Opinion ID: 1428275
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the provisions of the 1996 amendment are retroactive in force

Text: ¶ 15 Subsection C, [12] which was added to § 149.1 of the Workers' Compensation Act [13] in 1996, provides that group self-insurers are not subject to the Oklahoma Securities Act. [14] Both Self Insurers' Management Group v. YWCA of Oklahoma City, [15] and its companion case, Oklahoma Employers Safety Group, S.I.A. v. Colbert Nursing Home, Inc., [16] teach that because the original text of § 149.1 was ambiguous, its 1996 amendment constitutes a clarifying enactment which has retrospective effect. In these cases the court reasoned that (a) by enacting § 149.1 the Legislature intended to authorize security for workers' compensation benefits to be provided for employees who are engaged by members of group self-insurance associations and (b) that this declared public policy underwent clarification in subsection C (the added subsection that excludes the authorized associations from the purview of the Oklahoma Securities Act). [17] Where an earlier legislative enactment is unclear in some respect and a later enactment attempts to remove the ambiguity, the amendatory statute constitutes a clarifying enactment [18] that is to be given retrospective force. [19] ¶ 16 Following, as we must, the teachings of Self Insurers' [20] and of Oklahoma Employers, [21] we hold today that the Oklahoma Securities Act [22] does not govern the Agreement between TEWCA and Polymer. The Legislature's after-enacted subsection C takes group self-insurance contracts out of the purview of that act.