Holder v. B F Goodrich Co.

23 Ohio Law. Abs. 486, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1246
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 15, 1937
DocketNo 2812
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 23 Ohio Law. Abs. 486 (Holder v. B F Goodrich Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Holder v. B F Goodrich Co., 23 Ohio Law. Abs. 486, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1246 (Ohio Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

OPINION

By WASHBURN, J.

This is a workmen’s compensation case. Stone Holder, the appellee, will be referred to as the claimant, and The B. P. Goodrich Co., the appellant, a self-insuring employer, will be referred to as the company.

Claimant went to work for the company on August 15, 1919, and he worked for the company for the ensuing 10 days and for no longer, and soon after returned to his home in Tennessee.

On February 24, 1920, claimant filed with the Industrial Commission an application for adjustment of his claim for compensation, claiming that during said employment the handle of the truck which he was pushing struck him in the region of the abdomen, by reason of. wlr'ch he sustained an injury to his left side, causing a left inguinal hernia.

The company had theretofore, on January 29, 1920, reported to the Industrial Commission that claimant made to it such claim of injury, and the company filed an answer to such claim admitting that the claimant had an incomplete hernia, but denied that it was of traumatic origin.

On June 16, 1920, the Industrial Commission, acting upon proofs submitted by the parties, found the jurisdictional questions of employment and injury in favor of the claimant and allowed him, for temporary total disability, compensation for a period of two weeks. Claimant appealed from such ruling to the Common Pleas Court.

On April 4, 1921, the Common Pleas Court sustained a demurrer to the petition filed upon said appeal, and later, on October 31, 1921, dismissed said appeal proceedings for want of prosecution.

On September 23, 1921, claimant filed with said commission an application for rehearing of his claim. Subsequently thereto, additional proofs were made by the parties, and the commission made an independent investigation; and on May 3, 1922, the commission ordered the company to provide “corrective operation and pay compensation for the period of disability resulting therefrom,” that the case be closed, that said operation be performed by a surgeon of the claimant’s choosing, satisfactory to the company, and that the company should pay the medical bills therefor.

The compensation allowed by said order was likewise for temporary total disability.’ In addition thereto, the claimant was claiming compensation for partial disability, as provided for in §1465-80, GC, but nothing was said by the commission concerning that part of his claim.

Claimant filed in the Common Pleas Court an appeal from said order, which [488]*488appeal was dismissed on October 9, 1923.

Said operation was performed in Tennessee in May of 1923, and the company paid the bills and compensation according to said order; the date of the last payment of such compensation being, according to the record, some time in September, 3923.

On May 15, 1928, claimant filed in the Common Pleas Court an application to set aside the entry of said dismissal of his second appeal to the Common Pleas Court, which had been made on October 9, 1923, and to reopen the case, and a demurrer to such application was sustained by the court on June 5, 1.928.

On May 29, 1933, claimant filed with the Industrial Commission an application for modification of award, and to that application the company filed its answer on June' 10, 1933, admitting that said claimant was in its employ in August, 1919, but denying that any disability he might have was a result of injury, and setting forth the award made by the commission on May 3, 1922, which it claimed was a final order to which no application for a rehearing was filed, and denying the jurisdiction of the commission to entertain such application.

Upon the hearing of said application for modification of award, the commission made the following order:

“This day, to-wit: July 26th, 1933, this claim coming on for further hearing for the consideration of the commission of the application for modification of award filed by the claimant herein, and the other proof on file, which matters being duly and fully considered by the commission, it is the finding of the commission from the proof of record that claimant apparently did sustain minor injury as alleged, August 15th, 1919; that claimant was last compensated September 9th, 1919. It is the further finding of the commission that the application for modification of award was not filed until May 29th, 1933, more than ten years after date of last payment of compensation.
“Wherefore, it is ordered that the application for modification of award, filed May 29th, 1933, be, dismissed.” .

Claimant appealed from said order to the Common Pleas Court. Claimant’s petition filed in this cause on said appeal alleges “that due to the said injury he received on August 15, 1919, he has been partially disabled from doing work since the date of last compensation, to-wit, September 25, 1923, to the present time; that at the present time the said left hernia has recurred; that as a result of said injury of August 15, 1919, he suffers severe pain with said hernia; that he is temporarily and partially disabled as a result of said injury; that his average weekly wage at the time of said injury was $28.”

By demurrer and answer, the company challenged the jurisdiction of the Common Pleas Court over the subject-matter, and by subsequent appropriate action has preserved that question in the record, and the company, throughout this controversy, has at all times denied that the claimant suffered an injury in the course of his employment or that he was disabled by reason of such an injury.

The trial resulted in a finding by the jury that the claimant was entitled to compensation from the company “from the first day of October, 1923, for a period of 312% weeks at $12 per week, and in the total sum of $3,750,” and judgment was rendered upon said verdict; claimant’s attorneys being allowed a fee of $1,000 to be paid as a part of the costs in the action.

In a former hearing in this court, we passed upon the jurisdictional question, but not in such a manner as to be binding upon this court in this action. We have re-examined the question and have not changed our minds in reference thereto, and, having expressed our views in a fsrmer opinion, we content ourselves with the restatement of our position, which is this:

Jurisdiction is the power to hear and determine.

The question was whether the commission had power to hear the evidence and determine whether claimant was entitled to compensation in addition to that required by the previous orders of the commission.

The commission had such power unless it was prevented from exercising the same by the provisions of §1465-86, GC, as amended July 8, 1931.

Whether the commission was so prohibited by said section depended upon a question of fact as to- whether 10 years had elapsed after the last payment of compensation.

The commission erroneously determined that fact against claimant and dismissed his application for a modification.

The commission had power to determine that question of fact, and, when it did so, it determined a jurisdictional question which went to the basis of claimant’s right, and therefore claimant was entitled to appeal, unless his failure to file an appli[489]*489cation for a rehearing, which is now required by the provisions of §1465-90, GC, and which has been so required since the amendment of said statute in 1925 (111 O.

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Related

State ex Randall v. Industrial Commission
47 N.E.2d 245 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1942)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
23 Ohio Law. Abs. 486, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1246, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/holder-v-b-f-goodrich-co-ohioctapp-1937.