employer to investigate to determine whether there is an accidental injury within the terms of the Workmen’s Compensation Law. The employee is not bound to furnish notice of the nature and.extent of the disability, and when the matter comes on for hearing the State Industrial Commission is authorized to hear evidence and make any award the evidence justifies where no former award has been made. Petitioner, also says that Form 7 described the injury as com-minuted fracture of the left elbow, head of radius torn off, and the olecranon process of the ulna torn off. In Skelly Oil Co. v. Standley, 148 Okla. 77, 297 P. 235, the original agreement in lieu of a claim filed mentioned only a crushed chest, cut leg, bruised face, and mashed finger. The State Industrial Commission entered an award for an arm injury thereafter. The court criticized a rule formerly announced in Cagle v. Federal Mining & Smelting Co., 112 Okla. 247, 240 P. 617, and said:

“The Cagle Case, supra, holds a claim, made for an injury, more than six months after the accident and not reported in the original claim, cannot become the basis for modifying an award upon a ground of change in condition (section 7296) when ‘the latter injury is disassociated as an effect from the first injury.’
“We decline to follow the dictum contained in the Cagle Case, which approved the reasoning in the Ehrhart Case.”

In Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. v. Hunsicker, 178 Okla. 565, 63 P.2d 21, after citing a number of cases where the employer had filed reports or there had been payments for temporary disability, the court said:

“The cases we have cited stand for the principle that if the employer receives notice of the accident, this is sufficient even though the notice does not specifically enumerate all the injuries received.”

Other authorities to the same effect are Gypsy Oil Co. v. Jackson, 158 Okla. 139, 12 P.2d 694; Sinclair Prairie Oil Co. v. Smith, 168 Okla. 483, 34 P.2d 248. Since the petitioner admits that it had notice of the arm injury, and in fact paid all temporary total disability for the injury as shown by the filing of Form 7, we think the authorities cited clearly disclose jurisdiction of the State Industrial Commission to consider the evidence of the further disability by reason of the injury to the head and back.

The next proposition presented by the petitioner is that the State Industrial Commission was without authority to commute to a lump sum of §2,700 the payment for the disability to the arm.

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Bluebook (online)
1938 OK 627, 85 P.2d 407, 184 Okla. 140, 1938 Okla. LEXIS 454, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/amerada-petroleum-corp-v-lovelace-okla-1938.