Opinion ID: 1956637
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the commission's refusal to set off appellee's unemployment benefits

Text: The appellants assert that even if the Commission was correct in ruling that the appellee was qualified for total disability compensation, nevertheless, the compensation should have been reduced by the unemployment benefits received. The Commission found that it had no jurisdiction or authority to make such a set-off against an otherwise proven case of disability, and that it was up to the Legislature to decide whether such double benefits ought to be allowed. We agree with the Commission. The Commission's jurisdiction is limited by statute. Levesque v. Levesque, Me., 363 A.2d 951, 953 (1976). There is no explicit statutory authorization for the deduction of unemployment benefits from otherwise proven claims and, although the Workmen's Compensation statute must be liberally construed, 39 M.R.S.A. § 92, Levesque, 363 A.2d at 954, we can find no such implied authority. We recognize that other courts have reached a different conclusion. See Annot., 96 A.L.R.2d 941, § 2 (1964). For example, the California Court of Appeals, in California Compensation Insurance Company v. Industrial Accident Commission, 128 Cal. App.2d 797, 276 P.2d 148, 153 (1954), found that the California Unemployment and Workmen's Compensation Acts expressed a manifest legislative intent to provide a correlated system of social insurance and to avoid dual benefits. The lack of an express prohibition of dual benefits was the result of the fact that the pattern of wage-loss legislation in this state, as indeed throughout the country, did not evolve full-blown in accordance with a master blueprint but emerged piecemeal in response to society's awakening acceptance of the need for an enlightened system. Id. 276 P.2d at 151. The Maine statutes have a history similar to that of California's, but we find no evidence of an intent to avoid dual benefits, nor do we find that such an intent is the only possible interpretation which can be placed on these laws. The Workmen's Compensation Act was adopted in its original form in 1915 (P.L.1915, ch. 295). The Unemployment Compensation Law, predecessor of the current Employment Security Law, 26 M.R.S.A. § 1041 et seq., was enacted in 1936 (P.L.1935, ch. 192). The latter Act, passed more than twenty years after the first, made no mention of avoiding double benefits. If the Legislature had wished, it could have amended the earlier act at the time when it created the right to unemployment benefits, or at any time in the forty-two years that followed. It has not done so, nor has it ever amended the Workmen's Compensation Act in this regard. We cannot read an intent to preclude dual benefits into this history. An instructive comparison may be made with the Massachusetts statutes construed in Pierce's Case, 325 Mass. 649, 92 N.E.2d 245 (1950). At the time of Pierce's Case, the Massachusetts Workmen's Compensation statute made no mention of unemployment benefits, but the Employment Security Act (G.L. (Ter. Ed.) ch. 151A) had been passed with a provision that workmen's compensation be deducted from unemployment. 325 Mass. at 654, 92 N.E.2d at 249. The Court concluded from this that the Legislature had established a policy against double recovery which should be applied to both Acts, construing them as harmonious and consistent parts of a general plan. Appellants would have us find the same policy in the Maine statutes. To do so we would have to say that the absence from our statute of the explicit provision used in Massachusetts is without significance. [3] This is particularly so because the Massachusetts statute was amended with the express purpose of allowing double recovery, for a limited class of serious injuries, such as loss of a limb. The Court noted in Pierce's Case that this amendment was added because a severe handicap, particularly when visible, is an obstacle to obtaining even such work as the victim can do. Double coverage is justified because both economic conditions and the injury contribute to this obstacle. The Massachusetts Legislature's recognition of the extra difficulty faced by the severely handicapped suggests that another legislature might find that essentially the same difficulty is faced by anyone who cannot find work because of a disability. In the present case, Mrs. Page had indeed been refused employment because of her injury, and precisely for this reason she was eligible for total compensation. We cannot say that the result was contrary to the clear intent of the Legislature. Whether the Legislature intended to adopt such a policy or not, neither the Commission nor this Court can deny the appellee the full compensation to which she is entitled. The same result has been reached in nine other jurisdictions in which the statutes do not contain express provisions against double coverage. 2 Larson, Workmen's Compensation, § 57.65, n. 62, citing, inter alia, Todd Shipyards Corp. v. Landy, 239 F.Supp. 679 (N.D.Cal.1965) (Federal Longshoremen and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act is not affected by state unemployment); Parise v. Industrial Commission, supra ; Osterlund v. State, 135 Conn. 498, 66 A.2d 363 (1949); Edwards v. Metro Tile Company, supra ; Utica Mut. Ins. Co. v. Pioda, 90 Ga.App. 593, 83 S.E.2d 627 (1954); see also Annot., 96 A.L.R.2d 941 § 3 (1964). In Utica Mutual Ins. Co. v. Pioda, 83 S.E.2d at 628, the Georgia Court of Appeals found: The two acts are not repugnant. While each seeks the beneficent purpose of insuring the worker from economic insecurity, the two acts seek to remedy economic insecurity stemming from two entirely different sources. The Workmen's Compensation Act was enacted to protect the worker in some measure from the economic hazards consequent upon the worker's exposure to the manifold industrial hazards of today to life and health; that is to say, the Workmen's Compensation Act is in the nature of health and accident insurance against injuries which arise out of and in the course of the worker's employment. The Employment Security Act was enacted to protect the worker in some measure from the loss, through no fault of his own, of employment; that is to say, to insure the worker against loss of a place to work. While under the provisions of Code Ann.Supp. § 54-610(e)(2) a worker who is receiving remuneration in the form of `compensation for temporary partial disability under the workmen's compensation law' is disqualified to receive unemployment compensation, we find no prohibition against the receipt by a worker of workmen's compensation for total disability within the meaning of that act while he is receiving unemployment compensation. We find the above reasoning persuasive. There is one remaining question: the effect of 39 M.R.S.A. § 62, which provides: No savings or insurance of the injured employee independent of this Act shall be taken into consideration in determining the compensation to be paid, nor shall benefits derived from any source other than the employer be considered in fixing the compensation due. The appellants argue that since unemployment compensation benefits are derived from the employer, Section 62 does not preclude the Commission from considering the amount thus received in fixing the quantum of workmen's compensation. Unemployment compensation benefits are not paid directly from contributions of the employer. Such payments are from the State out of the Unemployment Compensation Administrative Fund to which every qualified employer in the State is legally required to contribute in an amount which is fixed by statute. 26 M.R.S.A. § 1221(1)(16). Workmen's compensation has a different origin since the payment thereof is under a voluntary rather than a mandatory system. The amount of workmen's compensation is paid directly to the employee by either the employer from his own funds or from an insurance company from which the employer has purchased workmen's compensation insurance. Failure to pay the required amount into the Unemployment Compensation Administrative Fund is subject to criminal penalty (26 M.R.S.A. § 1051(3)) in addition to giving the State a right of action to collect unpaid assessments, while failure to insure against industrial accident is not subject to such strictures but does deprive the employer of the right to assert certain civil defenses in an action against him by the injured employee. 39 M.R.S.A. § 3. 39 M.R.S.A. § 62 does not mandate giving credit to the payor of workmen's compensation of the amount received by an employee for unemployment compensation. This section is identical to Section 22 of the original Workmen's Compensation Act. P.L.1915, ch. 295, § 22. This Court has determined that the intent of the section clearly enough was only to preclude deduction of any personal savings or individual insurance of the employee when computing the amount of workmen's compensation to be paid. Gladys Gross' Case, 132 Me. 59, 62, 166 A. 55, 56 (1933). When the Maine Legislature enacted our Unemployment Security Law, it did not reduce the amount of compensation paid thereunder by any compensation from workmen's compensation. To agree with appellant's position would require us now to read this statute in a different context than that in which it was read when enacted and to give it an intent contrary to that expressed in Gladys Gross' Case. It is indeed prophetic that the Legislature did not adopt such language when it enacted the Employment Security Law only two years after the decision in Gladys Gross' Case. In short, neither act is dependent on the other and each has a history unrelated to the other, unlike the comparable enactments in Massachusetts. Pierce's Case, supra . In conclusion, neither Maine's Unemployment Security Law, nor its Workmen's Compensation Act, provides any basis for denying or reducing the amount of workmen's compensation payments on the ground that the claimant is receiving unemployment compensation benefits. See Gullifer v. Granite Paving Co., Me., 383 A.2d 47, 50 (1978). If we were to adopt appellant's argument we would, in effect, amend the statutes, a power properly reserved for legislative consideration. The entry is: Appeal denied. Judgment affirmed. It is further ordered that the employer pay to the employee $550.00 for her counsel fees plus her actual reasonable out-of-pocket expenses of this appeal. McKUSICK, C. J., did not sit. POMEROY, WERNICK, DELAHANTY, GODFREY and NICHOLS, JJ., concurring.