Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company v. Smith

280 P.2d 273, 78 Ariz. 355, 1955 Ariz. LEXIS 207
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 1, 1955
Docket5936
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 280 P.2d 273 (Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company v. Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company v. Smith, 280 P.2d 273, 78 Ariz. 355, 1955 Ariz. LEXIS 207 (Ark. 1955).

Opinions

PHELPS, Justice.

This case comes to us by certiorari to set aside an award of the Industrial Commission in favor of respondent Jerry B. Smith who claims he suffered an injury to his back on January 5, 1951, while in the employment of petitioner. The facts will be hereinafter more particularly set forth.

On the date the injury is claimed to have occurred respondent was working with and under the supervision of one Guy E. Ford who, according to petitioner’s testimony, on that date made out, in part, an accident report which was completed by one Sylvan Lunt, Chief Clerk in the employment office of petitioner. Counsel for the commission states in his brief that this report was filed with both the petitioner and the commission. We are unable to find any such report in the files presented here for our review. There is a report filed by Dr. C. T. Collopy, a member of the medical staff of petitioner, on January 9, 1951. This report in no way corresponds with the description of the report claimed by counsel to have been filed on January 5.

After the close of the shift on the date of the injury respondent states that he went to the company hospital and saw Dr. Collopy who described the injury as “slight limita[357]*357tion of motion in all directions, tenderness of paraspinous muscles leaving no permanent defect,” and prescribed trigisig tablets (a pain killer) and hot applications. Respondent continued to perform his regular work as an underground electrician until August 28, 1952, without material loss of time from the injury. On that date he quit his job with petitioner stating that he had secured employment elsewhere. However, he went to visit members of his family at his old home in Kentucky where he visited for two or three months.

He then procured work with the North American Aviation Company at Columbus, Ohio, where he worked for several months as an electrician and then went to Detroit where he was employed as a car inspector by the Dodge Motor Corporation for about a month. He then returned to Miami and procured employment with the Miami Copper Company as an electrician. He worked there from February 24, 1953, to September 12 of that year. Respondent testified he went to the company hospital in April, 1953, and complained of low back pains and ascribed his back ailment to the accident and injury of January 5, 1951. Doctor Harris x-rayed or had x-rayed his back in the lumbar area which revealed nothing and at that time Doctor Harris gave respondent “some shots in the back.”

Thereafter on September 12, 1953, respondent quit work because of the disabling back condition and a couple of days later •called on Doctor Mark Wall, M. D., of Mesa who hospitalized him and referred him to Doctor John R. Green of Phoenix who diagnosed his complaints as stemming from a herniated disc. On September 21 Doctor Green and Doctor Alvin L. Swenson whom Doctor Green had called in for consultation, performed operations upon respondent correcting his injuries. The operation by Doctor Green confirmed his diagnosis that respondent was suffering from a herniated disc. Following the laminectomy by Doctor Green a lumbar sacral fusion was performed by Doctor Swenson for the purpose of stabilizing respondent’s back at that point. After recovering from these operations respondent was discharged as being able to resume his employment and about the middle of January, 1954, returned to work for the Miami Copper Company which he had continued to the date of the hearing before the commission of February 2, 1954.

On September 29, 1953, respondent filed his claim with the Industrial Commission for compensation for the injuries suffered by him on January 5, 1951, while employed with petitioner. This is the first claim filed for compensation by the respondent with the commission for that injury. On November 5, 1953, the commission made its finding and award denying compensation to respondent upon the ground that his injury was not attributable to the accident of January 5, 1951.

On November 16, 1953, respondent by his attorney filed what is designated as a “No[358]*358tice of appeal from findings and award on petition and application for readjustment or reopening of'claim and denying further benefits.” Just what this is intended to encompass we are unable to determine. It is directed at the findings and award of November 5, 1953, which is not predicated upon “a petition and application for readjustment or reopening of a claim.” Whatever jurisdiction the commission had in the premises had its source in the original petition bearing date September 18, 1953, and filed by the respondent with the commission on September 29, 1953, as above set forth.

That petition was in no sense of the word an application to reopen the case upon the ground that there had been a change in the physical condition of petitioner subsequent to a previous award and that there had developed new and undiscovered disabilities since that award. There had been no previous award. The commission had not been vested with any jurisdiction in this case prior to September 29, 1953, when it undertook to assume jurisdiction on an original petition for compensation nor was it justified in finding that its award was based upon new and undiscovered disabilities arising out of changed physical condition. There was not a scintilla of evidence in the record to support that finding. In making an award the commission exercises a judicial function and it acquires no jurisdiction of a case until a formal application for compensation is filed with it. Wise v. Six Companies, Inc., 43 Ariz. 24, 28 P.2d 1007.

Section 56-967, A.C.A.1939, provides in part that:

“ * * * No application shall be valid or claim thereunder enforceable unless filed within one (1) year after the day upon which the injury occurred or the right thereto accrued.”

Clearly the application in the instant case was not made within one year from the date of injury. Section 56-967, supra, provides however, that if it is filed within one year from the date the right to a claim accrues it meets the requirement of the statute. The question here then is when did the right to file the claim accrue ?

We said in Hartford Accident, etc., Co. v. Industrial Commission, 43 Ariz. 50, 29 P.2d 142, 144, that:

“We still hold that the claim must be filed within one year after the date of the injury if the injury is of sufficient magnitude to be compensable. But, if it is slight or trivial at the time and noncompensable and later on develops unexpected results for which the employee could not have been expected to make a claim' and receive compensation, then the statute runs, not from the date of the accident, but from the date the results of the injury became manifest and compensable. Under section 1447 (56-967, A.C.A.1939) an employee is not required to file with the commission [359]*359an application for compensation until he is ‘entitled to compensation.’ The respondent was not entitled to compensation for the original injury because it did not permanently disfigure his face or incapacitate him to work. So of the ether troubles resulting therefrom until the operation that resulted in a permanent disfigurement of his face. He was entitled to compensation when the later result was definitely known.”

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Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company v. Smith
280 P.2d 273 (Arizona Supreme Court, 1955)

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Bluebook (online)
280 P.2d 273, 78 Ariz. 355, 1955 Ariz. LEXIS 207, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/inspiration-consolidated-copper-company-v-smith-ariz-1955.