Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. v. Linthicum

1936 OK 20, 53 P.2d 687, 175 Okla. 483, 1936 Okla. LEXIS 13
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJanuary 14, 1936
DocketNo. 26503.
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 1936 OK 20 (Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. v. Linthicum) 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
Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. v. Linthicum, 1936 OK 20, 53 P.2d 687, 175 Okla. 483, 1936 Okla. LEXIS 13 (Okla. 1936).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

This is an original proceeding in this court brought by the petitioner, the Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Company, seeking the review and modification of an award made by the State Industrial Commission in favor of respondent Fred Linthicum.

The record discloses that the respondent sustained an accidental personal injury on November 27, 1932, while in the employ of the petitioner, and was by the State Industrial Commission awarded compensation for temporary total disability resulting from said injury. That a review of said award was had in this court and the order of the Commission thereon sustained. Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. v. Linthicum, 168 Okla. 631, 35 P. (2d) 450. The compensation so awarded was subsequently paid.

On October 5, 1934, respondent filed with the State Industrial Commission an application requesting that tribunal to determine the permanent disability sustained by respondent by reason of said injury. A hearing was had on this application, and on June 24 1935, the Commission made an award to the respondent for temporary partial disability resulting from said injuries, and it is this award that we are now called upon to review.

The portions of the order and award es-sentia] to a consideration in this action are as follows:

“As a further result of said injury claimant has suffered a temporary partial disability by reason of which his wage-earning capacity is now $1.75 per day, or a decrease of 50 cents per day, the average of claimant at the time of said injury having been $2.25 per day; and, as a result of the aforementioned injury and resulting temporary partial disability, claimant is entitled to sixty-six and two-thirds per cent, of the differ *484 ence between his average weekly wages at the time of said injury and his wage-earning capacity after June 2, 1933. and during the continuance of such temporary partial disability not to exceed 300 weeks. Upon consideration of the foregoing facts: The commission is of the opinion that claimant is entitled to compensation at the rate of $8 per week for a period not to exceed 300 weeks from June 3. 1933, subject to reconsideration of the degree of such impairment by the commission on its own motion or upon application of any party in interest; and that there is now due claimant the sum of $849.33 computed from June 3, 1933, to June 18, 1935, being 106 weeks and one day, and to continue compensation thereafter.
“It is therefore ordered: That within 15 days from this date, the respondent pay to the claimant the sum of $849.33, being 106 weeks and 1 day’s compensation at the rate of $8 per week, and to continue compensation thereafter, at the rate of $8 per week, until a period not to exceed 300 weeks shall have been paid during the continuance of said temporary partial disability not to exceed three hundred weeks.”

It is the contention of the petitioner that:

“Said award is excessive in that it violates subsection 5 of section 13356, Oklahoma Statutes 1931, the commission having found in its order of June 24, 1935, that claimant had an average earning capacity of one dollar seventy-five cents ($1.75) per day from June 3. 1933, to June 18, 1935, or a wage-earning capacity of ten dollars and fifty cents ($10.50) per week, which, plus eight dollars ($8) a week would give him a present income of eighteen dollars and fifty cents ($18.50) per week, while his average weekly wage prior to the injury was two dollars and twenty-five cents ($2.25) per day or thirteen dollars and fifty cents ($13.50) a week thereby making said award excessive to tlte extent of five dollars ($5) per week.”

The question thus, raised involves the interpretation of subdivisions 4 and 5 and of the last paragraph of subdivision 3 of section 133,56. O. S. 1931, which pertinent sections in their proper order read, as follows:

_ “Other Cases: In this class of disabilities the compensation shall be sixty-six and two-thirds per centum of the difference between his average weekly wages and his wage-earning capacity thereafter in the same employment, or otherwise payable during the continuance of such partial disability, not to exceed 300 weeks, but subject to reconsideration of the degree of such impairment by the commission cn its own motion or upon the application of any party in interest. * * *
“4. Temporary Partial Disability: In case of temporary partial disability, except the particular cases mentioned in subdivision 3 of this section, an injured employee shall receive sixty-six and two-thirds per centum of the difference between his average weekly wages and his wage-earning capacity thereafter in the same employment or otherwise, if less than before the injury during continuance of such partial disability, but not in excess of 300 weeks, except as otherwise provided in this act.
“5. Limitation: The compensation payments under the provisions of this act shall not exceed the sum of eighteen ($18) dollars, per week, or be less than eight ($8) dollars per week; provided, however, tfiat if the employee’s wages at the time of injury are less than eight ($8) dollars per week, he shall receive his full weekly wages: provided, further, that the compensation received as provided under subdivision 4 of this section shall not, when added to the wages received by such employee after such injury, amount to a greater sum than his average weekly wages received prior to said injury.”

The petitioner emphasizes the fact that it is raising no question of fact passed upon by the State Industrial Commission and is relying entirely upon the law applicable to the facts found by the commission, and urge that the award made by the commission to the respondent is in direct violation of subdivision 5 of section 13356, supra. The basis for this contention is that since the commission found that respondent had sustained a loss of only $3 per week between his average weekly wages prior to the injury and his wage-earning capacity thereafter, therefore the commission could not properly make an award of $8 per week under the maximum and minimum clause of said subdivision, but was limited by the last proviso in said subdivision to an award of $3 per week, since said sum when added to the wage-earning capacity of the respondent after his injury, and as ascertained by the commission, would equal the average weekly wages of the respondent prior to the injury. We are requested to modify the award on this basis and on the assumption that the commission made an error in computation in the award which it entered. The only authorities cited by the petitioner in support of this contention are subdivision 5 of section .13356, supra, and the cases of Oklahoma City v. Arnold, 165 Okla. 294, 25 P. (2d) 651, and American Tank & Equipment Co. v. Gray, 167 Okla. 494, 30 P. (2d) 901. The decisions cited are authority for the modification of an award of the State Industrial Commission by this court, but do not otherwise support the contention of the petitioner.

*485 As we Rave said in Meads v. Human, 84 Okla. 82, 202 P. 797;

“Hence, it is an established rule in the exposition of statutes that the intention of the lawgiver is to be deduced from a view of the whole and of every part of a statute taken and compared together.

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Bluebook (online)
1936 OK 20, 53 P.2d 687, 175 Okla. 483, 1936 Okla. LEXIS 13, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eagle-picher-mining-smelting-co-v-linthicum-okla-1936.