Opinion ID: 1161718
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the employer's fundamental law claim to ex lege exoneration from after-enacted benefit rates

Text: The employer argues further that the award should be vacated because (1) the trial tribunal failed to calculate benefits in accordance with the compensation rates in effect at the time of the decedent's 1972 compensable injury and (2) the imposition of an award in accordance with rates enacted after the employer's compensation insurance policy had expired violates several constitutional provisions, particularly Art. II, § 15, Okl. Const. [15] The quantum of statutory death benefits due a claimant is determined by the law in effect at the time of the worker's death. [16] The tendered question  whether this rule violates some fundamental-law principle  is not properly before us, since the employer had failed to preserve it for our review. On its appeal to the three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court the employer had urged for vacation but a single point  that the award was without evidentiary support. Error not raised before a trial tribunal's review panel cannot be considered either in this court or in the Court of Appeals. [17] Moreover, the record is barren of indispensable proof showing the employer's critical coverage period for the workers' compensation liability policy in question. The insurer's incorporation of this documentary material is indeed essential for our consideration of its fundamental-law claim, as the employer's statutory co-obligor, to an ex lege exoneration from after-enacted benefit rates. [18] The employer's remaining argument  that the award contravenes the purpose of our compensation laws  also lacks merit. It is premised on an absence of competent evidence linking decedent's death-dealing fibrillation episode with his prior compensable injury. The proceedings are free from vitiating legal error and the award is supported by competent evidence. AWARD SUSTAINED. DOOLIN, C.J., HARGRAVE, V.C.J., and LAVENDER and ALMA WILSON, JJ., concur; KAUGER, J., concurs by reason of stare decisis. HODGES and SIMMS, JJ., dissent.