Gallup American Coal Co. v. Lira

50 P.2d 430, 39 N.M. 496
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 16, 1935
DocketNo. 4098.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 50 P.2d 430 (Gallup American Coal Co. v. Lira) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gallup American Coal Co. v. Lira, 50 P.2d 430, 39 N.M. 496 (N.M. 1935).

Opinion

BRICE, Justice.

This is a proceeding under the New Mexico Workmen’s Compensation Act (Comp. St. 1929, § 156-101 et seq.) by the widow and minor children of a deceased employee to recover compensation for his accidental death. The facts necessary to a decision taken from the court’s findings (the legal effect only of which is in dispute) are as follows:

J. Trinidad Lira, an employee of appellant, was killed while working in the course of his employment. Plis average weekly earnings were $17.75. He was married to Maria Jesus Barela Lira in Guanajuato, Mexico, on the 30th day of June, 1922. They moved to Colorado soon after they were married, where the two children, Teodoro Lira and J. Guadalupe Lira, were born. In 1926 the deceased sent his wife, accompanied by the two children, from Colorado to the republi: of Mexico, to care for his aged mother, who was sick. She nursed and cared for her until she died in 1933. ■ She was then ready to return when ordered by deceased, whose orders she apparently obeyed without question, but he never ordered her to return, so she remained and was living in Mexico at the time of her husband’s death. He supported her and the children and visited them while they were in Mexico, and they were dependents of J. Trinidad Lira at the time of his death. There was no legal separation. On the third day of June, 1933, the deceased went through a marriage ceremony with Armenia Franco Lira, with whom he was living at the time of his death.

•It is unnecessary to state more of the facts found by the court, as it is admitted by all parties that if Maria Jesus Barela Lira and her children were residents of the United States at the time of the death of J. Trinidad Lira they are entitled to the compensation claimed, otherwise not.

The court concluded from the facts that Maria Jesus Barela Lira was the lawful wife of the deceased; that she and her children were residents of the United States and entitled to the compensation provided under the Workmen’s Compensation Act on account of the death of J. Trinidad Lira. The law involved is a part of section 156-120, Comp. St. 1929, which reads as follows:

“No claim or judgment for compensation, under this act, shall accrue to or be recovered by relatives or dependents not residents of the United States at the time of the injury of such workman.”

The words “residence” and “resident” have no fixed meaning, applicable to all cases, but are used in different and various senses, depending upon the subject-matter. 54 C. J. Title, Residence, §§ 1, 4 and 7; 54 C. J. Title, Resident, § 1.

“Most words have different shades of meaning, and consequently may be variously construed, not only when they occur in different statutes, but when used more than once in the same statute or even in the same section.” Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers v. U. S., 286 U. S. 427, 433, 52 S. Ct. 607, 608, 76 L. Ed. 1204.

Appellant contends that “not residents of the United States,” as used in the quoted statute, means persons actually living out of the United States, irrespective of purpose, reason, or future intentions; while appellees insist that it is used in the sense of persons domiciled outside the United States or those whose legal residence is in a foreign country.

Appellant cites a number of cases, but relies principally on In The Matter of Securing Compensation By Mrs. Lee Yit Kyau Pang, 32 Hawaii, 699. The facts of that case and the one at bar are to all intents and purposes identical; but the two statutes are different. The Hawaiian statute (Rev. Laws 1925, § 3611) reads:

“An alien shall not be considered a dependent within the meaning of this chapter unless actually residing within the United States, and any alien dependent leaving the United States shall thereupon lose all right to any benefits under this chapter.”

The court stated:

“Claimant argues that the words ‘actually residing within the United States/ as above used, have the same meaning as have the words, domiciled within the United States. In the interpretation of particular statutes the words ‘residence’ and ‘domicile’ have frequently been given the same meaning. In the statute now under consideration the word ‘actually’ adds something to the word ‘residing’ and, as we interpret it, differentiates the combination from that of ‘constructively residing’ or ‘legally residing.’ That the latter term generally connotes ‘domicile’ is not helpful to the claimant here. * * *

“Under the foregoing definitions, which we adopt so far as applicable, Mrs. Lee Yit Kyau Pang, at the time of her husband’s injury, was ‘actually residing’ in China and therefore could not at the same time have been ‘actually residing’ in the United States, though her legal domicile, as recited in the board’s statement of facts, was in this country. What the rule would be in cases of mere temporary absence from one’s place of abode, as in transit, without ‘actual residence’ elsewhere, the facts in the present case do not require us to decide.”

This construction is not in accord with the decisions of all courts. A number have construed “actual residence” to mean domicile or legal residence, Connolly v. Connolly, 33 S. D. 346, 146 N. W. 581; U. S. v. Anderson (D. C.) 238 F. 648; Bechtel v. Bechtel, 101 Minn. 511, 112 N. W. 883, 12 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1100; Carpenter v. Carpenter, 30 Kan. 712, 2 P. 122, 46 Am. Rep. 108, but is supported by a number of cases therein cited; also Doerner v. Doerner, 46 R. I. 41, 124 A. 728.

But the word “actual” that does not appear in the New Mexico act determined the question there. That part of the statute (Rev. Laws Hawaii 1925, § 3611) reading “and any alien dependent leaving the United States shall thereupon lose all right to any benefits under this chapter,” lends force to the result reached in the case.

Appellant cited Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. v. Industrial Comm., 93 Colo. 188, 24 P.(2d) 1117, a case at least inferentially holding against it. The Colorado court concluded that the residence of a woman was that of her husband. That as they had moved to Mexico subsequent to his injury, where both weré living at the time of his death, she was not a resident of the United States.

Bjolstad v. Pacific Coast S. S. Co. (D. C. Cal.) 244 F. 634, 637, cited by appellant, was an action in admiralty to recover compensation in behalf of a seaman’s widow, under the New Jersey Workmen’s Compensation Act for the death of her husband, an alien. She lived in Norway and had never been in the United States. The act (P. L. N. J. 1911, p. 139, § 12) provided “compensation under this schedule shall not apply to alien dependents not residents of the United States.” The court states: ,

“The deceased, Hansen, was a native of Norway, not naturalized in this country, although he had declared his intention to become a citizen. His widow and minor children, in whose behalf the action is brought, never left Norway, but were living there at the time of his death, and are living there still. They have never even been in this country temporarily.

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50 P.2d 430, 39 N.M. 496, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gallup-american-coal-co-v-lira-nm-1935.