Melrose v. Oklahoma College for Women

1964 OK 159, 393 P.2d 878, 1964 Okla. LEXIS 379
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJuly 7, 1964
DocketNo. 40637
StatusPublished

This text of 1964 OK 159 (Melrose v. Oklahoma College for Women) 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
Melrose v. Oklahoma College for Women, 1964 OK 159, 393 P.2d 878, 1964 Okla. LEXIS 379 (Okla. 1964).

Opinion

IRWIN, Justice.

One Bob Richardson, the employer of claimant, Cletys R. Melrose, contracted with the Oklahoma College for Women, at Chickasha, Oklahoma, to paint certain buildings located on the campus of that institution. While Cletys R. Melrose, referred to as claimant, was painting one of the buildings, he fell from a scaffold and sustained injuries. Thereafter, claimant filed his claim for compensation against the respondent, the Oklahoma College for Women.

The trial judge, in his order awarding compensation to the claimant found:

“That the respondent contracted with ■one Bob Richardson for the repair, •particularly for the painting, of one •or more of respondent’s buildings; and the said Bob Richardson in turn employed claimant and others to do the -manual work of said painting — said Richardson did not carry Workmen’s ■Compensation Insurance, and respondent did not so require.
'“That respondent is a public governmental agency and contracted with said Richardson to do work for respondent, ■not in its governmental function, but in its proprietary function; that as to the claimant, the said Bob Richardson was the agent of respondent, and its independent contractor; and claimant was in fact and in law an employee of respondent.
“That under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, if a governmental unit or agency such as the respondent engages in any hazardous work, even though it is not carried on for pecuniary gain, such unit or agency is liable to an employee for any injury suffered in the course of and arising out of said employment.
“That claimant did, as such employee of respondent, suffer a serious injury, in the course of and arising out of his said employment on July. 11, 1961, as hereinabove set out.
“That as a result of said injury, claimant has been temporarily totally disabled since the date thereof and is still so disabled and in need of continuing medical treatment.
“That claimant is entitled to compensation for temporary total disability from July 11, 1961, to date, a period of 92 weeks, in the total amount of $3,220.00; and that claimant is further entitled to continuing compensation for temporary total disability from April 18, 1963, at the rate of $35.00 per week, for and during his period of temporary total disability, as a result of said injury, not to exceed 300 weeks.
“That respondent is liable for payment of all reasonable medical bills incurred by claimant for necessary medical treatment obtained as a result of said injury.”

On appeal to the Commissioners en banc the trial judge’s order awarding compensation was vacated and • claimant’s claim for compensation denied.

Claimant filed his Petition for Review and challenges the order of the State Industrial Court which vacated the trial judge’s order awarding him compensation.

Claimant sustained his injuries while he was painting the trim of a building located on the campus of the Oklahoma College for Women. He testified “they were holding school for mentally retarded children” in the building.

Claimant contends respondent is liable under the terms of the Workmen’s Compensation Act because he was injured while [880]*880engaged in hazardous employment at a state operated school for mentally retarded.

Title 85 O.S.1961 § 2, provides that persons “engaged in hazardous employment at state penitentiaries and reformatories, state mental hospitals, state schools for mentally retarded, * * are within the purview of the Workmen’s Compensation Act.

The Oklahoma College for Women was established under the provision of Title 70 O.S.1961 § 1661 et seq., and its government is vested in a Board of Regents (see Sec. 1691). Sec. 1662 prescribes the purposes for which it was established. There are no statutory provisions which remotely suggest that the college is or could be considered a school for mentally retarded. The fact that the college may have been conducting a class for mentally retarded children, does not constitute such institution a school for “mentally retarded”. We therefore conclude that liability cannot be imposed on respondent upon the grounds that it was a state school for mentally retarded.

Claimant next contends that respondent is an “employer” subject to the Workmen’s Compensation Act, where, as here, claimant was engaged in hazardous employment pursuant to a proprietary function or activity. In this connection, claimant argues that although the operation of the college during the regular school year would not in itself be “hazardous work”, respondent’s paint shop is a department engaged in “hazardous work”, within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act; that neither respondent’s paint department nor the painting work which claimant was doing was essential and integral to any governmental function of respondent; and that it constituted simply a hazardous, proprietary department and function subject to the Act. Claimant also argues that the painting was proprietary and was done by him as a private individual and was not a peculiarly governmental function; and the controlling issue is whether the employment in which the injured claimant engaged in was hazardous.

Prior to the amendment of Title 85 O.S. 1961 § 2, which extended the Workmen’s Compensation Act to include persons engaged in hazardous employment at “ * * state mental hospitals, state schools for mentally retarded, * * * ” this Court promulgated the opinion in Montgomery v. State Industrial Commission, 190 Okl. 439, 124 P.2d 726, wherein claimant received an accidental injury while engaged as a carpenter in the workshop at the Eastern Oklahoma Hospital for the insane. Although the claimant received injuries under conditions that would ordinarily be compensable under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, the Commission denied compensation on the theory that the workshop was an integral part of the hospital and therefore a governmental function of the state, and for that reason not within the act.

In considering the contention that the non-hazardous character of the main business was not material to the question of compensation where the department of that business in which the workman was employed and injured was in itself hazardous, we said “that such rule does not always apply to institutions conducted by the state or its political subdivisions. If the particular kind of institution is not classified by the act as a hazardous occupation, and the main function or business thereof is governmental in nature, all of its component parts or its departments necessarily incident to its proper operation are not within the act although such departments standing alone would be hazardous in nature.” To sustain the above statement, we cited with approval the case of Board of Commissioners of Garfield County v. Sims, 166 Okl. 298, 27 P.2d 633.

The syllabus of the Montgomery case is as follows:

“An employee who is employed by the State in performing work incidental to a governmental function of the State is not covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Law and is not entitled under said Act to receive an award from the [881]*881State Industrial Commission for an injury received while so employed.”

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Related

Swyden Construction Company v. White
1963 OK 162 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1963)
City of Tulsa v. State Industrial Commission
1957 OK 219 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1957)
Montgomery v. State Industrial Commission
1942 OK 149 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1942)
Board of Com'rs of Garfield County v. Sims
1933 OK 612 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1933)
City of Tulsa v. Wilkin
1949 OK 12 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1949)

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Bluebook (online)
1964 OK 159, 393 P.2d 878, 1964 Okla. LEXIS 379, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/melrose-v-oklahoma-college-for-women-okla-1964.