Hutchinson Lumber Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

KNIGHT, J.

Petitioners hereby apply for a writ of review whereby they seek to have annulled an award made by the Industrial Accident Commission.

On October 2'8, 1923, respondent John Bohan, sixty-three years of age, sustained a severe injury to his knee while working for the Hutchinson Lumber Company near Oroville. The petitioners recognized the compensability of the injury by furnishing him with medical treatment and compensating him up to April, 1924. In December, 1924, Bohan ascertained for the first time that the injury, which the insurance company’s doctor had previously indicated to him was only of a temporary nature, had developed into one of a permanent character, and on May 12, 1925, after said insurance company had refused to recognize the permanent nature of the disability or to compensate him therefor, filed an application with the respondent Commission for an adjustment of his claim. Petitioners filed no answer to the application, but at the hearing urged the objection that Bohan’s claim was barred by lapse of time. This objection was not sustained, and the Commission held, properly we think, that

[143]

Bohan’s injury, having changed from a temporary to a permanent disability, constituted a “new and further disability” within the meaning of subdivision c of section 11 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act [Stats. 1917, p. 841], and therefore entitled him to further compensation. In support of its decision on this latter point the respondent Commission calls attention to the fact that recently the supreme court has denied petitions for writs of review in two cases having for their purpose the annulment of awards made in proceedings involving facts similar to those presented here, that is, where temporary disabilities had afterward become permanent.

(Imperial Ice & Development Co. et al.

v.

Industrial Acc. Com.,

11 Cal. I. A. C. 131;

Otis Elevator Co.

v.

Industrial Acc. Com. and M. J. O’Connor,

12 I. A. C. 242. See, also,