Title: PFL LIFE INSURANCE CO. v. FRANKLIN
Citation: 1998 OK 32, 69OBJ1419, 958 P.2d 156
Docket Number: 
State: Oklahoma
Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Date: April 14, 1998

PFL LIFE INSURANCE CO. v. FRANKLIN Annotate this Case PFL LIFE INSURANCE CO. v. FRANKLIN 1998 OK 32 958 P.2d 156 69 OBJ 1419 Case Number: 86, 950 Decided: 04/14/1998 Mandate Issued: 06/30/1998 Supreme Court of Oklahoma PFL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Petitioner, and MARK STEVENS INDUSTRIES, Employer, vs. TAMMY FRANKLIN and the WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT, Respondents. ON CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIV. 1. ¶ 0 A three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court modified the trial judge's order directing the employer to pay medical expenses and temporary total disability benefits by adding a clause that "reserves" the right to "apportion" future liability awards between two of the employer's successive carriers, State Insurance Fund (a non-party) and its current carrier, PFL Life Insurance Company. The Court of Civil Appeals sustained the order by the three-judge panel. On certiorari granted upon PFL's petition, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION AND THE ORDER BY THE THREE-JUDGE REVIEW PANEL ARE VACATED; THE TRIAL JUDGE'S AWARD IS SUSTAINED Bradley J. McClure, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Petitioner; Roger B. Hale and Philip D. Ryan, Boettcher, Ryan & Martin, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Respondents. OPALA, J. ¶ 1 The dispositive issues tendered on certiorari are: (1) May the Workers' Compensation Court [WCC] affect in whole or in part, directly or obliquely, the compensation-payment liability of an absent earlier insurance carrier of the respondent-employer? and if not (2) Is the trial tribunal's award of medical expenses and temporary total disability, which is to be paid by the current rather than by the earlier insurer, supported by competent evidence? We answer the first question in the negative and the second in the affirmative. ¶ 2 Tammy Franklin [Franklin or claimant] sought compensation from her employer Mark Stevens Industries [employer] for injury affecting her hands and arms. PFL Life Insurance Company [PFL], qua employer's then-current insurer, denied liability and argued that the case presented nothing more than a "reopening" of an earlier claim for which the former insurer, State Insurance Fund [Fund], stood solely responsible. Though targeted by the three-judge panel for allocation of liability, Fund, employer's former insurer, was not a party to the claim now on review. The trial judge found claimant temporarily totally disabled, allowed compensation against employer and PFL and ruled that she was entitled to medical expenses. It "reserved . . . for future hearing" a determination of permanent disability. The three-judge panel modified the trial judge's order by "reserving" the right of all parties to "apportion future awards of liability, including permanent partial disability, . . . [between] additional parties . . ., which hereafter may be joined." [958 P.2d 161] ¶ 3 We hold that the panel's attempted "reservation" with respect to an absent insurer's potential responsibility for a future award is an impermissible forecast and hence a legal nullity. A non-party's legal responsibility presents no adjudicatory issue. I THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION ¶ 4 Franklin had been employed by Mark Stevens Industries for almost three years. Her tasks, which related to assembly-line operations, required repetitive hand movements. Carpal tunnel syndrome in the right hand was her September 1994 diagnosis. She underwent surgery for this condition. Employer's then-insurer was the State Insurance Fund. Franklin returned to work in November 1994. PFL became the employer's insurer on March 1, 1995. In a March 17, 1995 hearing, conducted in an earlier claim, the WCC found permanent partial disability in her right hand. The record before us does not reveal which of the two successive carriers paid that award. ¶ 5 Franklin's second claim - now on review - was brought by her June 26, 1995. It alleges cumulative-trauma injuries to both hands and arms. She listed June 22, 1995 as the "date of last exposure." Claimant's testimony concerning the time she first noticed the symptoms in both hands was not entirely consistent. PFL argued that (a) Franklin's deteriorating condition began before PFL became employer's insurer and (b) solely the Fund should be held liable for the currently pressed impairments. Fund was not a party in the proceeding. The trial judge allowed claimant compensation for temporary total disability to both hands (with medical expenses) and reserved for a future hearing consideration of permanent disability. The three-judge panel "modified" that order by adding a "reservation" of apportionable liability if additional parties "may hereafter be joined." Fund was specifically mentioned as the "future" party. ¶ 6 The Court of Civil Appeals sustained the panel's order. On certiorari granted upon PFL's petition, the issue urged here is that, under this court's "awareness" doctrine applicable to cumulative-trauma injury cases, [958 P.2d 162] II ¶ 7 THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT LACKS ADJUDICATIVE AUTHORITY TO FORECAST OR OTHERWISE AFFECT THE COMPENSATION LIABILITY OF AN EMPLOYER'S ABSENT INSURER A. ¶ 8 An Absent Insurer's Rights May Not Be Adversely Affected By Judicial Process; One Who Was Neither Joined As A Party To The Proceeding Nor Afforded Full And Fair Opportunity To Defend Its Interests Cannot Be Affected By Adjudicative Process Of The Workers' Compensation Court ¶ 9 The Constitution inexorably commands no one's rights are to be adversely affected by judicial process that occurs in the absence of notice and (full and fair) opportunity to defend. ¶ 10 Each of several successive carriers sought to be implicated in liability for a compensation claim is entitled to a constitutionally protected opportunity to participate in all proceedings that might culminate in allocation of all or some liability to any one insurer. ¶ 11 The compensation claim under review here began with the filing of a prescribed form that named the responsible employer. ¶ 12 The panel was utterly without power to affect the rights of a stranger to the claim. Its allusion to Fund's potential co-liability, which clearly contravenes the fundamental law's standards and is unsupported by the record, facially and plainly offends due process. The panel's "reservation" which affects the vital interests of an earlier insurer is hence a legal nullity. B. ¶ 14 For every industrial accident the law recognizes but one claim - the worker's claim against her employer.12 The liability adjudged in a compensation case is an indivisible integrity owed by the employer to the claimant. Whenever two or more carriers may be implicated, the WCC must first decide the employer's liability for the claim and then, if necessary, allocate it among the responsible risk carriers. Responsibility for compensable harm from the same injury may be allocable to successive insurers, if it is limited by the period of coverage during which the harm is found to have developed.13 Successive risk carriers for the same injury, to whom liability is to be allocated, must be joined in the single claim. Though apportionable, their pro tanto liability is co-extensive with that of the employer.14 Compensation responsibility of successive risk carriers for the same employer is several, rather than joint or collective. For satisfaction of the entire liability, claimant looks primarily to the employer.15 C. ¶ 16 "Apportionment" of liability award between two successive insurers of the same employer is unlike that a jury would make in a "ghost tortfeasor" case.16 [958 P.2d 164] In compensation law the term apportionment 17 (more accurately to be described as allocation) means a division between carriers of a single employer's liability. It is to be based on the percentage of harm occurring during the period for which each of several carriers may be found responsible. The concept differs from tort law where the same term denotes a percentage of liability to be attributed to each of several tortfeasors in the action.18 The tort's comparative negligence concept is alien to compensation law's allocation between successive carriers' several liability for the employer's award. ¶ 17 Because the employer's compensation liability is indivisible and not apportionable, all issues, primary or ancillary, that pertain to the employer's responsibility for an industrial accident must be litigated in the same claim. The object of that proceeding is to determine the quantum of the employer's obligation. Once that has been determined, the proceeding comes to an end and with it the WCC's judicature.19 When allocation has been made of the employer's liability to its several successive carriers, all of whom are before the court, the WCC has no other function to perform except, in case of nonpayment, to certify the unpaid liability for enforcement by the district court.20 A tort case affords no comparable interplay of accountability. In short, the tort defendant's private-law responsibility bears absolutely no common characteristics with the several liability of successive compensation risk carriers.21 The blame of a "ghost tortfeasor," not uncommon in comparative negligence, may be assessed in its absence from the action as a party defendant.22 In compensation law, the focus is on each carrier's liability to the employer's worker and not on the carriers' liability inter se. There can be no "ghost carriers" in a compensation claim. This is so because the legally responsible carriers are liable severally and their liability must be allocated by the order that awards compensation against the employer. ¶ 18 PFL neither brought the Fund into the case nor objected to the conduct of trial tribunal's proceedings in the absence of that earlier carrier to whom the entire liability for the same harm was sought to be shifted. Because in the trial tribunal only one insurer stood before the court, the test now to be applied in assaying on review the decision's legal correctness is whether the award made against the only targeted risk carrier is supported by competent evidence.23 We hold that it is. D. ¶ 20 Liability of successive carriers and its allocation to each of them must [958 P.2d 165] be inquired into in a single judicial proceeding in which all multiple carriers to be held responsible must be made parties co-respondent with the insured employer.24 The duty evolves on the carrier who is proceeded against to inform the WCC by allegations in its answer (or amended answer) that another carrier may bear liability either for the whole or a part of the worker's single claim. Before the proceedings have reached a critical stage, any party (either the employer, the carrier or claimant) may bring in as party-respondent any missing carrier believed to be necessary.25 This requirement introduces into compensation law a long-standing district court axiom that a single cause of action cannot be split.26 In short, an absent insurer's liability, in toto or pro tanto, must be raised and litigated as a part of the same claim. E. Although the pronouncement we are making today is issue preclusive of Fund's liability for the obligation adjudged by the award under consideration here, today's decision does not operate as a bar against a quest for imposition of Fund's co-liability or sole liability for awards in futuro that may be sought against the employer in the same claim if proof adduced by medical evaluation should demonstrate that the adjudged impairment's origin is attributable to the time when Fund was the employer's risk carrier. III THE "AWARENESS DOCTRINE" IS NOT AT ISSUE IN THIS CASE ¶ 22 A cumulative-effect injury is brought about by repeated trauma, often inflicted by a series of "micro trauma" which cause harm by their gradual, often imperceptible, onset.27 Ascertaining the time of injury in cumulative-trauma cases is critical for determining (1) whether the claim was timely filed (within the applicable limitations period) and (2) what rate of compensation is to be paid.28 The date of claimant's initial [958 P.2d 166] awareness that an injury is employment-related generally triggers the statutory limitation.29 The claim is barred if not filed within two years of the date the last harm-causing event took place.30 ¶ 23 PFL argues Franklin's deteriorating condition was known to her to be employment-related when she returned to work in November 1994. This point precedes the effective date of PFL's coverage for the employer. The carrier hence urges that the law's "awareness doctrine" should place total liability for this award upon Fund, qua the employer's carrier when awareness began. This argument is fatally flawed for four reasons: (1) there is here neither a limitation question nor a controversy over the rate to be used for payment of Franklin's temporary total disability compensation; (2) no shifting or reallocation of liability is implicated; (3) Fund was not joined as a party and (4) competent record-proof supports the trial tribunal's finding and its conclusion that the impairment to be compensated by this award did not exist before but resulted proximately from labor activities that occurred during PFL's coverage period. ¶ 24 Because Fund was not a party, and there is competent evidence to support the trial judge's finding of PFL's liability for temporary total disability (with medical expenses), the panel was utterly without authority gratuitously to inject into the case the allocation of liability (between PFL and a stranger to the claim). In compensation cases the issues are formed by the evidence. IV ¶ 26 This court must apply the any-competent-evidence standard when reviewing the compensation tribunal's resolutions of fact on nonjurisdictional issues. ¶ 27 On this record, competent evidence supports the finding that claimant's temporary total disability from her cumulative-effect injury (with medical expenses) resulted from impairment suffered during PFL's term of coverage, and did not exist before. Medical reports and Franklin's testimony indicate that her work on employer's receiving dock coincided with PFL's term of coverage. The latter began on March 1, 1995. ¶ 28 While PFL was free to argue that Franklin's initial exposure to micro-trauma took place earlier in her term of employment (or link the current injury to prior medical history) and to urge that Franklin's injury to be compensated in this claim had manifested itself earlier than March 1, 1995, V SUMMARY ¶ 29 The "awareness doctrine", which is employed to establish the date of injury for limitations and rate-of-compensation purposes, is not in controversy here. Only the employer's current insurer was a party to the proceedings. No issue was joined for an award's partial allocation to an earlier carrier. Competent evidence supports the trial judge's determination that claimant's temporary total disability (with medical expenses) from her microtraumatic exposure resulted from activities that took place within the time PFL was carrying the employer's compensation risk. By force of statute, findings of nonjurisdictional facts made in compensation [958 P.2d 168] claims are conclusive and binding on appellate courts, if rested on competent evidence. ¶ 30 ON CERTIORARI GRANTED UPON PFL'S PETITION, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION AND THE ORDER BY THE THREE-JUDGE REVIEW PANEL ARE VACATED; THE TRIAL JUDGE'S AWARD IS SUSTAINED. ¶ 31 KAUGER, C.J., and HODGES, LAVENDER, SIMMS, HARGRAVE, OPALA and WILSON, JJ., concur; ¶ 32 SUMMERS, V.C.J., and WATT, J., concur in result. FOOT