Hall v. Southern Advance Bag & Paper Co.

158 So. 829
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 5, 1935
DocketNo. 4951.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 158 So. 829 (Hall v. Southern Advance Bag & Paper Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hall v. Southern Advance Bag & Paper Co., 158 So. 829 (La. Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

MILLS, Judge.

Pending the appeal, plaintiff has died intestate. His father, mother, and four brothers have been placed in possession of his estate by judgment of court. They appear .and move to be made parties plaintiff. This motion is conceded to have been properly granted. Subsequently, counsel for the substituted parlies has filed a supplemental brief - in which they claim the total amount .-of the judgment rendered in the lower court, if affirmed.

In the recent case of Renfrow v. Caddo Parish Police Jury et al., 155 So. 291, in Identically the same situation, this court decided that the heirs, substituted as plaintiffs, are only entitled to recover the weekly payments which had accrued to deceased at time of his death.

Counsel seek to distinguish the cases, contending that the award in the Renfrow Case was conditional in that it was for a period not in excess of 100 weeks, whereas in the instant case, permanent disability being admitted, the judgment of the lower eour ts in effect for a fixed- and certain period. Even if correct in the latter view, the distinction fails, because the judgment rendered by the lower court in the Renfrow Case should have been for the fixed term of 100 weeks. Odom v. Atlantic Oil Producing Co., 162 La. 556, 110 So. 754.

In the present case, despite the admission, the only judgment authorized is during the period of disability, not, however, beyond 400 weeks. Section 8, subsec. 1 (b) of Act No. 20 of 1914, as amended by Act No. 242 of 1928, p. 357.

The wisdom of such a limitation is well illustrated by the situation in this case. Though his injury was permanent, plaintiff’s disability terminated with his death. The lesser calamity is included in the greater. Wozneak v. Buffalo Gas Co., 175 App. Div. 268, 161 N. Y. S. 675.

Beyond the workman himself, the act permits compensation only for dependents. In the present case, the substituted parties make no such demand, and could not, because death occurred more than one year after the accident. Subsection 2, § 8, Act No. 20 of 1914, as amended by Act No. 242 of 1928, p. 357. Whatever right they have arises not from the act, but from the general law.

In Schneider’s Workmen’s Compensation Law, vol. II, § 380, p. 1292, the general rule is stated to be that, in the absence of some provision vesting in some survivor the right to compensation payments, death terminates the compensation. The personal representative is entitled only to the amount of compensation due at the time of the death of the injured employee. It will thus be seen that the Renfrow Case follows the general rule.

The pendency of an appeal does not prevent the accrual of the weekly payments up to the date of death if the allowance of compensation is affirmed. Castelluccio v. Cloverlapd Daily Products Co., 165 La. 606, 115 So. 796; Powers v. Sumbler, 83 Kan. 1, 110 P. 97.

We therefore conclude that the heirs are properly made parties, but that their' recovery is limited to the weekly compensa *831 tion, if and as finally allowed, which had accrued at the time of the employee’s death.

Herman Hall, 19 years of age, was emancipated just prior to the filing of this suit, hut was an unemaneipated minor at the time of the happening of the accident relied upon herein. He alleges that he was employed by defendant to haul by motortruck its pulpwood from the woods where cut to its mill at Hodge, La., for a consideration of 75 cents per cord, earning a daily wage of at least $5; that on February 10, 1933, while engaged in this work, a log accidentally fell on his left foot, bruising and mashing it; that the wound became septic, causing blood stream infection and osteomyelitis and so affecting his limbs and body that he is permanently totally disabled, for which he claims the maximum of $20 per week for 400 weeks, and $250 for medical expenses as provided in the Employers’ Liability Act (Act No. 20 of 1914, as amended).

In the alternative, he pleads that, if not an immediate employee of defendant, he was at least an employee of Newtie C. Hall, his father, who was himself employed by defendant

Defendant, after excepting to the petition as disclosing no cause and no right of action, answered, with reservation of its rights under said exception, denying that plaintiff was its employee, and alleging that he was an independent contractor of his father, hr. O. Hall, an • independent contractor of defendant’s, and that any disability now suffered by plaintiff is not the result of the accidental injury alleged, is not permanent, and that his weekly wage, if any, did not exceed $7.50.

The exception of no cause of action was not urged or passed upon below, so it will be considered as abandoned.

In the lower court there was judgment for plaintiff as prayed for, from which defendant prosecutes this appeal.

Defendant is the owner of a mill at Hodge, La., where pulpwood is manufactured into paper. It was the owner of standing pulp timber in the northeast quarter of section 15 and the northeast quarter of section 16, township 15, range 5, (Bienville parish, La. Plaintiff, in a truck owned by him, with a helper employed and paid by him, was engaged in loading and hauling pulpwood from the above location, a distance of from a few hundred yards to half a mile to Cox’s Crossing, where, with the aid of his helper, the wood was loaded into cars to be shipped to defendant’s mill. He was to receive 75 cents per cord for wood so hauled and delivered. He averaged twelve cords per day. He paid his helper $1.25 per day. Truck drivers were also paid $1.25 per day. The only labor performed by plaintiff was the loading and unloading of the timber and the driving of the truck. It is therefore clear that his labor was worth no more than $1.25 per day, and that the amount received by him in excess of this was for the expense and profit of the truck. It is clear, then, that in any event he can only recover compensation based upon a wage of $1.25 per day, or $7.50 per week.

On the 10th of February, 1933, after hauling about four days, while transferring the timber from his truck to the car, a stick weighing from sixty to seventy-five pounds fell upon his left foot, causing braises, abrasions, and contusions which allegedly resulted in the infection and permanent disability.

Counsel have considerably lightened the work of the court by agreeing that the case is reduced to three issues:

(1) Whether there was any contractual relation between plaintiff and defendant rendering it liable under the Workmen’s Compensation Act.

• (2) Whether there is a causal connection between the accident and the disability. •

(3) If defendant is found liable, the amount of his wages.

The lower court resolved the first two issues in favor of plaintiff and rendered judgment based upon the total amount received rather than upon that part earned- by labor alone.

The defendant company is not engaged in the logging business. It maintains no tree-cutting crew, and furnishes no implements for that work. It is not engaged in the timber hauling business, and maintains no trucks or organization for that purpose. To be available for manufacture, its timber must be cut and delivered to its mill. It chooses not to do this work itself, but to let it out by contract to others, paying so much per cord for same.

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Bluebook (online)
158 So. 829, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hall-v-southern-advance-bag-paper-co-lactapp-1935.