Morris v. Standard Oil Co.

WASTE, C. J.

—The main question to be determined on this appeal is whether or not a lien for the amount of the compensation paid an injured employee by the insurance carrier of the employer, and allowed under the provision of section 26 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act [Stats. 1917, p. 854], against a judgment for personal injuries recovered by the employee against the person causing the injuries, is assignable.

[212]

Milton Morris, a minor, the plaintiff, was run over by a truck operated by the defendant, Standard Oil Company, and seriously injured while in the course of his employment by the Chronicle Publishing Company of Calexico. He brought an action against the Oil Company for damages for personal injuries, and, after two appeals to this court, he was awarded the sum of $12,000.

(Morris

v.

Standard Oil

Co., 188 Cal. 468 [205 Pac. 1073];

Ibid,

192 Cal. 343 [30 A. L. E. 1103, 219 Pac. 998].) The action was defended by the Ocean Accident and Guaranty Corporation, Limited, of London, England, which company was the insurance carrier of both the Oil Company and the minor’s employer, the Chronicle Publishing Company. As compensation carrier for the employer, it supplied the injured boy with medical and hospital care, and paid to him disability indemnity . during the existence of the disability arising from the injury, but refused to inform the employee of the items or the amounts expended for medical and hospital care. Consequently those expenditures were not given consideration in the action brought by the minor against the Oil Company. During the pendency of the second appeal in that action, the Industrial Accident Commission made an award to the injured employee, fixing the amount of compensation to be paid by the insurance carrier of the employer at the sum of $800.64, which amount the insurance company paid.

Neither the employer of the boy nor its insurance carrier joined, or was joined, in the action for damages brought by him against the Oil Company, and neither instituted an independent action against that company because of the injury. The Ocean Accident and Guaranty Corporation, as such insurance carrier, having paid the employee compensation for which his employer was liable, was subrogated to all rights of the employer, and was entitled to enforce such rights in its own name. (Workmen’s Compensation Act, see. 30, subd. 2 [f].) It therefore petitioned for a lien against the judgment obtained by the employee against the Oil Company for the amount paid by it as compensation and the additional sum paid for medical and hospital treatment. The application was denied as to the latter items, but the insurance carrier was allowed a lien against the ' judgment for the sum of $800.64, paid as compensation,