Aleksich v. Industrial Acc. Fund

Workmens Compensation ? Municipal Corporations ? Policemen not Included in Protective Provisions of Compensation Act ? Construction of Act ? Applicability of Doctrine of Ejusdem General Rule. Workmens Compensation ? Municipal Corporations ? Policemen Not Protected Under Act As Employees. - Page 128 1. While a city police officer was on his way to report for duty and engaged in conversation with an acquaintance on the corner of a street and an alley commonly used by police officers in reaching the city hall he was accosted by an insane man, shot without any apparent reason and instantly killed. The widow of deceased filed a claim for compensation with the Industrial Accident Board. The board denied the claim, and the district court on appeal did likewise, holding inter alia, that the officer was not an employee of the city or connected with one of the inherently hazardous occupations specified in or contemplated by the Act under the doctrine of ejusdem generis. Judgment affirmed, the decision being based on former decisions of the court. Same ? Act Compulsory As to Public Corporations. 2. As to public corporations and their employees the Workmens Compensation Act is exclusive, compulsory and obligatory. Same ? When Only Public Officers Protected By Act. 3. Unless a statute such as the Act above mentioned specifically includes public officers (policemen) in its protective provisions relative to employees, public officers are not included. Statutory Construction ? Conflicting and Ambiguous Parts must be Harmonized, If Possible. 4. To ascertain the intention of the Legislature in enacting a statute, the Act must be read as a whole and, where possible, conflicting and ambiguous parts thereof made to harmonize, and where one part deals with a subject in general and comprehensive terms while another deals with it in a more minute and definite way, the two parts should be read together and harmonized with a view of giving effect to a consistent legislative policy. Same ? Doctrine of Ejusdem Generis ? When Applicable. 5. The doctrine of ejusdem generis is a rule of construction to aid in ascertaining the meaning of statutes and other written instruments, applies where an enumeration of specific things is followed by some more general word or phrase, such latter is to be held to refer to things of the same kind as those specially enumerated. Same ? Workmens Compensation Statute ? Above Doctrine Applied. 6. Under section 2852, Revised Codes, a part of the Workmens Compensation Act, providing for hazardous occupations not enumerated in sections 2848-2851, as construed in previous decisions of the court, the scope of the Act is expanded under the ejusdem generis doctrine only to hazardous occupations of the same general character as those enumerated in the four sections above. Workmens Compensation ? Death of Police Officer Not Compensable Under Facts. 7. Since the Workmens Compensation Act applies only to paid public officers when their duties require the performance of occupations enumerated in the Act as inherently hazardous, or of occupations of the same kind as those enumerated (as heretofore held), and the occupation of policeman or that of peace officers, is not so enumerated, the district court properly dismissed the appeal of the widow from the unfavorable holding of the Industrial Accident Board on her petition for compensation, as not authorized by the Act.