Title: Bekkedahl v. North Dakota Workmen's Comp. Bureau

State: north-dakota

Issuer: North Dakota Supreme Court

Document:

222 N.W.2d 841 (1974) Archie BEKKEDAHL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. NORTH DAKOTA WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BUREAU, Defendant-Appellee. Civ. No. 9022. Supreme Court of North Dakota. October 31, 1974. Zuger & Bucklin, Bismarck, for plaintiff-appellant. Leonell W. Fraase, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., and David Evans, Asst. Atty. Gen., Bismarck, *842 for North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau, defendant-appellee. ERICKSTAD, Chief Justice. On March 25, 1968, Archie Bekkedahl, whose residence is Williston, North Dakota, and who was employed by National Tank Company, a division of Combustion Engineering, Inc., with offices in Williston and whose home offices are in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was injured in Montana while unloading tank steel used in the oil fields. Because of the seriousness of his injuries, Bekkedahl was transported to Fargo, North Dakota, where he received the attention of specialists. Dr. Lee A. Christoferson, a neurosurgeon, in his dismissal summary listed Bekkedahl's final diagnosis as follows: Following surgery by the neurosurgeon for the head injuries, Bekkedahl was returned to Williston and almost immediately thereafter, only thirty days after the accident, he was given a Montana compensation claim form to sign without being informed of his right to file a claim with the North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau and without being informed of the more favorable benefits available to him under the North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Act. About eleven months after the accident, Bekkedahl filed an application with the North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau. This application was denied on July 14, 1969, on the basis of Section 65-05-05, N.D.C.C. It is significant that Bekkedahl's signature on the Montana claim form is almost illegible. On June 29, 1971, Bekkedahl reapplied to the North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau for compensation. The pertinent part of the application reads: By order dated August 24, 1971, the North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau denied this application. By findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order for judgment dated March 29, 1974, the district court affirmed the order of the Workmen's Compensation Bureau. It is from the judgment entered upon said order that Bekkedahl appeals to our court. *843 The statute upon which the Workmen's Compensation Bureau denied the claim reads: The Bureau contends that the part emphasized prohibits it from a jurisdictional standpoint from considering this claim. In support thereof it refers to the amendment to § 65-0505, N.D.R.C., and the note attached thereto contained in the Workmen's Compensation section of the report of the North Dakota Legislative Research Committee to the Thirty-fourth Legislative Assembly (1955). It reads: The Bureau specifically relies on that part of the note which states that it was the intent of the legislature by this proposed amendment, which incidentally became law in the 1955 Session of the Legislature, "to compel the claimant to seek his remedy in one jurisdiction." In stressing this part of the note, the Bureau ignores the fact that it was the duplication of benefits that the Legislature was attempting to prevent and which was the evil that existed prior to the adoption of the amendment. Relevant from a historical standpoint is a unanimous decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court rendered in 1963. Cramer v. State Concrete Corp., 39 N.J. 507, 189 A.2d 213 (1963). *844 In that case the New Jersey court stated the question to be whether an employee is barred from receiving Workmen's Compensation under their statute because he obtained an award against his employer in New York. The contract of employment was made in New Jersey between parties who were and continued to be residents of New Jersey. The work was performed in New Jersey or New York, depending upon the location of the jobs the employer contracted to do. The accident giving rise to the claim occurred at a New York job site. The court upon these facts held that the employee became entitled to the benefits of the New Jersey Compensation Law, notwithstanding that New York, as the state in which the accident occurred, might also deem its compensation law to apply. The court cited Gotkin v. Weinberg, 2 N.J. 305, 66 A.2d 438 (1949), and other cases. A part of the opinion in Cramer follows: On the specific issue of whether the claimant could recover from New Jersey, having already filed a claim and recovered from New York, the court said: It should be noted that New Jersey had no statutory provision such as the amended part of § 65-05-05, N.D.C.C. Notwithstanding that fact, however, we believe that Cramer is a valuable aid to us in determining the issue in the instant case because of what it says about the objective of the Compensation Act, what it says about an uninformed choice, and how it concludes that payment of anything less than the employee's full due is repugnant to the policy of New Jersey law. Had the differences in the benefits of the Workmen's Compensation Acts been disclosed to Bekkedahl at the time that he was asked to fill out the employee's claim form with the Industrial Accident Board of Montana, it is highly unlikely that he would have filed a claim with Montana. Comparing § 65-05-09, N.D.C.C., providing for total disability benefits in effect in North Dakota at the date of the accident, with § 92-702 of the Revised Codes of Montana, we see that the first provided for weekly compensation equal to 80 percent of the claimant's weekly wage for the duration of the disability, subject to a maximum compensation of $53 per week, whereas the latter provided for a maximum compensation of 66 2/3 percent of the weekly wages received by the claimant at the time of the injury, subject to a maximum compensation of $50 per week and further subject to a limitation in the duration of the payments of 500 weeks. Had Mr. Bekkedahl been informed of the comparative merits of the two Workmen's Compensation statutes as they related to medical and hospital benefits, he would have noted that under § 65-05-07, N.D. C.C., he would have been entitled to medical and hospital services for the duration of his disability, whereas under § 92-706, Revised Codes of Montana, his medical and hospital benefits would have been limited to 36 months. The pertinent parts of those statutes read: "92-706. (2917) Medical and hospital services and such other treatment as approved by the board to be furnished. In addition to the compensation provided by this act and as an additional benefit separate and apart from compensation, the following shall be furnished: In light of the obvious differences in benefits existing at the time of the accident and the time when the claimant was required to file his claim, it would appear to us that had he been informed of these differences or had he knowledge of these differences, and had he known that he would have been permitted to file a claim with the North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau, notwithstanding that his accident occurred in the state of Montana, his decision would have been to file a claim with the North Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau. Considering the obvious differences in the Workmen's Compensation benefits of the states of Montana and North Dakota at the time the claimant's rights accrued, that these differences were not pointed out to the claimant nor known by him at the time he filed his claim with Montana, that the claimant had very recently undergone serious brain surgery and was still recuperating from that surgery as well as from his other injuries at the time he was asked to file the claim with the Industrial Accident Board of Montana, that the North Dakota Legislature intended by the 1955 Amendment to Section 65-05-05, N.D.C.C., to prevent duplicate benefits, and since allowing the claim in the instant case will not permit a duplication of benefits, we conclude that § 65-05-05, N.D.C.C., does not prevent the Workmen's Compensation Bureau from considering the claim filed in this case. Because we do not know what arrangements exist between the two states, and because the issue has not been briefed and argued, we are not deciding the extraterritorial issues if such exist and as may be related to § 65-08-01, N.D.C.C., and § 92-614 of the Revised Codes of Montana. For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment of the district court is reversed and the case is remanded to the North *847 Dakota Workmen's Compensation Bureau for further consideration of this claim. KNUDSON, PAULSON, VOGEL and JOHNSON, JJ., concur.