Opinion
Rehearing Granted March 25, 1930
Application for certiorari by the Pacific Employers’ Insurance Company to review an order of the Industrial Accident Commission fixing the amount to be paid for medical services to J. Rollin French, M.D., and others.
Award affirmed
COUNSEL
F. Britton McConnell, of Los Angeles, for petitioner.
Edward O. Allen, of San Francisco, J.L. Kearney, of Los Angeles, and G.C. Faulkner, of San Francisco, for respondents.
OPINION
YORK, J.
Petitioner raises the point that there was an express agreement between the applicants (who were persons and institutions rendering medical aid) and the defendant (which was an insurance carrier), fixing the amount to be paid for the services that were rendered to the injured employees.
It is conceded that if there was an express agreement, in full force and effect on the date or dates that the various medical services were rendered, the Commission was without power to make the award. Workmen’s Compensation, Insurance and Safety Act of 1917 (St.1917, p. 846), § 17 (b). The Industrial Accident Commission made a finding that the evidence did not establish that at the time the treatment was rendered there existed an express agreement between applicants and defendant fixing the amount to be paid for the services rendered, and this finding was made upon testimony which showed that there had been such a contract, but that at a time prior to the time of the injuries to the two employees, a general notice, purporting to terminate any employment of the persons and institutions that rendered the medical treatment, had been served upon the respondents, French and Golden State Hospital, by the insurance company. Part of the notice read as follows: "You are hereby notified that on all cases of injured employees of employers insured by this company, where X-rays are desired, the case must be referred to Dr. C.E. Early, 1055 Roosevelt Building, Los Angeles." Dr. Early was a former associate of Dr. J. Rollin French, one of the respondents herein, they apparently having been in partnership at the time of the making of the original agreement.
The second paragraph of the letter is as follows: "On all cases coming under your care of employees of employers insured in this company that, in your opinion, require hospitalization, they must be sent to the Angelus Hospital, 1925 Trinity Street, Los Angeles."
On the one hand, the petitioner is claiming that there was an express and unrevoked agreement between the parties fixing the amount to be paid for such services. On the other hand, the respondents are contending that there never was any agreement between the parties, but that if there was such an agreement, it was revoked by the letter of May 15, 1928.
The Industrial Accident Commission made its finding that there was no such express agreement in effect when the treatment was rendered. Although the evidence as to both of these findings is not very definite or positive, under the rules of evidence laid down covering the taking of evidence before the Industrial Accident Commission, there was sufficient evidence for the Commission to make its findings. That being true, we are of the opinion that there is nothing in any of the points made by petitioner herein, as each of the points raised constitutes merely a repetition in different phraseology of the same proposition.
There was testimony at the hearing that the petitioner herein was the insurance carrier of the two employers of the injured men at the time they sustained their injuries; that Dr. French and the Golden State Hospital rendered treatment to the injured men, Carpenter and Norgaard. Thereupon the employers, who sent these men to obtain this treatment, became liable for the reasonable value of the services so rendered, since the men were injured in the course of their regular employment. The insurance carrier had agreed to assume and carry this liability, and as we are of the opinion that the insurance carrier assumed such liability, it was therefore properly substituted for the liability of the employers. Section 30, Workmen’s Compensation etc. Act, chap. 586, Laws of 1917, and section 29, as amended by chap. 300, Laws of 1925.
The evidence in the given case showed that when the employers sent the injured men to the respondents for treatment, the insurance company for the employers was at once notified that these men were receiving treatment. The insurance carrier, however, made no effort to transfer the cases or to designate other doctors to take care of the injured men. The reason that the injured men went to Dr. French and the Golden State Hospital for treatment was that the employers gave to the injured men cards, that had theretofore been furnished by the insurance company to the employers, which cards gave directions as to where the injured employees were to go to receive treatment, and how they were to get there. These printed slips contained the address of the Golden State Hospital, and that place was designated, and Dr. French was designated by the petitioner herein in such printed card.
The award is affirmed.
We concur: CONREY, P.J.; HOUSER, J.