Opinion ID: 1375939
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Subdiv 14 Its Third-Generation Text Before Us Today

Text: Subdiv. 14 was last amended in 1988. Its terms provide that neither the State nor a political subdivision shall be liable if a loss or claim results from ... [a]ny loss to any person covered by any workers' compensation act or any employer's liability act... . [19] The State argues that (1) the 1988 version clearly demonstrates legislative intent to expand the class of claimants under legal disability to recover against the State and (2) all non governmental employees covered by the compensation laws of any state are now within the disabled class. This is so because the Legislature replaced the phrase any claim found in the earlier text with the phrase any loss to any person. Support for this view, the State asserts, is extracted from Huff, which gave a clear signal to the Legislature that it must use certain language in order to immunize the State from liability for claims brought by any non governmental employee covered under the compensation regime of any state. The State directs our attention to a passage in Huff that the 1981 version of § 155(14) was devoid of any explicit language immunizing political subdivisions from liability for claims brought by `any person' whose injury or death was covered by our compensation laws. [20] We are urged that the Legislature adopted the exact language suggested by Huff as necessary to make the Subdiv. 14 immunity all-inclusive. [21] We agree that the language added by the 1988 amendment   any loss to any person covered by any workers' compensation act [22]  clearly demonstrates an intent to extend the State's Subdiv. 14 immunity to embrace claims by all non governmental employees covered for the injurious event by the workers' compensation regime of any state.