Opinion ID: 1799088
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: joseph albe

Text: On January 5, 1996, Joseph G. Albe and five other worker's compensation claimants filed a petition for declaratory judgment in the Office of Worker's Compensation, seeking to have certain statutes under the Worker's Compensation Act declared unconstitutional. Defendants raised the declinatory exception of lack of subject matter jurisdiction in addition to other dilatory and peremptory exceptions. Defendants asserted that the legislature's grant of exclusive original jurisdiction to the hearing officers in La.R.S. 23:1310.3(E) did not encompass issues of constitutionality. After hearing argument on all exceptions, the hearing officer signed a decision overruling the exception of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The ruling on the other exceptions was pretermitted pending the outcome of the appeal of the hearing officer's decision that it had original jurisdiction over the constitutional issues. Defendants applied to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal for supervisory writs. The Fourth Circuit denied writs, finding no error in the trial court's determination that it had subject matter jurisdiction, and citing an unpublished Fourth Circuit opinion. [1] We noted that this decision of the Fourth Circuit was in direct conflict with Wilson v. Louisiana Safety Association of Timberman, 29, 263 (La.App. 2 Cir. 2/28/97), 690 So.2d 974 and Tomas v. Conco Food Distributors, 666 So.2d 327 (La.App. 3 Cir. 10/25/95). On February 21, 1997, we granted writs to resolve this issue.