HUDSON v. STATE INDUS. COMM'N

HUDSON v. STATE INDUS. COMM'N
1926 OK 1017
252 P. 430
122 Okla. 159
Case Number: 17322
Decided: 12/21/1926
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

HUDSON et al.
v.
STATE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION.

Syllabus

¶0 1. Master and Servant--Workmen's Compensation Law--Award for Loss of Hand and for Permanent Loss of Use of Hand.
Section 7290, C. O. S. 1921, permits allowance of an injured employee for the loss of a hand and also for the permanent loss of the use of a hand. The amount in each case is the same.
2. Same--Finding Sustained as to Permanent Loss of Use of Hand.
The claimant prayed an allowance for the permanent loss of the use of a hand. The statute means the permanent and entire loss of the use of a hand as to the use to which a hand is ordinarily and customarily placed. This was a question of fact found in claimant's favor, and there being evidence to support it, this court cannot disturb the award.

Appeal from Corporation Commission.

Application of Farmers Co-Operative Gin Company of Bokchito, Okla., for license to operate a cotton gin at Bokchito. From an order of the State Corporation Commission granting such license, B. E. Garrett, Joe T. Riddle, W. R. Abernathy, and A. W. Chestnut, doing business under the firm name and style of Farmers Independent Gin Company of Bokchito, Okla., appeal. Affirmed.

Cheek & McRill, for petitioners.
George F. Short, Atty. Gen., and Fred Hansen, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondents.

BRANSON, V. C. J.

¶1 We have before us a petition filed in this court to review an award of the State Industrial Commission. Therewith is the record on which the judgment of the Commission granting the award was entered.The judgment of the Industrial Commission here sought to be reviewed was that the claimant should receive compensation for the permanent loss of the use of a hand.

¶2 The petitioners in this court are the employer and insurance carrier. Their position is that the claimant lost four fingers of his right hand and suffered no other injury; that the statute provides a specific compensation for such an injury, and that since the judgment of the Industrial Commission allowed a greater compensation than the statute allows for the mere loss of four fingers, it is erroneous.

¶3 No one will dispute that if the claimant lost four fingers only, and the compensation allowed should have been allowed for that loss only; or, if the compensation allowed for the permanent loss of the us of a hand, was not warranted by the facts, the allegations of the petition and its prayer for relief should be sustained by this court.

¶4 The statutes as interpreted by this court on which, upon the evidence, the Industrial Commission reached its conclusion, do not leave the rights of an injured claimant entirely at sea. The claim in the instant case was for the permanent loss of the use of a hand. Whether the claimant lost the permanent use of a hand was primarily a question of fact presented to and adjudged by the Commission. It involved also a construction of what the statute in fact means by the permanent loss of the use of a hand. In arriving at this meaning, the lawmakers evidently intended that the Commission should take into consideration the use to which a hand is ordinarily placed in the conduct of the affairs of life. The Commission knew no more than the average person as to this; neither can it be presumed that the Commission knew less than the average person as to this. The statute means the permanent and entire loss of the use of a hand as to the use to which a hand is usually placed. If four fingers alone were lost by reason of an accident, but the remainder of the hand as a matter of fact could be utilized to bring about many of the purposes to which the hand is ordinarily placed, though perhaps with not as much convenience as if the fingers had not been lost, then the specific compensation for the loss of fingers only was evidently intended by the statute to be compensation to be allowed for such injury.