Opinion ID: 2105306
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: PEABODY COAL CO. v. GOSSETT.

Text: The statutory amendment addressed in Peabody Coal was the 1987 amendment of KRS 342.125, the reopening provision of the Workers' Compensation Act. Prior to the amendment, a worker could reopen his claim only if he could prove a change of physical condition. The amendment permitted a reopening if the worker could prove a change of occupational disability, a much less stringent burden of proof. The worker's change of condition in Peabody Coal occurred after the effective date of the amendment; thus, the application of the amendment to the facts of that case could just as easily have been viewed as a prospective application. In fact, KRS 342.125(1) specifically provides that any modification of an award based on a change of conditions will be given only prospective effect. Recognizing that the law in effect on the date of injury controls a workers' compensation case, Maggard v. International Harvester Co., Ky., 508 S.W.2d 777 (1974), the fact is that the decision in Peabody Coal did not affect any vested rights or obligations existing prior to the amendment. Specifically, it did not increase the maximum award recoverable by the claimant in that case. Peabody Coal did not give, and we have never given, retroactive application to a statutory amendment which either increases or decreases the maximum limit of an award of compensation. Beth-Elkhorn Corp. v. Thomas, Ky., 404 S.W.2d 16 (1966), overruled on other grounds, Inland Steel Co. v. Terry, Ky., 464 S.W.2d 284 (1970), held that a post-injury amendment to KRS 342.316, which increased the maximum compensation allowable for disability due to occupational disease, could not be given retroactive application, because: An increase in the maximum award allowable is a change in the substantive liability as opposed to a change in remedial procedure. Id. at 18. This substantive versus remedial argument was first raised and rejected in Thomas v. Crummies Creek Coal Co., 297 Ky. 210, 179 S.W.2d 882 (1944). It is argued by appellants that the amendment affects only the remedy, and not the substantial [sic] liability of the employer. But this argument is refuted by the very contention in support of which it is made, that contention being: that appellants are entitled to compensation by reason of the amendment, although it is admitted that, had the amendment not been enacted, they would not have been entitled thereto. The amendment, therefore, substantially extends the scope of the liability of the employer, and is not merely remedial in its nature. Id., 179 S.W.2d at 883-84; see also, Leeco, Inc. v. Crabtree, Ky., 966 S.W.2d 951 (1998); General Elec. Co. v. Morris, Ky., 670 S.W.2d 854 (1984); Yocom v. Karst, Ky., 528 S.W.2d 697 (1975); Cantrell v. Stambaugh, Ky., 420 S.W.2d 677 (1967); Collier v. Hope Coal Co., Ky., 269 S.W.2d 278 (1954); Old King Mining Co. v. Mullins, Ky., 252 S.W.2d 871 (1952); Knott Coal Corp. v. Kelly, 313 Ky. 562, 232 S.W.2d 994 (1949); Yocom v. Gantley, Ky.App., 566 S.W.2d 176 (1978).