In re Hines, 1973 OK 46, ¶ 16, 509 P.2d 669, 672; R.S. Smith Const. Co. v. Newcomb, 1937 OK ___, 71 P.2d 1091, 1092. See also Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co., 1943 OK ___, 134 P.2d 581, 582 (on review of State Industrial Commission (now Workers' Compensation Court) orders, appellate courts do not consider or decide controversies between employers and insurance companies where an injured claimant is not interested).Mid-Continent Casualty Co. v. Miller, 1969 OK 2, ¶ 13, 451 P.2d 932, 935.
See also Camps v. Taylor, Okla., 892 P.2d 633, 638 (1995) (Opala, J., concurring). Butter Nut Baking Co. v. State Ins. Fund, Okla., 294 P.2d 842, 845 (1956); Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co, 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581, 583 (1943); Bituminous Cas. Corp. v. State Indus. Com'n, 187 Okla. 252, 102 P.2d 607, 609 (1940); R.S. Smith Const. Co. v. Newcomb, 181 Okla. 5, 71 P.2d 1091, 1092 (1937). Cities Service Gas Co v. Witt, Okla., 500 P.2d 288, 291 (1972).
Although neither party has raised the issue, we are also cognizant that our court has previously held that we will not consider or decide a controversy between two insurers in which an injured claimant has no interest on a petition to review an order of the State Industrial Court. See Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co., 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581 (1943). This principle was first evolved when the State Industrial Court was not a court, but a commission.
We think this contention overlooks the fact that it was distinguished in Tri-State Casualty Co. v. Bowen, supra. See, also, Preferred Accident Ins. Co. of N.Y. v. Van Dusen, 202 Okla. 124, 210 P.2d 341, in which Bituminous Casualty Corp. v. State Industrial Commission, supra, is also distinguished. Petitioner cites Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co., 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581, 582. Therein it is stated: "This court will not, on petition to review an order of the State Industrial Commission, consider or decide a controversy between an employer and an insurance company, or between two insurance companies in which an injured claimant is not interested."
In this connection, we observe parenthetically that no complaint is made by claimant nor petitioner insurance carrier as to the Commission's failure to enter the award against the other adventurers and their insurance carriers. Undoubtedly, this is because of our decision in Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co., 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581. If we consider only that which was said or approved in the Sand Springs Home cases it would appear to refute the insurance carrier's contention that a joint adventure constitutes a separate legal entity.
Longwell Lumber Building Co., Inc., v. Maryland Casualty Co., 144 Misc. 595, 259 N.Y.S. 7. In Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co., 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581, 582, we held: "This court will not, on petition to review an order of the State Industrial Commission, consider or decide a controversy between an employer and an insurance company, or between two insurance companies in which an injured claimant is not interested."
Its finding that the policy involved did not, by its specific terms, include the kind of employment in which claimant was engaged, is the only conclusion that anyone reading the policy would arrive at; and it was a necessary one to application of the above statutory sections. In this connection, see Tri-State Casualty Ins. Co. v. Bowen, 189 Okla. 97, 113 P.2d 981, and Employer's Casualty Co. v. Carpenter Bros., 204 Okla. 312, 229 P.2d 592, and compare with Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Co., 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581. Said sections are plainly contemplated to apply to situations where a worker's employment is not covered by the specific provisions of his employer's insurance policy. Such coverage is effected under the Act through a conclusive presumption in his favor, where premiums on the policy in existence have been "paid, collected, or" his employment "considered or used in determination of the amount of premium collected upon such policy, * * *" regardless of the employer's type of business or the employee's type of work. While in the National Bank of Tulsa Bldg. case, supra, this court used the expression: premiums paid and received "on a basis of a particular employment", it did not mean or intend to hold, contrary to the wording of the statute, that the premiums must have been paid and received on a "particular ( type or kind of) employment."
Thereunder the State Industrial Commission is vested with jurisdiction to administer the act, and the jurisdiction thus conferred is limited to the purposes of the act. See Spaulding Osborne v. Pacific Employers Ins. Co., 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581. The jurisdiction so conferred is to be ascertained by reference to the act (Schuermann v. Hacker Mill Elevator Co., 189 Okla. 43, 113 P.2d 389) and not by resort to common law rules. See Brooks v. A. A. Davis Co., 124 Okla. 140, 254 P. 66.
" ( Independent Oil Gas Co. v. Mooney, 187 Okla. 472, 103 P.2d 577, and cases cited therein.) In the case of Spaulding Osborne v. Pac. Employers Ins. Co., et al, ___ Okla. ___, 134 P.2d 581, is the following language: "The State Industrial Commission was created to give speedy relief to injured workmen entitled to compensatory benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Act. * * * The accomplishment of that function would be greatly hampered if by judicial precedent we permitted it to gradually metamorphise under slender pretext into a tribunal where insurance carriers and employers settled their respective contractual rights in conjunction with disputes in which claimants' interests were no longer involved.
DAVISON, J. This case and the case of Spaulding Osborne, Petitioner, v. Pacific Employers Insurance Company, State Industrial Commission, Edward Hutchings and Maryland Casualty Co., No. 31156 (this day decided), 192 Okla. 154, 134 P.2d 581, are in all essential respects identical except that different claimants are involved. The legal questions are the same.