Case Title: State ex rel. Romans v. Elder Beerman Stores, Inc.

Citation: 2003-Ohio-5363

Docket Number: 20030175

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2003-10-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Romans v. Elder Beerman Stores, Inc., 100 Ohio St.3d 165, 2003-Ohio-
5363.] 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. ROMANS, APPELLEE, v. ELDER BEERMAN STORES CORP.; 
INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF OHIO, APPELLANT. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Romans v. Elder Beerman Stores Corp., 100 Ohio St.3d 
165, 2003-Ohio-5363.] 
Workers’ compensation — Claimant’s application for permanent partial 
disability denied by Industrial Commission on ground that claim had 
lapsed for lack of any compensation payment in the six years following the 
injury — Commission relied on version of R.C. 4123.52 in effect on 
claimant’s date of injury — Retroactive application of amended R.C. 
4123.52 to claim — Court of appeals’ grant of writ ordering commission 
to consider claimant’s application on the merits affirmed. 
(No. 2003-0175 — Submitted August 26, 2003 — Decided October 22, 2003.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 02AP-283, 2002-
Ohio-6749. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶1} 
Appellee-claimant, Steven Romans, was injured on the job on 
November 17, 1992.  A workers’ compensation claim was allowed, and claimant 
was treated regularly over the next six years. 
{¶2} 
Claimant moved appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio for 
permanent partial disability compensation in March 1999.  The commission 
denied his request, finding that the claim had lapsed for lack of any compensation 
payment in the six years following the injury.  The commission relied on the 
version of R.C. 4123.52 in effect on claimant’s date of injury: 
{¶3} 
“No * * * finding or award in respect of any claim shall be made 
with respect to disability, compensation, dependency, or benefits, after six years 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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from the date of injury in the absence of the payment of compensation for total 
disability under section 4123.56 of the Revised Code or wages in lieu of 
compensation * * *.”  1989 Am.Sub.H.B. No. 222, 143 Ohio Laws, Part II, 3356. 
{¶4} 
Claimant asserted that R.C. 4123.52 as amended by Am.Sub.H.B. 
No. 107, effective October 20, 1993, controlled, and petitioned the Court of 
Appeals for Franklin County for a writ of mandamus.  Amended R.C. 4123.52 
read: 
{¶5} 
“No * * * finding or award in respect of any claim shall be made 
with respect to disability, compensation, dependency, or benefits, after six years 
from the date of injury in the absence of the payment of medical benefits under 
this chapter, in which event the * * * finding, or award shall be made within six 
years after the payment of medical benefits  * * *.” 145 Ohio Laws, Part II, 3156. 
{¶6} 
House Bill 107, Section 7, also stated, “Sections 1 and 2 of this act 
[including the amendment to R.C. 4123.52] apply to all claims for benefits or 
compensation, or both, filed on or after, and to all claims pending on the effective 
date * * *.”  145 Ohio Laws, Part II, 3200.  Thus, the amended statute, if 
applicable, would preserve claimant’s right to participate in the workers’ 
compensation system.  On claimant’s petition, the Court of Appeals for Franklin 
County found that the amended statute indeed governed and granted a writ of 
mandamus ordering the commission to consider claimant’s application on the 
merits. 
{¶7} 
This cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right. 
{¶8} 
R.C. 4123.52 incorporates three statutes of limitations, of two, six, 
and ten years.  We most commonly encounter the two-year limitation, usually 
within the context of a retroactive compensation award.  The other statutes of 
limitations are directed at dormant claims, permitting finality through 
extinguishment after a set period of inactivity. 
January Term, 2003 
3 
{¶9} 
Amended R.C. 4123.52 did not change the length of time of 
inactivity that causes a claim to lapse.  Instead, in effect it changed the definition 
of inactivity.  Before, a claim was deemed fatally inactive if no compensation was 
paid within six years of the date of injury, even if medical bills had been paid 
within that time.  Now, the payment of medical bills tolls the statute of limitations 
and is the new point from which to measure the six-year period. 
{¶10} Claimant’s date of injury preceded the amendment’s effective date, 
placing its applicability at issue.  If the amendment is controlling, his claim 
remains open.  If not, it is forever lapsed.  For the reasons to follow, we find that 
amended R.C. 4123.52 governs. 
{¶11} A law may be applied retroactively if (1) there is an express 
legislative intent that it do so and (2) it affects a remedial, not substantive, right.  
Van Fossen v. Babcock & Wilcox Co. (1988), 36 Ohio St.3d 100, 522 N.E.2d 489.  
The first point, in the instant case, was settled by State ex rel. Kilbane v. Indus. 
Comm. (2001), 91 Ohio St.3d 258, 744 N.E.2d 708.  Kilbane also involved H.B. 
107 and declared that the disputed language on “pending” claims was an express 
statement of a legislative desire for retroactivity. 
{¶12} The commission acknowledges Kilbane but relies on John Ken 
Alzheimer’s Ctr. v. Ohio Certificate of Need Review Bd. (1989), 65 Ohio App.3d 
134, 583 N.E.2d 337.  That case loosely described “pending” as encompassing 
some degree of suspense or incompletion.  The commission argues that because 
no request for compensation or benefits was open and unadjudicated when the 
statute took effect, there was nothing pending. 
{¶13} The commission accurately describes the application of this 
definition to the case at bar.  It forgets the larger question, however, of whether it 
should apply, and that query must be answered in the negative.  John Ken is a 
court of appeals case that was decided over a decade before Kilbane.  Kilbane is 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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directly on point and provides the only standard by which to review legislative 
intent here.  Accordingly, the commission’s position must fail. 
{¶14} The second question of remedial versus substantive legislation is 
more difficult.  Van Fossen—the preeminent case on statutory retroactivity—
acknowledged at the outset the often fine line between substantive and remedial 
enactments.  Examples of the former include laws that (1) impair or destroy 
vested rights, (2) affect accrued substantive rights, (3) impose new “burdens, 
duties, obligations or liabilities as to a past transaction,” (4) create a new right, or 
(5) generate or eliminate the right to sue or defend actions of law.  Van Fossen, 36 
Ohio St.3d at 107, 522 N.E.2d 489. 
{¶15} Remedial provisions, on the other hand, are just what the name 
denotes—those that affect only the remedy provided.  Id.  For years statutes of 
limitation were routinely characterized as remedial.  In the 1970s, however, we 
observed: 
{¶16} “Whatever the cause for the initial classification of statutes of 
limitations as procedural or remedial, * * * the effects of their increasingly 
automatic characterization as such have proved burdensome in many respects.  
For example, while such statutes are procedural in the sense that they regulate the 
time within which litigation must be commenced, they also smack of substance 
because they operate to extinguish a party’s accrued right to seek recovery.”   
Gregory v. Flowers (1972), 32 Ohio St.2d 48, 55, 61 O.O. 2d 295, 290 N.E.2d 
181. 
{¶17} Interestingly, a case cited by the commission—Sechler v. Krouse 
(1978), 56 Ohio St.2d 185, 10 O.O.3d 349, 383 N.E.2d 572—favors its 
opponent’s characterization of R.C. 4123.52 as remedial.  Concerned not with 
retroactivity but with an equal protection challenge, we nevertheless described the 
statute this way:   
January Term, 2003 
5 
{¶18} “[I]t is apparent that the time limitations with respect to the 
continuing jurisdiction of the commission contained in R.C. 4123.52 operate as a 
statute of limitations for claimants seeking change or modification of their 
previously awarded benefits, and not as specific eligibility requirements for 
benefits.”  (Citation omitted.) Id. at 190, 10 O.O. 3d 349, 383 N.E.2d 572. 
{¶19} This describes the mechanism for the enforcement of an existing 
right.  In the same vein, Van Fossen specifically labeled as remedial those laws 
that “merely substitute a new or more appropriate remedy for the enforcement of 
an existing right,” 36 Ohio St.3d at 107, 522 N.E.2d 489, and it is this 
characterization that most strongly supports the designation in this case. 
{¶20} The amendment did not alter claimants’ already established right 
to participate but instead—in the words of Van Fossen—fashioned a “more 
appropriate remedy for the enforcement of [that] existing right.”  Now, a claim 
that is labeled inactive truly is just that, lacking both compensation payment and 
medical treatment. 
{¶21} Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR and O’DONNELL, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
Stephen E. Mindzak Law Offices, L.L.C., and Stephen E. Mindzak, for 
appellee. 
Jim Petro, Attorney General, and Stephen D. Plymale, Assistant Attorney 
General, for appellant. 
Philip J. Fulton Law Office, Philip J. Fulton, William A. Thorman III and 
Jonathan H. Goodman, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Academy of 
Trial Lawyers. 
__________________