Opinion ID: 867617
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Municipality of Anchorage v. Adamson

Text: John Adamson worked as a firefighter for the Municipality of Anchorage for more than 20 years, retiring in 2011. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on August 7, 2008, and applied for workers’ compensation benefits for the cancer. Adamson’s application was based on AS 23.30.121, which establishes a special -2- 6780 presumption analysis in workers’ compensation cases for firefighters who develop certain cancers; the statute became effective on August 19, 2008. The Municipality raised a number of procedural defenses to Adamson’s claim as well as a constitutional challenge to the firefighter presumption statute. After a hearing the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board decided that Adamson’s cancer was compensable and ordered the Municipality to pay past and future medical benefits, some past temporary total disability (TTD) benefits, and costs and attorney’s fees. The Board did not consider whether Adamson was eligible for permanent partial impairment (PPI) at that time because Adamson had neither been evaluated nor included a claim for it.1 One Board member dissented and would have found the claim not compensable. The Municipality appealed the decision to the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Appeals Commission and asked for a stay of the Board’s decision. The Municipality explained that “future periodic medical expenses [might] be incurred” while the appeal was pending, and argued that these benefits should be stayed under the probability of success on the merits standard. Adamson agreed to stay past benefits, but he did not want to stay future medical benefits, including a biannual examination. He argued that he, not the Municipality, would likely prevail on the merits. The Commission refused to stay future benefits. It found that the Municipality would suffer “irreparable harm” because it would have no way to recoup benefits paid if it prevailed on appeal. And the Commission further decided that the Municipality had raised serious and substantial questions going to the merits of the case. But the Commission refused to stay future benefits because the Municipality had not 1 At oral argument before us, the Municipality said that Adamson has since received an award of PPI. The Municipality did not say whether it had appealed this decision or asked the Commission for a stay of PPI awarded by the Board. -3- 6780 shown that “it [was] more likely than not that the [Municipality would] prevail on the merits.” The Commission cited AS 23.30.125(c) as the source of law for the stay standard. The Municipality petitioned for review of the denial of the stay.