Winrod v. Sommer

302 N.E.2d 597, 36 Ohio Misc. 37, 63 Ohio Op. 2d 24, 1972 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 142
CourtCarroll County Court of Common Pleas
DecidedSeptember 7, 1972
DocketNo. 12262
StatusPublished

This text of 302 N.E.2d 597 (Winrod v. Sommer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Carroll County Court of Common Pleas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Winrod v. Sommer, 302 N.E.2d 597, 36 Ohio Misc. 37, 63 Ohio Op. 2d 24, 1972 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 142 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1972).

Opinion

Perkins, J.

The defendant Joseph J. Sommer as administrator of the Bureau of Workmen’s Compensation has moved for a summary judgment. The court construes this to he a motion to dismiss the petition under Rule 12, Paragraph B—Paragraph 6 that the petition fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

Briefly, the defendant says that he is without jurisdiction to consider the death claim of Bertha Winrod, and the court also has no jurisdiction because the claim does not comply with R. C. 4123.59.

The court has heard arguments of counsel, testimony, and has admitted into evidence Workmen’s Compensation file 2274475 of the plaintiff’s decedent Merton C. Winrod only to assist the court in deciding this motion.

[38]*38The facts are as follows:

1. Bertha Winrod was until his death the wife of Merton Winrod, who died May 4,1970.

2. On May 8, 1961, Merton Winrod was injured while working for the Minerva Wax Paper Company, a complying employer. The nature of the injury is not important to the decision of this motion.

3. The petition claims, and an opinion in the file of a physician of the decedent, also claims, that the injury caused death. Whether or not that fact can he proved eventually, it is a fact assumed for the purposes of this motion, since the motion is in the nature of a demurrer.

4. Merton Winrod received continuous payments for disability on account of his injury from the date of injury until the date of death.

5. Merton Winrod received Workmen’s Compensation payments for temporary total disability between 5-8-61 and 3-10-68. He then received payments for temporary partial disability between 3-10-68 and the date of his death. He was not represented by counsel during his life. On 4-16-69 he was found to have a 50% permanent partial disability (but not as to all of claimed injury).

B. C. 4123.59 in its present form as to the question presented was enacted 10-1-61, this being one of thirteen versions of this much tinkered with statute. It sets forth the requirements for filing a death claim and the benefits.

It first requires that there be shown an injury which causes death.

It then sets forth two time limitations. One is that death ensue within a period of three years after injury. The second requirement is that:

“* * * compensation for total disability or partial disability as provided in division A of B. C. 4123.57 on account of the injury * * * which caused his death has been paid for any portion of the year next preceding the date of death of such employee.”

There is a third provision not involved here.

In this case Merton Winrod was receiving compensation for partial disability the entire year before his death. [39]*39Therefore, if we consider the statute as stated above, the plaintiff clearly has a right to file a death claim. However, in the case of Emmons v. Keller, 21 Ohio St. 2d 48, discussed in the next section, the law was, in effect, changed or amended.

In Emmons a dependent filed an appeal in the Common Pleas Court from a decision of the Industrial Commission denying a death benefit claim under B. C. 4123.59. Injury was on January 9,1962. Death occurred July 7,1969. In the Common Pleas Court the administrator demurred and the demurrer was overruled. Judgment was then rendered for the plaintiff and the decision was appealed by the administrator. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Common Pleas Court. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision. In the facts of the Emmons case no compensation of any kind was paid the plaintiff’s decedent in the year before death and no application for compensation was ever made.

The plaintiff raised the constitutional question pertaining to the second requirement of B. C. 4123.59 and claimed that because of the unconstitutionality thereof that the statute as it had existed before the change was the appropriate statute and that under the former statute Emmons had a right of action for a death claim.

The Supreme Court of Ohio determined that the part of the statute under consideration could lead to arbitrary results. The majority opinion imagined an example where a claimant at $100 a week might have 75% impairment so as to receive the maximum of $10,000 under division (A) of B. C. 4123.57 in less than 4 years. This, the court reasoned, is a more meritorious claim than one less injured. However, if his death occurs in five years he could not have a death claim. Yet one less seriously injured could have a death claim with 10% impairment and stretch the death claim limitation to 29 years.

Therefore, the inequality existed in the “imagined” ease between those receiving total and partial disability in the year before death.

The court then applied its reasoning in the “imagined [40]*40case” by declaring unconstitutional the words “or partial disability a,s provided in division (A) of Section 4123.57 of the Revised Code.” But it held the balance of the statute valid. The court assumed that it had now purified the statute of inequality and declared the balance valid.

The attorney general for the defendant asserts that under R. C. 4123.59 after Emmons the failure of the decedent to receive total disability in the year before death is fatal to the claim of the widow in this case. The defendant therefore claims that by virtue of Emmons, R. C- 4123.59 is now a constitutional statute and no further constitutional question is involved.

The plaintiff, however, claims that R. C. 4123.59 as to the plaintiff is unconstitutional.

(1) As denying the complainant due process under the Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 16, and under the United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment;

(2) As denying the claimant equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; and

(3) As being a statute not of uniform operation under Article II, Section 26 of the Ohio Constitution.

Before Emmons the inequality found by the court lay between those receiving total and those receiving partial disability payments.

As to the facts in the ease then before the Supreme Court of Ohio perhaps there was no inequality left when in effect the Supreme Court amended the statute by leaving only the words “total disability” in the first paragraph of R. C. 4123.59.

But by its very decision the Supreme Court in Emmons created a new classification — those receiving total disability and those not receiving total disability. So in the opinion of this court, we are faced with a new statute and a new set of facts not contemplated in Emmons. Since the plaintiff has raised the constitutional question of equal protection of the laws, it is clear to this court that a new classification was made by the Supreme Court requiring the attention of this court as to the constitutionality or equality Of the newly created classification.

[41]*41The Supreme Court found the classification in the statute (that those receiving total and those receiving partial disability) to be unconstitutional under Section 26, Art.

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Related

State, Ex Rel. v. Indus. Comm.
37 N.E.2d 595 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1941)
State, Ex Rel. v. Ind. Comm.
84 N.E.2d 493 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1949)
Industrial Commission v. Kamrath
160 N.E. 470 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1928)
Fisher v. Ohio Malleable Iron Co.
188 N.E. 512 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1933)
Emmons v. Keller
254 N.E.2d 687 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1970)
Fleischman v. Flowers
267 N.E.2d 318 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1971)

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Bluebook (online)
302 N.E.2d 597, 36 Ohio Misc. 37, 63 Ohio Op. 2d 24, 1972 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 142, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/winrod-v-sommer-ohctcomplcarrol-1972.