1. The amendment of March 15, 1927, to the compulsory Workmen's
Compensation Act of the Washington, limiting to three years the
time within which a case may be reopened for the readjustment of
compensation on account of the aggravation, diminution, or
termination of the disability, does not deny due process of law to
one who sustained a compensable injury while the preexisting
statute was in effect, though the latter contained no limitation as
to the time within which such right might be asserted. P.
293 U. S.
154.
Page 293 U. S. 152
2. The amendment did not deprive the claimant in this case of
any vested right, but affected the remedy only, and that in a
manner not unreasonable, arbitrary, or oppressive. P.
293 U. S. 155.
3. A State may impose reasonable conditions upon the assertion
of rights which are purely statutory. P.
293 U. S.
154.
176 Wash. 345 29 P.2d 675, affirmed.
Appeal from a judgment affirming a judgment which dismissed an
appeal from an order of the state administrative board.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Since 1911, the State of Washington has had a Workmen's
Compensation Act applicable to extrahazardous employments. Until
March 15, 1927, the statute contained a section providing:
"If aggravation, diminution, or termination of disability takes
place or be discovered after the rate of compensation shall have
been established or compensation terminated in any case the
department may, upon the application of the beneficiary or upon its
own motion, readjust for future application the rate of
compensation
Page 293 U. S. 153
in accordance with the rules in this section provided for the
same, or, in a proper case, terminate the payment. [
Footnote 1]"
On February 7, 1927, while the quoted section was in force, the
appellant injured his arm while doing extrahazardous work. March
15, 1927, the law was amended and the section in question was
altered to provide:
"If aggravation, diminution, or termination of disability takes
place or be discovered after the rate of compensation shall have
been established or compensation terminated, in any case, the
director of labor and industries, through and by means of the
division of industrial insurance, may, upon the application of the
beneficiary,
made within three years after the establishment or
termination of such compensation, or upon his own motion,
readjust for further application the rate of compensation in
accordance with the rules in this section provided for the same,
or, in a proper case, terminate the payment:
Provided, Any
such applicant whose compensation has heretofore been established
or terminated shall have three years from the taking effect of this
act within which to apply for such readjustment. [
Footnote 2]"
(Italics supplied.)
Pursuant to a claim duly presented to the appellee, the
appellant was paid from the State workmen's insurance fund on
January 17, 1928, the sum of $240 in final settlement for permanent
partial disability, and the case was closed. May 10, 1933, he filed
with the appellee a petition for reopening of his claim on the
ground that his condition had become aggravated due to the injury.
The appellee dismissed the petition for the reason that the
Page 293 U. S. 154
three year statute of limitations barred the claim. An appeal to
the Supreme Court of Thurston County was dismissed, and the Supreme
Court of the State affirmed the judgment. The case is here on
appeal.
The appellant insists that, at the date of his injury, the
statute conferred upon him not only a right to make his original
claim and receive compensation, but a further right to file an
additional claim, without limit as to time, and to receive
readjusted compensation for aggravation of his condition due to his
injury. This, he says, is a vested right, is property, and its
enforcement may not be abolished or limited, consistently with the
due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal
Constitution. [
Footnote 3] The
claim cannot be sustained.
The Washington Workmen's Compensation Act is compulsory. In the
exercise of the State's police power, it abolishes common law
actions for negligence, imposes upon industry a levy calculated in
accordance with the risk of injury to workmen, places the money
collected in a state-administered fund, and substitutes for the
employee's common law right of action a purely statutory right to
payment from the fund of a sum adjusted to the character and extent
of the injury. [
Footnote 4]
That the State may impose reasonable conditions upon the
assertion of the claim does not admit of argument. Considerations
justifying a reasonable limitation of time within which further
increase of compensation due to aggravation of condition may be
claimed are so obvious as hardly to require statement. Appellant
does not urge that the prescription of a period of three years for
presenting such a claim is unreasonable, but that it is beyond
the
Page 293 U. S. 155
State's power. The section under attack merely limits the time
for the assertion of the right, affects the remedy only, and that
in a manner not unreasonable, arbitrary, or oppressive. Such a
limitation of time within which appellant's remedy must be pursued
does not deprive him of due process.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
Session Laws 1911, c. 74, § 5(h), pp. 356, 360, amended by
Session Laws 1923, c. 136, § 2(h), pp. 387, 397. The only change
made in the quoted paragraph by the Act of 1923 was the
substitution of the word "further" for the word "future."
[
Footnote 2]
Session Laws 1927, c. 310, § 4(h), p. 844; Rem.Rev.Stat. §
7679(h).
[
Footnote 3]
Below and in his assignments of error here, the appellant
asserted the section offends Article I, § 10, but, at the bar, he
abandoned this contention, and we need not consider it.
[
Footnote 4]
See State ex rel. Davis-Smith Co. v. Clausen, 65 Wash.
156, 117 P. 1101;
Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington,
243 U. S. 219.