Murphy v. Industrial Commission

80 P.2d 960, 52 Ariz. 343, 1938 Ariz. LEXIS 166
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 5, 1938
DocketCivil No. 3977.
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 80 P.2d 960 (Murphy v. Industrial Commission) 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
Murphy v. Industrial Commission, 80 P.2d 960, 52 Ariz. 343, 1938 Ariz. LEXIS 166 (Ark. 1938).

Opinion

McALISTER, C. J.

One H. J. Murphy filed in the Superior Court of Maricopa County a complaint against the Industrial Commission of Arizona, J. Ney Miles, Howard Keener and Carl Holmes, commissioners, in which he sought relief from an order made by the commission on September 2, 1931, fixing the amount of compensation to which he was entitled as a result of an accident occurring on June 20,1929, while he was in the discharge of his duties as an employee of the Tremaine Alfalfa Ranch & Milling Company, which was insured by the Industrial Commission. A demurrer to the complaint, which had been amended the third time, was sustained, and the court, being of the view that he could not state a cause of action, denied him the privilege of pleading further and en *345 tered judgment dismissing the complaint. From this judgment plaintiff appeals.

According to the allegations of the complaint appellant was employed as a construction foreman at a salary of ten dollars a day and pursuant to an agreement between the Industrial Commission and his employer the former made an order allowing him sixty-five per cent, of his monthly wages during his hospitalization, but in computing the amount thereof based it on $150 per month, when his salary was in fact $260 per month. It appears further that on September 2, 1931, the Industrial Commission made another order allowing appellant compensation upon the basis of fifty per cent, of his average monthly wages for a period of twenty months and that the commission again erroneously computed the amount due him by using $150 instead of his actual salary of $260 a month, and that as a result of this erroneous calculation appellant has been deprived of fifty per cent, of $110 for twenty months or of $55 monthly for that period.

It is further averred that under the Revised Code of 1928 appellant was entitled to fifty per cent, of his average monthly wage for twenty months and that the Industrial Commission had no jurisdiction to compute the amount due by using as a basis other than the actual salary the injured employee was earning at the time of injury and that appellant is entitled to have a court of competent jurisdiction hear the matter and correct the error by a proper order.

In filing the action appellant evidently proceeded upon the theory that the superior court has jurisdiction to set aside, reverse or amend orders of the Industrial Commission making awards of compensation. His first assignment is that the trial court, after finding that error had been committed by the Industrial Commission in computing benefits to which *346 he was entitled, sustained a demurrer to his third amended complaint and that it did so notwithstanding the fact that section 1406, Revised Code of 1928, gave it jurisdiction to revise, correct or amend orders of the commission. That section reads as follows:

“Jurisdiction of courts. No court of this state, except the superior court and the supreme court on appeal, shall have jurisdiction to review, vacate, set aside, reverse, revise, correct, amend, or annul any order of the commission or to suspend or delay the execution or operation thereof, or to enjoin, restrain, or interfere with the commission in the performance of its duties; provided, that the writ of mandamus may issue from the supreme court to the commission in all proper cases, and that an appeal may be taken from the superior court to the supreme court in all cases.”

The effect of this section is to provide that superior courts and the Supreme Court on appeal have jurisdiction to “review, vacate, set aside, reverse, revise, correct, amend, or annul” any order of the Industrial Commission, and appellant contends that the word, “order,” as used therein, includes all orders, those making or fixing the amount of compensation an injured workman is entitled to, as well as all others. This is not, as we view it, a correct construction of its meaning. Just two sections preceding it is found this language:

“§ 1404. Action to vacate orders, procedure. Any person in'interest, dissatisfied with an order of the commission, may commence an action in the superior court of the county where the property, plant or place of employment affected by such order may be situate, against the commission as defendant, to set aside, vacate or amend such order, on the ground that the order is unreasonable or unlawful, and the superior court shall have exclusive jurisdiction thereof. ...”

This language confers upon the superior court of the county in which the property, plant or place of ein *347 ployment affected by an order made by the commission may be situated exclusive jurisdiction to set aside, vacate or amend sueli an order, and it is perfectly clear that the order referred to is not one fixing the amount of compensation to which an injured employee, or his dependents in case of death, is entitled, but one made by the commission in the exercise of its regulatory power affecting the property, plant or place of employment. Anyone dissatisfied with an order of that kind, whether an employer or an employee, may bring an action to set aside, vacate or amend it, but in doing so he must go into the superior court. The statement in section 1406, supra, that no court of this state ‘ ‘ except the superior court and the supreme court on appeal” shall have jurisdiction to review, etc., refers to the same kinds of orders section 1404 does and has the effect of merely supplementing its language. That it was not intended by the use of the word “order” in either section to include those orders fixing the amount of an award is shown by the following definition of these terms given in section 1420 of the Revised Code of 1928:

“Construction of terms. Terms as used herein shall be construed: ‘Order’ shall mean and include any rule, regulation, direction, requirement, standard, determination or decision of the commission; ‘general order’ shall mean and include an order applied generally throughout the state to all persons under the jurisdiction of the commission, other orders of the commission shall be considered special orders; . . . ‘award’ shall mean the finding or decision of the commission of the amount of compensation or benefit due an injured or the dependents of a deceased employee. ’ ’

It is very clear from the foregoing sections that the words “order” and “award,” used in the Workmen’s Compensation Law, do not mean the same thing and that the former does not include the latter. In Federal Mut. Liability Ins. Co. v. Industrial Com., 31 *348 Ariz. 224, 252 Pac. 512, this court made the following statement in speaking of these two words (p. 229):

“There are two provisions in the act for the review of the action of the commission, one which applies to its orders, and the other to its final awards. The first is in the superior court and the second in the Supreme Court. ’ ’

In Alabam’s Freight Co. v. Hunt, 29 Ariz. 419, 242 Pac. 658, the same idea was expressed in this language (p. 429.):

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Bluebook (online)
80 P.2d 960, 52 Ariz. 343, 1938 Ariz. LEXIS 166, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murphy-v-industrial-commission-ariz-1938.