Opinion ID: 1953891
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Judicial Enforcement of an Agreed Award

Text: The statute does not provide for a means of enforcing the obligations created by the parties' agreement pursuant to the director's recommendation. Their acceptance of the recommendation constitutes a contract or conventional obligation, however, because it is an agreement by two or more parties whereby obligations are created. La.C.C. art. 1906. Although the acceptance has been recommended or mediated by the director, the acceptance by the parties of a recommendation to pay and to receive compensation creates an obligation or a legal relationship whereby the employer, the obligor, is bound to render a performance in favor of the employee, the obligee. La.C.C. art. 1756. Consequently, this obligation is enforceable by a civil action and may be prosecuted in a court of competent jurisdiction according to the rules of civil procedure. La.C.C.P. art. 421, 422. The Worker's Compensation Act does not provide any administrative remedy that the worker must exhaust before filing suit to enforce the obligation created by the parties' acceptance of the recommendation. See Weatherall v. Duhon's Electric Co., 490 So.2d 756, 758 (La.App. 3d Cir.1986). Judicial enforcement requires the court to determine the scope of the agreed award. The parties' acceptance of a recommended informal resolution of their dispute regulates only the differences which appear clearly to be comprehended by the intention of the parties, whether it be explained in a general or particular manner, unless it be the necessary consequence of what is expressed; and it does not extend to differences which the parties never intended to include. La.C.C. art. 3073. See A. Larson, Worker's Compensation Treatise § 82.50. Accordingly, disputes between the parties which are not covered by the parties' agreement remain subject to the informal dispute resolution process and this administrative remedy must be pursued before they may be taken to court. Nevertheless, as in the other instances in which the employee fails to exhaust his administrative remedies, the defendant's failure to object to the premature action through a dilatory exception constitutes a waiver of the objection. Although the parties' acceptance of a recommended dispute resolution creates an obligation which is enforceable by a civil action in the event of a party's failure to perform, the obligation is also subject to other conditions or limitations imposed by law. For example, the obligation created by the parties' acceptance is subject to modification by the parties' acceptance of a new recommendation or by litigation in accordance with the worker's compensation statute. La.R.S. 23:1311, 23:1331.