Opinion ID: 2515771
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the trial court's october 10, 1996 order is facially void insofar as it expands the fund's liability to pay ptd beyond what was statutorily mandated at the time of the claimant's last compensable injury

Text: ¶ 9 Sammanby way of a March 8, 2000 Form 13sought an order requiring Fund to pay him an amount equal to $185.00 (his weekly PTD rate) times the number of weeks which had elapsed between October 10, 1996 and February 2000 (the month during which he received his last PPD payment from his employer). Fund made no PTD payments to him for this time period. Claimant's quest for additional monies was denied when the WCC ruled in May 2000 that the provision in its earlier order (requiring PTD payments to begin on the date the order was filed) was void as it did not comport with the Fund's statute-made liability as of the time of the claimant's last compensable injury. [7] Samman mistakenly relies upon the rule adopted in Ferguson v. Ferguson Motor Co., 1988 OK 137, 766 P.2d 335, to support his position that the October 10, 1996 order was not subject to collateral attack since Fund did not timely bring an appeal from its terms. Ferguson holds that an erroneous finding in a WCC's order that is not detectable from the decision's four corners is safe from collateral vacatur when a timely appeal has not been sought. Here, the complained-of error is facially apparent upon an inspection of the WCC proceedings, i.e., observable in the order's enunciated terms when viewed in conjunction with the entire WCC record of the proceedings (the functional equivalent of a district-court judgment roll). ¶ 10 The Stidham analysis [8] is conclusive of the issue whether the WCC had jurisdiction to enter its May 2000 order which ruled the earlier (October 1996) order was facially void to the extent that it provided that PTD payments were to begin upon the memorial's filing. The pertinent terms of 85 O.S.1991 § 172 which (a) were the effective law at the time of Samman's last compensable injury and (b) address the Fund's liability when separate, multiple on-the-job injuries result in permanent and total disabilityprovide as follows: B. The employer shall be liable only for the degree of percent of disability which would have resulted from the latter injury if there had been no preexisting impairment. After payments by the employer or his insurance carrier have ceased, the remainder of such compensation shall be paid out of the Special Indemnity Fund... in periodic installments. In permanent total disability cases the same shall be paid in periodic payments ... and shall not be commuted to a lump-sum payment.  [Emphasis added.] This provision sets the outer limits of the Fund's liability for payment of PTD and as such represents the boundaries of the WCC's jurisdiction when it determines a claimant's entitlement to PTD and the Fund's obligation to pay the same. ¶ 11 According the above statutory language its plain and ordinary meaning [9] leads to a single, inescapable conclusion, i.e., the Fund's liability to make PTD payments can only be satisfied through periodic installments which can begin only after the employer's final PPD payment. Under the law applicable at the time of Samman's last compensable injury, a WCC orderthat directs accrual of PTD payments while the last employer is making PPD payments and/or then orders a lump-sum payment of these so-called accrued PTD benefits from the Fundis outside the WCC's jurisdiction. Hence, that provision of the WCC's October 1996 order which required the Fund's PTD payments begin with the October 10, 1996 order's filing was facially void under the teaching of Stidham, supra and beyond the power of the WCC to enter. [10]