Case Name: Kenneth E. RYEN, Claimant-Appellant, v. CITY OF COEUR D'ALENE, Employer; and State Insurance Fund, Surety, and State of Idaho, Industrial Special Indemnity Fund, Defendants-Respondents
Court: Idaho Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Idaho
Decision Date: 1989-03-09
Citations: 115 Idaho 791
Docket Number: No. 17148
Parties: Kenneth E. RYEN, Claimant-Appellant, v. CITY OF COEUR D’ALENE, Employer; and State Insurance Fund, Surety, and State of Idaho, Industrial Special Indemnity Fund, Defendants-Respondents.
Judges: BAKES, HUNTLEY and JOHNSON, . JJ., and TOWLES, District Judge Pro Tern., concur.
Reporter: Idaho Reports
Volume: 115
Pages: 791–795

Head Matter:
770 P.2d 800
Kenneth E. RYEN, Claimant-Appellant, v. CITY OF COEUR D’ALENE, Employer; and State Insurance Fund, Surety, and State of Idaho, Industrial Special Indemnity Fund, Defendants-Respondents.
No. 17148.
Supreme Court of Idaho.
March 9, 1989.
Richard E. Kriger, Coeur d’Alene, for claimant-appellant.
M. Karl Shurtliff, Boise, for defendant-respondent City of Coeur d’Alene and State Ins. Fund.
Michael J. Verbillis, Coeur d’Alene, for defendant-respondent Indus. Sp. Indem. Fund.

Opinion:
SHEPARD, Chief Justice.
This is an appeal from an order of the Industrial Commission which denied additional workman's compensation benefit? for a disability resulting from an injury suffered in 1975 while employed by the City of Coeur d'Alene. The sole question presented is whether Ryen's claim for additional benefits is barred by the applicable statute of limitations. I.C. § 72-706. We reverse and remand.
The following facts appear to be uncon-troverted. In 1975, while acting within the scope of his employment, claimant Ryen sustained a lower back injury which became a long-standing source of pain and medical expense, and resulted in a diminished ability to work. Except for the period of March, 1975 through October, 1976, Ryen appears to have been able to steadily perform his work-related duties, although the back injury caused him difficulty. In April, 1978, claimant Ryen underwent surgery which temporarily alleviated his discomfort, and he received temporary disability benefits while recovering from the surgery. Ryen returned to work until February, 1980, when severe back pain reoccurred which resulted in a spinal fusion. Total temporary disability benefits were paid for the remainder of that year, following which Ryen again returned to work.
In 1981 an orthopedic specialist assigned an impairment rating of fifteen to twenty percent of the whole man due to the spinal fusion, and assigned the 1975 industrial accident as the cause thereof. The State Insurance Fund prepared and sent to Ryen a compensation agreement in 1981 detailing the temporary disability paid, the medical benefits paid, and assigning an impairment rating of seventeen and one-half percent of the whole man, and calculated compensation at $6,641.25, based on 87.5 weeks at $75.90 per week. Insofar as the record demonstrates, claimant Ryen never signed that agreement, nor was it ever approved by the Industrial Commission. The State Insurance Fund continued to pay medical benefits related to the 1975 back injury in each successive year thereafter, however, no total temporary or permanent partial disability payments were made after mid-1982.
In 1984 the State Insurance Fund began asserting a statute of limitations defense to liability for additional disability benefits. Therefore, an increased permanent physical impairment rating rendered by Dr. Giesen, received no consideration. In July, 1986, claimant Ryen filed with the Industrial Commission an application for hearing and request for additional compensation. After hearing thereon the claim for additional compensation was denied, and therein the Industrial Commission found that no income benefits had been paid to claimant within a one-year period immediately preceding the filing of the application, that medical benefits are not "compensation," that the application therefore was not time ly filed and relief was barred under the statute.
Claimant argues that the definition of compensation supplied by I.C. § 72-102(5) purports to include "all of the income benefits and the medical and related benefits and medical services," and is controlling. We agree. We further view the question to have been clearly answered in Bainbridge v. Boise-Cascade Plywood Mill, 111 Idaho 79, 721 P.2d 179 (1986) and Facer v. E.R. Steed Equipment Co., 95 Idaho 608, 514 P.2d 841 (1973). In Bainbridge we held that I.C. § 72-706(2) "compensation" includes both income and medical benefits for the purposes of the tolling provisions. There, compensation was viewed to be "a word of art under the Workman's Compensation Act and [it] refers to income and medical benefits...."
Under I.C. § 72-706(2), when compensation has been received and then "discontinued more than five (5) years from the date of the accident causing the injury or. the date of first manifestation of an occupational disease," the plaintiff is given "one (1) year from the date of the last payment of compensation, within which to make and file with the Commission an application requesting a hearing for further compensation and award." In the instant case, under the orders of the Industrial Commission, payments to the claimant had been made periodically from the time of the accident through January 22, 1987, and therefore medical benefits were not "discontinued more than five years from the date of the accident." As asserted by the State Insurance Fund, no disability payments were made following mid-1982. Nevertheless, medical expenses have been paid periodically through January 22, 1987. Hence, in accord with our holding in Bainbridge, the paying of medical benefits has tolled the otherwise statute of limitations. Here the application for a hearing requesting further benefits was filed in July, 1986, a date that actually preceded the payment of the last recorded medical benefit.
Thus, we reverse the ruling of the Industrial Commission relating to the statute of limitations, and remand to the Commission for further action in light of this ruling. Costs to appellant.
BAKES, HUNTLEY and JOHNSON, . JJ., and TOWLES, District Judge Pro Tern., concur.