Scott v. Independent Ice Co.

³⁴⁴ Boyd, C. J., delivered the opinion, of the Court. ' This is an appeal by the claimants from an order of the Baltimore City Court, which affirmed a decision of the State Industrial Accident Commission disallowing compensation to them. It was agreed that John Scott was killed on July 26, 1918, while in the employ of the Independent Ice Company, .and that the appellants, if dependents under the Workmen's Compensation.Law, are entitled to compensation. It was also .agreed that if Eredericka Scott were present she would testify as follows: She and John Scott had been living together continuously iu the City of Baltimore for the past eight years as husband-and wife, although they were never married. As .a result of that relation, two children were horn to them, viz., Mildred Scott, aged three years in August, 1918, and Avon .Scott, aged two months at that time.

Since their birth, and at the time of his death, both children and Eredericka Scott had been living with John Scott as members of his family; ■he had acknowledged them to be his children, had supported them and Eredericka Scott, their mother, and the children had been entirely dependent on him for a living. The only questions, therefore, which we are called-upon to determine are: (&) Whether Eredericka Scott is entitled to compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Law; and (5) Whether Mildred Scott and Avon Scott, the illegitimate children, are entitled to compensation under that law. Section 36 of Article 101 of the Code,, titled Workmen’s Compensation, and being a codification of the Act of 1914, Ch. 800, and amendments thereto; begins: “Each employee (or in case of death his family or dependents) entitled to receive compensation under this Article shall receive the same in accordance with the following schedule, and except as in this Article otherwise provided, such payment shall be in lieu of any and all rights of action whatsoever against any person whomsoever.” Then after providing for compensation to the employee for disabilities, etc., the Section provides that, “In case the injury causes death within the period of ³⁴⁵ two years, the benefits shall be in the amounts and to the persons following.” The. compensation is then named for wholly dependent persons and partly dependent persons,, after which the statute provide®; “The following persons shall he presumed to he wholly dependent, for support upon a deceased employee: A wife or invalid husband (‘invalid’ meaning one physically or mentally incapacitated from earning), a child or children under the age of sixteen years (or over said age if physically or mentally incapacitated from earning) living with or dependent upon the parent at the time of the injury or death.’ In all other cases, questions of dependency, in whole or in part, shall he determined in accordance with the facts in each particular case existing at the time of the injury resulting in deat-h of such employee, but no person shall he considered as dependent unless such person be a father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, stepchild or grandchild, or brother or sister of the deceased employee, including those otherwise specified in this Section.” Section 61 of that Article is: “The rule that statutes in derogation of the common law are to be strictly construed shall have no application to this Article; hut this Article shall be so interpreted and construed as to effectuate its general purpose.” Although the rights, if any, of these three persons under this statute are somewhat interwoven, and a discussion of the claim of the mother may have some bearing on that of the children, and vice versa, we will consider them separately. (a) Whatever may be the law in some other States, there can be no doubt that “To constitute lawful marriage here there must be supera,dded to the civil contract some religious ceremany,” Denison v. Denison, 35 Md. 361 , hut in this case it isi admitted that John Scott and Fredericka were never married, and hence we are not called upon to discuss that question.

A wife is “A woman united to a man by marriage,” Bouvier’s Law Dict., or as the definition is given in 30 Am. & Eng.. Enc. of Law, 522, “a woman who is united to a man ³⁴⁶ in the lawful bonds of wedlock.” If Fredericka had any foundation for her claim for compensation under this act, it would seem to be clear that it could only have been as “wife,” but the appellants contend that as she and her children were members of the family of, and supported by John Scott they were entitled to compensation. The only references we find to “family” in the Act are Section 36 of Article 101 of Code (Section 35 of Act of 1914), the first paragraph of which is quoted above, and in the preamble, where the State “declares that all phases of extra hazardous employments be, and they are hereby withdrawn from private controversy, and sure and certain relief for workmen injured in extra-hazardous employments and their families and dependents are hereby provided for, regardless of questions of fault and to the exclusion of every other remedy, except as provided in this Act.” There is also a provision in Section 31 that nothing’ in the Act shall affect certain existing contracts^ “or any arrangement now existing between employers and employees, providing for the payment to such employees, their families, dependents or representatives of sick, accident or death benefits in addition to the compensation provided for by this Article,” etc. There is nothing in the Act from which it can properly be .contended that any person can recover compensation simply because such person is a member of the family of the employee, and was dependent upon him for support, even if we give the word “family” the broad meaning contended for by appellants. The quotation taken from Bouvier in Pearre v. Smith. 110 Md. 531, 534 , referred to by appellants, that in common parlance the family “consists of those who live under the same roof with the peder familias/’ is undoubtedly a correct definition as applicable to many questions, although, as Judge SrnnroKEB, also said in that case, “it has a variety of meanings according to the connection in which it is used, and it should be so construed in each case as to give it the significance appropriate to its use.” The first definition given by ³⁴⁷ Bouvier is ‘‘Father, mother and children” — then ‘‘All the individuals who live under the authority of another, including the servants of the family.” The definition in 12 Am. & Eng.

Enc. of Law, 866, also referred to by Judge Sou mucker, is: “A family is defined as a collective body of persons who form one household, under one head and one domestic government, including parents, children and servants, and, as sometimes used, even lodgers or boarders.” The “old family servant” in this State, as well as in other portions of the country, was, and still is to a limited extent, an important and respected member of the household, and often in old age wholly dependent on the head of the family, but no one would claim that such or other servants,- although dependent on the head of the house, could be entitled to compensation under such an act as this. Nor could it be said that a niece, cousin or other relative not named in this Act or friend who was dependent upon the employee, even for a good consideration, was entitled to- compensation under this Act because he or she was a member of the family. The answer to such a claim would plainly he that the statute states who shall he entitled to compensation in specific terms, and Courts have no- right to go beyond those terms because the parties before .them seem to ho deserving. The statute does not provide for substitutes —certainly not for a mistress in place of a wife.

Excepting in jurisdictions where common law marriages are recognized, or there are statutes- authorizing such claims, the decisions are for the most part in accord in holding that Í a woman living with an employee, as man and wife, when he died as the result of an injury, is not entitled to compensation'under Workmen’s Compensation Laws if not legally married to him, although dependent upon him. Illustrations of' the extent, to which Courts have gone in so holding may he found in Hall v. Industrial Commission, 165 Wis. 364 , 162 N. W. 312 ; Armstrong v. Ind. Com., 161 Wis. 530 , 154 N. W. 844 ; Meton v. State Ind. Ins.

Dept., 104 Wash. 652 , 177 Pac. 696 . Those were- hard cases, as the parties- believed ³⁴⁸ they were legally married, blit the Courts could not give them relief, or refuse to be governed by the law, but had to administer the law as they found it, just as we had to do in Geisselman v. Geisselman, 134 Md. 453 , where an innocent child had to suffer for the mistake of its parents. Without deeming it necessary to cite other authorities on the asserted right of the mother to compensation under this Act, we are satisfied that she was not so entitled, and we have no hesitation in agreeing with the decision of the lower Court as to her. We will now consider the claim on behalf of the illegitimate children.

In most, if not all States in this country, there has been legislation for the purpose of relieving the unfortunate class known as bastards from the harsh rules of the common law. In addition to the Bastardy Statute, which requires the reputed father, if found guilty, to give bond in a penalty not exceeding $500.00, to pay for the maintenance and support of such child to the mother, or to the person having such child in custody, or to the County or City of Baltimore, as the case may be, if said child be a public charge, until it reaches the age of twelve years, in a sum not to exceed $15.00 a month, as the Court shall direct, and which, was intended to indemnify the County or City to some extent at least, as well as to punish the offender, we have a number of statutes in Maryland on the subject of illegitimate children. By Section 31 of Article 6 of Code the Orphans’. Courts are authorized to bind out as apprentices illegitimate children.

By Section 30 of Article 46 and Section 134 of Article 93 illegitimate children are made capable of taking and inheriting both real and personal estates from their mothers, or from each other, or from the descendants of each other, etc., as if they were born in lawful wedlock. But the only right of inheritance from the father given by our statutes' is in Section 29 of Article 46, where it is pro-11 vided that, “If any man shall have a child or children by any woman whom he shall afterwards marry, such child or children, if acknowledged by the man, shall, in virtue of such ³⁴⁹ marriage and acknowledgment, be hereby legitimated and capable in law to inherit and transmit inheritance as if bom in wedlock.” There is nothing in our statutes, as to illegitimate children, which can be construed to give the appellants more right to compensation under this law than they would have had if there were no such statutes, unless it be tbe mere fact that they indicate an intention of tbe several Legislatures which passed them to give such children a better standing and morel rights than they had at common law. But on the other hand we find from them that when the Legislatures thought it proper to give them some relief they did so, ‘and have not deemed it wise in the past to give them relief in some instances which would seem to be as deserving of it as under the statute now