Title: ARROW TRUCKING COMPANY v. LEWIS

State: oklahoma

Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Document:

ARROW TRUCKING COMPANY v. LEWIS  ARROW TRUCKING COMPANY v. LEWIS 2004 OK 18 90 P.3d 997 Case Number: 100055 Decided: 03/22/2004 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA ARROW TRUCKING COMPANY, Petitioner, v. PERRY LEWIS and THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT, Respondents. ORDER Respondent's motion to dismiss this review proceeding is denied with prejudice. The petitioner's appeal to the three-judge panel was timely pursuant to the time computation set forth in DONE BY ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT IN CONFERENCE THIS 22nd /S/CHIEF JUSTICE Concur: Watt, C.J., Hodges, Lavender, Hargrave, Kauger, Boudreau, Winchester, Edmondson, JJ. Dissent: Opala, V.C.J. OPALA V.C. J., dissenting. ¶1 I cannot accede to today's order. It is infirm in three critical respects. Firstly, a point of internal procedure, which is here in contest, is governed exclusively by the Workers' Compensation Law. Secondly, the ten-day limit for filing an intra-court quest for review before a three-judge panel may not be enlarged by any provision in § 2006(A) I INTERNAL PROCEDURE IN THE TRIAL TRIBUNAL IS GOVERNED EXCLUSIVELY BY THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION LAW ¶2 The distinction between an intra-court appeal and a proceeding for review is well established. II THE TEXT OF § 2006(A) IS INAPPLICABLE TO AN INTRA-COURT APPEAL IN A COMPENSATION PROCEEDING ¶3 The provisions of § 2006(A) govern solely district court proceedings.5 Inasmuch as the entire Pleading Code's ambit is explicitly restricted by the terms of § 20016 to district court practice, the phrase "any applicable statute" in § 2006(A) of the Code7 cannot be viewed as intended to reach one iota further than the Pleading Code itself. To be clear, "any applicable statute" - as these words are employed in §2006(A) - must be limited by the subject statute's pertinence to time computation for compliance with district court procedure.8 An intra-court appeal to a three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court does not lie within the ambit of district court procedure. It hence lacks the pertinence required by the explicit terms of § 2006(A).9 ¶4 What makes § 2006(A) uninvocable here is abundantly clear from the unambiguous text of Rule 3110 that stands approved by this court. An appeal from a trial judge's decision to a three-judge panel must be taken within ten (10) days of the order's filing. Further clarification of this statutory time span is provided by the text of § 3.6 itself,11 which prescribes a chronometric method for determining its precise length.12 Only one statutory section dehors the Workers' Compensation Court is referenced in § 3.6. The cited section's use is confined to computing interest.13 Because statutory silence will not serve as an indication of another statute's incorporation into the Workers' Compensation Law, it is clear that § 2006(A) may not be invoked to alter the established internal procedure of the Workers' Compensation Court. Rather, the norms found in both Rule 31 and in § 3.6(A) must be allowed to control the intra-court regime. Any attempt to import adjective law from district court litigation must fail here for want of textually demonstrable authority. ¶5 This court has the ultimate power over the content of the Workers' Compensation Court's practice rules.14 Once approved, these rules become binding. By their force, district court practice or procedure may be used only where a point of adjective law is entirely absent from the applicable statutes which govern procedure in the Workers' Compensation Court and from the rules approved for that trial tribunal.15 Today's act of engrafting the text of § 2006(A) upon the internal flow of compensation proceedings is plainly in error. It is in every sense as egregiously wrong as utilizing a new-trial motion for enlargement of time to file a § 3.6(A) proceeding in this court.16 In sum, the text of § 2006(A) cannot be excised from the Pleading Code and then transplanted into a litigation channel that lies entirely outside the district-court framework without seriously violating the statutes and internal rules (approved by this court) which control the intra-court compensation proceedings.17 ¶6 The Court of Civil Appeals' opinion in K.J. Constr. v. Puente18 cannot be invoked to lend support for today's order. It is a non-precedential pronouncement that constitutes a plainly incorrect exposition of current Oklahoma law. The Workers' Compensation Law contains its own explicit methods for computing time to bring both an intra-court appeal as well as a proceeding for review before this court.19 In sum, the text of § 2006(A) may not be judicially extracted from the Pleading Code for enlargement of the time for filing an intra-court appeal, which is prescribed with unambiguous precision by the provisions of § 3.6(A) of the Workers' Compensation Law. III TODAY'S ORDER MAY NOT BE APPLIED RETROSPECTIVELY ¶7 Finally, extant jurisprudence does not permit today's order to govern this case.20 Obscure or hard-to-detect statutory changes of procedure will not, when ultimately settled by jurisprudence, be given retroactive effect.21 If this order were to be accorded a fully retroactive sweep, a tardy filing by one who neglected timely to file an appeal would be protected from malpractice liability. Never before has this court condoned a practitioner's departure from long-standing and well-established procedure by its retroactive application of a hard-to-identify change in statutory law. On the contrary, consistent protection has been afforded only to those practitioners who became ensnared in some obscure adjective law's effect.22 This petitioner's lawyer was not similarly trapped. He invented a new legal norm by invoking for the client a non-existent extension. His exoneration today would confer like immunity on others. In sum, fidelity to precedent (whose change by today's decision stands unforeshadowed) inexorably mandates that this order's effect be confined to future intra-court proceedings. It should affect only those cases in which a proceeding of this nature is lodged after today's order becomes final. SUMMARY ¶8 I recede from today's order that denies the respondent's dismissal motion and from the court's assigned reasons for enlarging the § 3.6(A)'s ten-day limit by superimposing upon its text the §2006(A) chronometric method impermissibly transplanted from the Pleading Code. FOOT