Opinion ID: 1189720
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Legislative goals inferred from the body of law and the statute's consequences

Text: When we cannot ascertain the legislature's intent on a specific issue, this court tries to interpret statutes in a manner that furthers perceived goals of the relevant body of legislation. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Wilson, 162 Ariz. 251, 254, 782 P.2d 727, 730 (1989). Here again, however, scant information is available. There is no statement of purpose in the statute itself, nor was it enacted as part of a comprehensive body of legislation addressing one general problem. Instead, § 23-930 was simply inserted in art. 2 of the Workers' Compensation Chapter. This article is regulatory in character and deals only with Administration and Enforcement. This stands in marked contrast to cases such as Estate of Hernandez, 177 Ariz. at 251-52, 866 P.2d at 1337-38, in which the legislative goals of regulating common-law dram shop and social host actions were clarified by examining the provisions of the overall body of law. As noted above, the governor, in proclaiming the special session in which § 23-930 was adopted, said only that one of the session's purposes was to establish a system to resolve complaints. The closest thing we have found to a legislator's expression of intent was the Commerce Committee chairman's statement that something needs to be done about the bad faith practices by the insurance companies. [11] Neither this nor any of the other sparse evidence available discloses any general or specific legislative goal to be served by preempting judicial jurisdiction over common-law bad faith claims against compensation carriers. Defendant also argues that we should look to the statute's effects and consequences to illuminate legislative intent. Defendant claims that finding concurrent jurisdiction would be unwise because it would allow divergent results between the administrative and judicial remedies. Yet the record reveals no legislative consideration of this issue. Concurrent remedies in the judicial and administrative fora often coexist successfully. For example, doctors and lawyers are subject to administrative discipline [12] as well as to malpractice tort actions. Securities brokers and commodities traders may also face both regulatory penalties and commonlaw actions by aggrieved investors. See A.R.S. §§ 44-2001 to 44-2005; 44-2036; 44-2037; see also Kotz v. Bache Halsey Stuart, Inc., 685 F.2d 1204, 1207-08 (9th Cir.1982). Thus the potential for divergent results does not render administrative remedies and common-law actions mutually exclusive. Moreover, numerous courts in other states with statutory bad faith penalties have considered whether such provisions necessarily preempt a worker's right to bring a tort action. Although the opinions are divided, many courts have concluded that independent tort actions are viable even where some form of statutory penalty provision exists. See, e.g., Travelers Ins. Co. v. Savio, 706 P.2d 1258, 1271 (Colo. 1985) (statutory penalty and interest provisions do not bar common-law bad faith action); Boylan v. American Motorists Ins. Co., 489 N.W.2d 742 (Iowa 1992) (same). [13] Although the rationales for these decisions vary, they show that a statutory penalty scheme can coexist with a commonlaw cause of action for bad faith and similar intentional torts in the workers' compensation setting. We also note that the penalties imposed by § 23-930 are relatively modest. [14] Although the penalty amount is not determinative in itself, we certainly cannot say the penalties are so flexible, and the administrative remedies so comprehensive, that the legislature must have intended for them to provide the sole remedy for, or deterrent to, the serious abuses that the common law addresses. Cf. Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 114 S.Ct. 771, 780-81, 127 L.Ed.2d 29 (1994) (statutory scheme so comprehensive that it, along with statute's history, demonstrated legislative intent to preclude district court review of administrative orders); CETA Workers' Org. Comm. v. City of New York, 617 F.2d 926, 930-31 (2d Cir. 1980) (the statutes comprising the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act cannot be construed to authorize a private right of action for breach because the totality of these provisions, comprehensive and well-crafted to the Act's administrative, institutional, and political exigencies, affirms the primacy and suggests the exclusivity of the [administrative] procedures....). See also Carpentino v. Transport Ins. Co., 609 F. Supp. 556, 561 (D.Conn. 1985) (relatively low penalties are an important factor in determining whether to allow common-law tort actions); Southern Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co. v. Holland, 469 So.2d 55, 58 (Miss. 1985) (penalty provisions for workers' compensation bad faith inadequate to deter intentional carrier wrongdoing). In the final analysis, then, we find two possible conclusions. One is that the legislature enacted § 23-930 merely to establish an administrative forum as an alternative to or supplement for the more complicated and expensive legal system. Such a forum would provide relief for claimants who have been mistreated but not seriously injured, and would also provide some deterrence against unfair claim processing practices. The other possible conclusion is that the legislature, dissatisfied with the common-law remedy for reasons described by neither the legislators, employers, employees, nor carriers, wanted to abolish it and substitute an exclusively administrative remedy. Faced with these alternatives, we might speculate as to which is more probable and reach a determination on that basis. However, in dealing with the existence or abrogation of vital common-law rights and judicial jurisdiction, we believe it unwise to find preemption based on speculation about legislative intent, or even on probability theory. Sound jurisprudential policy points to a different path.