Opinion ID: 2584108
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Result We Should Reach

Text: Workers' compensation is purely a creature of statute. [3] There is no common law right to it. [4] Our sole responsibility here is to determine what AS 23.30.187 means. No other provision in the AWCA or the AESA addresses the issue presented. In interpreting a statute we have rejected a mechanical application of the plain meaning rule in favor of a sliding scale approach. `The plainer the statutory language is, the more convincing the evidence of contrary legislative purpose or intent must be.' The language of a statute is `construed in accordance with [its] common usage,' unless the word or phrase in question has `acquired a peculiar meaning by virtue of statutory definition or judicial construction.' [5] In ascertaining the plain meaning of a statute, we refrain from adding terms. [6] We have observed that legislative history may provide an insight which is helpful in making a judgment concerning what a statute means, and since words are necessarily inexact and ambiguity is a relative concept. [7] Section .187 is conceptually simple. Its words are simple, clear, and unambiguous. It states that Compensation is not payable to an employee under AS 23.30.180 or 23.30.185 for a week in which the employee receives unemployment benefits. (Emphasis added.) It thus renders a worker who received unemployment compensation ineligible to receive workers' compensation for total disability for the same period. [8] DeShong received unemployment compensation for the same weeks for which she seeks TTD benefits. To receive is commonly defined as to acquire or take (something given, offered, or transmitted). [9] Whether or not DeShong repays her unemployment benefits, she received them as that word is used in section .187. Section .187 therefore prevents her from recovering TTD benefits for those weeks. The meaning of section .187 is confirmed by AS 01.10.050(a), which dictates how we are to read the Alaska Statutes. It provides in pertinent part: Words in the present tense include the past and future tenses.... This provision requires us to interpret receives to include received and precludes us from distinguishing between receives and received when we apply AS 23.30.187. The extraordinary clarity of the words of section .187 would allow us to deviate from its text only if the legislative history were extremely convincing. Its words are so clear, it is hard to imagine any legislative history that could contradict them. [10] But as we will see, the legislative history confirms the words' plain meaning. It certainly does not permit the result the court's opinion reaches.