Title: AMOS v. SPIRO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

State: oklahoma

Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Document:

AMOS v. SPIRO PUBLIC SCHOOLS  AMOS v. SPIRO PUBLIC SCHOOLS 2004 OK 4 85 P.3d 813 Case Number: 98464 Decided: 02/03/2004 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA DEBBIE DeSHAZO AMOS, Petitioner, v. SPIRO PUBLIC SCHOOLS and THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT, Respondents. ON CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIV. III ¶0 Proceeding by claimant to review an order of the Workers' Compensation Court, sustained by the Court of Civil Appeals, Div. III. On certiorari previously granted, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION AND THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT'S ORDER ARE VACATED; THE CAUSE IS REMANDED FOR PROCEEDINGS TO BE CONSISTENT WITH TODAY'S PRONOUNCEMENT. Michael E. Grant, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Petitioner. James B. Cassody, McGivern, Gilliard & Curthoys, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Respondents. OPALA, V.C.J. ¶1 The issue on certiorari is whether the Workers' Compensation Court erred when it dismissed petitioner's claim for compensation. We answer in the affirmative. I. ANATOMY OF THE LITIGATION ¶2 On 7 August 1997 Debbie DeShazo Amos2 (Amos, employee or claimant), a teacher in the Spiro school system (employer or respondent), alleged a job-related injury occurred when she was walking through a school hallway and a child stepped into her pathway.3 She claimed injury to her right leg and ankle4 and filed her claim for compensation on 15 June 1998. On 14 August 1997 (one week following her alleged initial job-related injury) Amos pressed a second on-the-job accident5 by an amended claim brought on 8 June 1999.6 ¶3 On 5 April 2002 Amos moved for a hearing on medical treatment for the period beginning from 7August 1999. Employer's amended answer denies Amos sustained a compensable injury and raises the "statute of limitations" as its defense.7 Respondent urges that claimant failed to file (in the trial tribunal) her request for a hearing within the three-year period allowed by the provisions of "85 O.S. § 43(B)."8 ¶4 The trial judge proceeded to hear the evidence and, after taking the matter under advisement, issued an order dismissing the claim as untimely pressed for a hearing. The order concludes that Amos failed timely to request a hearing (within three years of the initial claim's filing)9 and that her amended claim "did not serve to toll, arrest, suspend, or waive her duty to pursue her claim"10 on or before the three-year anniversary of her initial claim's filing date. The Court of Civil Appeals (COCA), Div. III, affirmed the Workers' Compensation Court (WCC) order.11 II. STANDARD OF REVIEW ¶5 The resolution of today's controversy calls for identification of that § 43(B) version which applies here. A compensation tribunal's legal rulings, like those by a district court judge, stand on review subject to an appellate court's plenary, independent and nondeferential reexamination.12 We hence review de novo the text of the statute that is to be applied here. III. A CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION IS GOVERNED BY THE STATUTE IN FORCE AT THE TIME THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED ¶6 Claimant contends first that her request for a hearing - filed within three years of the amended claim's filing, alleging a "new, additional and different accident date," - satisfies the §43(B) requirements. Amos' second argument is that her act of filing the amended claim operates to "toll, arrest, suspend, or waive"13 the § 43(B) requirements.14 Amos alternatively urges the COCA opinion, at minimum, should be vacated and the claim returned to the WCC for a hearing on the second alleged injury.15 Respondent argues simply that claimant has done nothing to arrest the §43(B) time-lapse provision and the claim is hence unenforceable. ¶7 Ordinarily, claims for workers' compensation awards must either be granted or denied.16 They stand subject to involuntary dismissal solely for want of an employee's timely-pressed request for a claim's hearing.17 A worker's quest to receive compensation for an on-the-job injury is a statutory public-law proceeding rather than a private dispute.18 When resolving a public-law issue, if the aggrieved party's brief advances the wrong reason for a decision's vacation the reviewing court is free to grant corrective relief from the urged error on an applicable theory chosen sua sponte - i.e., a theory that supports the assigned error but was neither advanced below nor on appeal but is dispositive of the issue raised by the aggrieved party.19 It is hence not necessary that we address ourselves here to the litigant's arguments and authorities. The propositions - advanced by both parties and pressed here - are based on a statutory text that was not in force when the accident occurred. ¶8 Because neither party here identifies the correct statute that governs the claim under consideration, it is our duty sua sponte to supply the correct statutory norm of law.20 That governing norm here is the enactment in force at the time of injury - §43(B) in its 1994 version. In Cole v. Silverado21 an employer attempted to bind claimant's rights by a statute that became effective after the claim's filing. We held that statute uninvocable and the claimant's rights to be governed by the law in force at the time of the claim's filing. This was so because the amendment was enacted after the "proceeding was begun" and because it altered the claimant's substantive rights. Here the very same change that occurred after the claim arose but before the claim's filing would be binding in this case. We hold that the same result as in Cole must follow here. If we did not pronounce the amended statute uninvocable, the claim would stand subject to substantive law changes enacted after the injury. The right to compensation clearly vests at the time a worker is injured.22 ¶9 Amos' first alleged job-related accident occurred on 7 August 1997. The statute in force at that time was 85 O.S. Supp. 1994 § 43(B).23 This 1994 enactment gives a claimant five (5) years from the date of a claim's filing to request a hearing.24 Amos clearly had five - not three - years from the date of her initial claim's filing to request a hearing. Because she filed her original claim on 15 June 1998, Amos had until 15 June 2003 to request a hearing. Her motion, filed on 5 April 2002, was well within the temporal limit prescribed by the provisions of 85 O.S. Supp. 1994 § 43 (B).25 IV. SUMMARY ¶10 A compensation claim is controlled by the statute in effect at the time of the alleged job-related accident. Neither party here correctly identified the version of § 43(B) that controls today's controversy. When resolving a question of public law it is our duty to invoke sua sponte the correct statutory norm dispositive of the issue pressed on review. We conclude that today's controversy stands governed by the provisions of 85 O.S. Supp. 1994 § 43(B). ¶11 On certiorari previously granted, the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion and the Workers' Compensation Court's order are vacated. The cause is remanded for further proceedings to be consistent with today's pronouncement. ¶12 ALL JUSTICES CONCUR. FOOT