Opinion ID: 878351
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Trial Court's Analysis

Text: In discussing the legislative background of the 1975 amendment the trial court, although it quoted the Minutes of the House and Senate Committees, and quoted the supporting memorandum submitted to each committee by the head of the Workers' Compensation Division, ignored these documents other than to seize upon one item: the trial court concluded that the sole purpose of the amendment was to eliminate the discrimination against claimants who fortuitously found themselves covered by a Plan III (State Fund) insurer who was compelled to apply the statutory 2% discount when paying in a lump sum. The sole purpose of the amendment, the court reasoned, was to equalize the treatment of claimants under all three plans. With this as its premise, the trial court then effectively ruled that a discount factor must be applied to lump-sum payments under section 39-71-741, but that all three insurance plans must employ the same basis for reaching the proper discount factor. In reaching its conclusion that section 39-71-741 still requires a discount to present value, the trial court seized on the language of the statute which provides that future benefits payable to a claimant may be converted ... into a lump sum. (Emphasis added.) The court seized upon the word converted and reasoned that it must mean a discount to present value. The court applied two non-applicable non-Montana cases  Bethlehem Steel Co. v. Jackson (Md. 1952), 87 A.2d 841, and State Insurance Fund v. Renak (Utah 1980), 621 P.2d 714  in holding that the word convert meant essentially the same in the context of the issues involved, as the word commute. We have no need, however, to engage in a battle of semantics because these cases have no application to the issue involved in this case. Neither case involved a situation with a legislative history such as section 39-71-741, and neither case involved a situation where, over the years the discount factor was at first 5%, then 2%, and then eliminated altogether. Based on section 39-71-741, and its history of amendments, we doubt that the Maryland and Utah courts would have reached the same decision as did the trial court here. The trial court's order reading into section 39-71-741, a requirement that lump-sum payments be discounted to present value, flies in the face of the legislative history of the statute and the proceedings finally removing the discount factor altogether. Clearly, a lump-sum payment, when made under section 39-71-741, cannot be discounted to present value.