Opinion ID: 1573390
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Constitutionality of Scheduled Member System.

Text: Sherman contends Iowa Code section 85.34(2), Iowa's scheduled member injury provision, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution and the equal protection provision under the Iowa Constitution found in article 1, section 6. Specifically, she argues women suffer carpal tunnel syndrome, a scheduled injury, more frequently than men. Men, she asserts, suffer back injuries, a nonscheduled injury, more commonly than women. Thus, she concludes, women's injuries are more often scheduled and men's unscheduled. Because she believes scheduled member benefits are generally smaller than unscheduled benefits, Sherman asserts section 85.34(2) violates all women's equal protection rights as well as her own. Pella responds in the following manner. First, it argues section 85.34(2) does not discriminate against women on its face. Second, at best, Sherman points out a disparate impact based solely on Neff's testimony that carpal tunnel syndrome is more prevalent in women than in men. Sherman also contends the scheduled injury system together with the Guides violates equal protection. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution provides that [n]o state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States ... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. Article 1, section 6 of the Iowa Constitutionthe counterpart to the federal Equal Protection Clauseprovides that [a]ll laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens. We have recognized that article I, section 6 of the Iowa Constitution puts substantially the same limitations on state legislation as does the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. Suckow v. NEOWA FS, Inc., 445 N.W.2d 776, 777 (Iowa 1989). We therefore apply the same analysis under the equal protection provisions of both constitutions. Id. at 778. When a litigant raises an equal protection challenge, the level of scrutiny depends on the type of state statutory classification under attack. Clark v. Jeter, 486 U.S. 456, 461, 108 S.Ct. 1910, 1914, 100 L.Ed.2d 465, 471 (1988). At the lowest level is the traditional rational basis analysis. Id. Under this analysis, a state statutory classification must be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. Id. A classification based on race or national origin and classifications affecting fundamental rights call for a most exacting scrutiny, an analysis commonly referred to as strict scrutiny. Id. Such a classification is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only upon an extraordinary justification. Personnel Adm'r v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 272, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 2292, 60 L.Ed.2d 870, 883 (1979). Between rational basis and strict scrutiny lies a level of intermediate scrutiny, which generally has been applied to discriminatory classifications based on sex.... Clark, 486 U.S. at 461, 108 S.Ct. at 1914, 100 L.Ed.2d at 471. A party seeking to uphold a state statute based on gender must establish an exceedingly persuasive justification for the classification. Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718, 724, 102 S.Ct. 3331, 3336, 73 L.Ed.2d 1090, 1098 (1982). To meet this burden, the party seeking to uphold the challenged classification must show that the classification serves `important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed' are `substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.' Id. (citation omitted). Sherman's equal protection challenge to section 85.34(2) is gender based. Accordingly, we limit our analysis to intermediate scrutiny. A. Equal protection challenge based on gender. In a case involving a challenge similar to the one here, the United States Supreme Court rejected a denial-of-equal-protection challenge to a state law granting an absolute lifetime employment preference to veterans. Personnel Adm'r, 442 U.S. at 281, 99 S.Ct. at 2297, 60 L.Ed.2d at 889. In Feeney, the plaintiffs tried to show gender discrimination based upon a disparate impact argument. Rejecting the plaintiffs' argument, the Court provided a framework for assessing a gender-based equal protection attack against a facially neutral statute like the one here: When a statute gender-neutral on its face is challenged on the ground that its effects upon women are disproportionately adverse, a two-fold inquiry is thus appropriate. The first question is whether the statutory classification is indeed neutral in the sense that it is not gender-based. If the classification itself, covert or overt, is not based upon gender, the second question is whether the adverse effect reflects invidious gender-based discrimination. In this second inquiry, impact provides an important starting point, but purposeful discrimination is the condition that offends the Constitution. Id. at 274, 99 S.Ct. at 2293, 60 L.Ed.2d at 884 (citations omitted). In Feeney, there was clear evidence that the civil service job preferences to veterans adversely impacted more women than men. Despite the disparate impact, the Court held that the plaintiff failed to prove the statute in any way reflects a purpose to discriminate on the basis of sex. Id. In reaching this decision, the Court reasoned as follows: The decision to grant a preference to veterans was of course intentional. So, necessarily, did an adverse impact on nonveterans follow from that decision. And it cannot seriously be argued that the Legislature of Massachusetts could have been unaware that most veterans are men. It would thus be disingenuous to say the adverse consequences of this legislation for women were unintended, in the sense that they were not volitional or in the sense that they were not foreseeable. Discriminatory purpose, however, implies more than intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences. It implies that the decisionmaker, in this case a state legislature, selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part because of, not merely in spite of, its adverse effects upon an identifiable group. Yet nothing in the record demonstrates that this preference for veterans was originally devised or subsequently re-enacted because it would accomplish the collateral goal of keeping women in a stereotypic and predefined place in the Massachusetts Civil Service. Id. at 278-79, 99 S.Ct. at 2296, 60 L.Ed.2d at 887-88 (citations omitted). Like the Massachusetts veterans preference statute, Iowa Code section 85.34(2)the scheduled member injury statuteis gender-neutral on its face. The statute talks in terms of employees and makes no distinction between male and female. In Feeney, the Massachusetts legislature was aware that most veterans are men and could thus foresee the adverse consequences of a veterans preferential statute on women. Yet this fact was not enough to convince the Court that the statute had a discriminatory purpose. The Court required more: The legislature must have passed the veterans preferential statute because of, and not merely in spite of, its adverse effect on women. Id. at 279, 99 S.Ct. at 2296, 60 L.Ed.2d at 887-89. Because there was no record evidence supporting this fact, the Court found the statute did not reflect a purpose to discriminate on the basis of sex. Id. Here, the only record evidence bearing on the question of discriminatory purpose is Neff's testimony that studies show carpal tunnel syndrome is more prevalent in women than in men because of physiological differences between the two sexes. There is no similar record evidence that a loss of a finger, hand, arm, leg, toe, eye or disfigurement of the face or head is more prevalent in women than in men. All of these, of course, are scheduled injuries under section 85.34(2). Thus, unlike the facts in Feeney, there is nothing to suggest thatexcept in one instancethe statute affects more women than men. The opposite was more likely when the legislature enacted the scheduled member injury statute almost ninety years ago because then there were more men than women in the work-force. Given this state of the record, we do not even reach the question whether, when the legislature enacted or reenacted the scheduled member injury statute, it was aware the statute adversely affected more women than men. In these circumstances, we can hardly say the legislature enacted the scheduled member injury statute for the purpose of discriminating against women. Sherman has simply failed to show that the scheduled member injury statute reflects a purpose to discriminate on the basis of sex. Id. at 281, 99 S.Ct. at 2297, 60 L.Ed.2d at 889. B. Scheduled injury system and the Guides as violative of equal protection. Sherman offers a second constitutional attack: The scheduled injury system together with the use of the Guides violates equal protection. In support of her contention, Sherman relies heavily on Texas Workers' Compensation Commission v. Garcia, 862 S.W.2d 61 (Tex.Ct.App.1993). The case dealt with the constitutionality of the 1989 Texas Workers' Compensation Act under the Texas Constitution. One of the provisions under attack provided supplemental income benefits to an eligible worker who was no longer eligible for impairment income benefits. To qualify for supplemental benefits the worker had to meet four criteria. One of those criteria required the worker to have an impairment rating based on the Guides of 15 percent or more. Garcia, 862 S.W.2d at 77. The court held that the 15 percent threshold was not rationally related to the statute's purpose to increase compensation for injured workers and therefore violated the equal protection clause of the Texas Constitution. Id. at 89-90. Part of the reasoning for the holding was the mandatory use of the Guides to arrive at the 15 percent threshold. Id. at 89 n. 13. The Texas Supreme Court later reversed this decision, holding that [i]t was not irrational for the Legislature to distinguish between moderately severe impairment likely to interfere with long-term employment from less severe impairment. Setting the threshold at 15 percent is a rational means of accomplishing this purpose. Texas Workers' Comp. Comm'n v. Garcia, 893 S.W.2d 504, 524 (Tex.1995). The court noted that the 1989 Act specifically required the use of the Guides to determine impairment. Id. at 526 n. 24. The court, however, concluded that this requirement did not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. Id. at 526. In contrast to the Texas Workers' Compensation Act, the Iowa Workers' Compensation Act does not mandate that functional impairment for scheduled injury purposes be determined solely from the Guides. The only law dealing with this issue is found in an administrative rule that provides: Guides to evaluation of permanent impairment. The Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment published by the American Medical Association are adopted as a guide for determining permanent partial disabilities under Iowa Code section 85.34(2) a-s. The extent of loss or percentage of permanent impairment may be determined by use of this guide and payment of weekly compensation for permanent partial scheduled injuries made accordingly. Payment so made shall be recognized by the industrial commissioner as a prima facie showing of compliance by the employer or insurance carrier with the foregoing sections of the Iowa Workers' Compensation Act. Nothing in this rule shall be construed to prevent the presentations of other medical opinion or guides for the purpose of establishing that the degree of permanent impairment to which the claimant would be entitled would be more or less than the entitlement indicated in the AMA guide. This rule is intended to implement Iowa Code section 85.34(2) and 1986 Iowa Acts, Senate File 2175, section 902. Iowa Admin. Code r. 343-2.4 (emphasis added) (now codified at Iowa Admin. Code r. 873-2.4(85)). Under this rule, the Guides are just thatguides, and the commissioner is not bound to follow them. Lauhoff Grain Co. v. McIntosh, 395 N.W.2d 834, 839 (Iowa 1986). We conclude Sherman has failed to show how the scheduled injury system together with the use of the Guides denied her equal protection.