Case Name: Norbert GUGGENBERGER, Respondent, v. COLD SPRING GRANITE CO., Relator
Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Minnesota
Decision Date: 1983-04-29
Citations: 332 N.W.2d 655
Docket Number: No. C5-82-533
Parties: Norbert GUGGENBERGER, Respondent, v. COLD SPRING GRANITE CO., Relator.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Western Reporter 2d
Volume: 332
Pages: 655–660

Head Matter:
Norbert GUGGENBERGER, Respondent, v. COLD SPRING GRANITE CO., Relator.
No. C5-82-533.
Supreme Court of Minnesota.
April 29, 1983.
Roll & McCoy and Laurence F. Roll, St. Paul, for relator.
F. Dean Lawson and John Hagen, Minneapolis, for respondent.

Opinion:
AMDAHL, Chief Justice.
The employer seeks review of a decision of the Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals awarding the employee $16,879 in permanent partial disability benefits for a 20 percent impairment of his lungs due to work-related silicosis, as well as necessary and reasonable medical expenses. Because the employee's last exposure to silica dust and other irritants occurred in 1965, we reverse on the ground that the claim was barred by the statute of repose provisions of Minn.Stat. § 176.66, subd. 3 (1971).
Respondent, Norbert Guggenberger, has worked for relator, Cold Spring Granite Company, since 1936. He sharpened tools for 2 years, and then worked as a granite polisher for 27 years, under constant exposure to silica or granite dust. In 1965, the Industrial Commission ordered that Gug-genberger be transferred from his polishing job because X-rays indicated early symptoms of silicosis. He was assigned to the machine shop at no loss of wages and remained there until 1974, when he was transferred to an outdoor supervisory job entailing less physical activity. In July 1978, Guggenberger was hospitalized with an acute heart attack, and on his return to work 3 months later was assigned to indoor work in the machine shop during the winter and outdoor work in summer. At the time of the hearing in this action he was still employed full time and had suffered no loss of wages.
The Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals found that Guggenberger sustained a permanent partial disability on November 2,1979, when he was first informed that he had grade I or II silicosis. However, that court reversed findings of fact that he had been exposed to aggravating conditions from 1965 to 1980 and had suffered continuing personal injuries to his lungs during those years; his last exposure therefore occurred in 1965. It also reversed a finding that temporary partial disability had occurred on or about 1975 or 1976. We defer to the discretion exercised by the Court of Appeals when it makes factual findings "unless consideration of the evidence and the inferences permissible therefrom requires reasonable minds to adopt a contrary conclusion." Talmadge v. Medtronic, Inc., 315 N.W.2d 433, 437 (Minn. 1982) (citations omitted). Here it is clear that there is sufficient evidence in the record to support the Court of Appeals' findings.
In 1965 the workers' compensation statutory scheme included the following statute of repose for occupational diseases:
Neither the employee nor his dependents are entitled to compensation for disability or death resulting from occupational disease, unless such disease is due to the nature of his employment as defined in section 176.011, subdivision 15, and was contracted therein within 12 months previous to the date of disablement; except in the case of silicosis or asbestosis, in which cases disablement of the employee must occur within three years from the date of such employee's last exposure with an employer in an employment to the nature of which the disease may have been a hazard .
Minn.Stat. § 176.66, subd. 3 (1971). Subdivision 1 had provided, " 'disability' means the state of being disabled from earning full wages at the work at which the employee was last employed and 'disablement' means the act of becoming so disabled." In 1973 subdivisions 2 through 9 were repealed and subdivision 1 rewritten to read in total as follows: "The disablement of an employee resulting from an occupational disease shall be regarded as a personal injury within the meaning of the worker's compensation law." Act of May 24, 1973, ch. 643, § 11-12, 1973 Minn.Laws 1584, 1593-94. We recently held that these 1973 amendments did not alter the operative definition of disablement. Abram v. Art Goebel Ford, 327 N.W.2d 88, 91 (Minn.1982). Applying the pre-1973 statutory definition of disablement to an occupational disease claim arising under the post-1973 statute, we found that an employee's disablement occurred on the date the employee took á lower paying job, reasoning as follows:
Since the meaning of the term "disablement" was well established at the time the statute was amended, we believe that if the legislature had intended to use the term in a different sense in the amended statute, it would have said so. Therefore, to show disablement by October 1,1980, the employee was required to establish that by then he was not able to earn full wages as a paint sprayer.
Id.
Because Guggenberger suffered no wage loss within 3 years of 1965, the date of his last exposure (and has suffered none to date), his claim did not mature within the time specified in Minn.Stat. § 176.66, subd. 3 (1971). See Graber v. Peter Lametti Construction Co., 293 Minn. 24, 29, 197 N.W.2d 443, 447 (1972). The later enactment of Minn.Stat. § 176.101, subd. 3 (40) (1982), making permanent impairment of internal organs compensable as a scheduled disability, could not serve to revive the barred claim. See Klimmek v. Independent School District No. 487,299 N.W.2d 501, 502 (Minn.1980) (recognizing that a claim which has been barred by the running of a limitations provision is not revived by subsequent repeal of that provision). The dissent's distinction between the statute of repose, Minn.Stat. § 176.66, subd. 3 (1971), and a statute of limitations is one of form rather than substance; the effect of each is to bar the claim.
Reversed.
. In its description of Notch v. Victory Granite Co., 306 Minn. 495, 238 N.W.2d 426 (1976), the dissent omits the crucial fact that the employee had lost wages within the 3 year period and was therefore disabled within the meaning of Minn.Stat. § 176.66, subd. 3 (1971).