Court Opinion

ID: 9611440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:56:48.181882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:55:04.852034
License: Public Domain

IRWIN, Justice,
dissenting:
The trial judge did not award medical benefits to claimant and claimant did not appeal to the State Industrial Court en banc. The court en banc awarded the medical benefits notwithstanding claimant’s failure to appeal. Respondent argues that claimant’s right to medical benefits was not properly before the court en banc and it had no authority to award such benefits. To sustain the award the majority opinion relies upon certain language contained in 85 O.S.1971 § 77(9), and the following decisions: Amerada Petroleum Corporation v. Hester, 188 Okl. 394, 109 P.2d 820 (1941); Edmonds v. Skelly Oil Co., 204 Okl. 471, 231 P.2d 360 (1951); Bell v. J. H. Rose Trucking Co., Okl., 452 P.2d 141 (1969); and Reid v. Phillips Petroleum Co., Okl., 531 P.2d 340 (1975).
*1369Although the language used in the above cases might suggest that it would be applicable under any and all circumstances, an examination of those cases discloses a proper appeal was taken to the court en banc and the issue determined was properly before the court. None of the cited cases contain any procedural facts even remotely similar to the case at bar, i. e., the failure to appeal or cross appeal was not even present, presented or discussed in the cited cases.
85 O.S.1971 § 29, provides for the finality of an award or decision of the Industrial Court unless an appeal is properly lodged. 85 O.S.1971 § 77(9), provides that either party feeling himself aggrieved by the “decision or award shall, within ten (10) days have the right to appeal * * * ” to the court en banc, and “Such appeal shall be allowed as a matter of right to either party upon filing with the Secretary of the Commission notice of such appeal.” The statutory language relied upon by the majority provides:
“ * * * Upon the filing of such appeal, the entire Commission, or a majority thereof, sitting as a body shall hear such appeal * * * ”
In my opinion, the words “such appeal” as above employed, have reference only to the appeal of the “aggrieved party” who has appealed and have no reference whatsoever to matters which may have “aggrieved” a party but who filed no appeal.
85 O.S.1971, § 77, empowered the State Industrial Court to adopt and promulgate reasonable rules necessary for the transaction of its business not inconsistent with the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Pursuant to this authority, the Industrial Court adopted rules, 85 O.S.Supp.1977, Ch. 4, App., and among these were Rule 17, which provided:
“Appeal to the Court en banc from orders of the Trial Judge may be taken by filing a written Notice of Appeal with all specifications of errors of law and facts designated therein, within ten (10) days from the date of the entry and mailing of the order appealed from and all errors of law specified in the appeal notice shall be supported by legal authorities therein cited. Copies of all appeals and specifications of error shall be served on the opposing party, or parties, at the time of taking the appeal, who shall have five (5) days after receipt thereof in which to respond in writing to all specifications of errors of law and citation of legal authorities.
“Appeals will be set before the Court en banc in due course for oral arguments which shall be limited to ten (10) minutes to each party to the appeal, except in cases where permission is granted for longer time to argue.
“ANY PARTY FAILING TO APPEAR AT THE TIME THE CASE IS CALLED WILL BE CONSIDERED TO HAVE WAIVED HIS RIGHT TO ARGUE THE CASE AND TO HAVE SUBMITTED SAME ON THE RECORD.
“No new evidence will be considered on appeal.” (Emphasis the court’s)
It is also noticed that Rule 30, which became effective August 15, 1978, relating to appeals, provides in subparagraph (F), that:
“A party who does not take an appeal may not assert error in the decision under review and may not ask for any affirmative relief.”
In my opinion, such rules are not inconsistent with the Workmen’s Compensation Act, but are necessary and proper rules. As I read the majority opinion, it repeals, or at least modifies, the above rules. Under the majority opinion, if a claimant feels aggrieved by an order of the trial judge and appeals to the Court en banc, may the Court, based upon the record made before the trial judge, make a new and independent order that would inure to the benefit of the employer even though the employer did not appeal to the Court en banc? It would appear that the majority opinion would permit the Court en bane to make just such an order.
I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that LAVENDER, V. C. J., and BARNES and OPALA, JJ., concur in the views herein expressed.
*1370OPALA, Justice,
dissenting:
The course taken by the court’s opinion does violence to the orderly function allocated by 85 O.S.1971 § 77(9) to en banc review in the now defunct State Industrial Court.
Conceptual purity of analysis has not always been characteristic of the treatment given by our case law to en banc review. Our desire not to encumber the claims’ process with needless procedural technicalities may have influenced this development. A commitment to making en banc review appellate in character is to be divined from our latest expressions. Department of Public Safety v. Jones, Okl., 578 P.2d 1197, 1199 [1978] and McSperitt v. Sooner Service, Inc., Okl., 431 P.2d 443 [1967]. Both decisions strongly counsel against using en banc proceedings as a trial de novo rather than as an appellate re-examination on the record.* A de novo trial is by its very nature unimpeded by the procedural posture shaped before the trial judge, while on appeal the parties stand confined to the issues below. The statutory language in 85 O.S.1971 § 77(9) must lead us away from whatever intellectual commitment still remains to the notion favoring an unstructured or quasi-appellate framework for the en banc review. The statute speaks of an “appeal”, of an “aggrieved” party and of review “on the record.” These words must be accorded their accepted legal meaning because “no contrary intention plainly appears” in the text. 25 O.S.1971 § 1.
A party who does not take an appeal stands in a posture restricted to the defense of the relief granted below. This much is basic in the adversary nature of appellate litigation. Woolfolk v. Semrod, Okl., 351 P.2d 742 [1960]. The adversary system, we have recently reaffirmed, applies with equal force to proceedings in the Industrial Court. Ind. Sch. Dist. No. 1 of Tulsa County v. Albus, Okl., 572 P.2d 554, 557 [1977], Albus stands for the principle that in the claims’ trial process a judge is relegated to his traditional role of a neutral and detached trier of issues framed or presented for his resolution by the parties. In Williams v. Oklahoma National Stockyards Company, Okl., 577 P.2d 906, 908 [1978] we gave full recognition to the altered nature of the compensation process that came about with the change of the body adjudicating it from an administrative board to a court of law. Williams holds that we may no longer exempt an industrial claim from the basic procedural characteristics and consequences applicable generally to special statutory proceedings.
This court’s opinion exempts en banc review from the adversary system. It perpetuates that stage of claims’ process as an unstructured and rule-free arena. This offends my notion of quality judicial process. Moreover, if litigants are subjected with impunity to unexpected and hidden issues, additional liability may be imposed upon them en banc for merely invoking their statutory right of review. This will no doubt have a “chilling effect” on the use of en banc appeals and hence may tend unduly to increase our workload here — a result neither sanctioned nor contemplated by the statutory division of responsibilities between this court and the appellate tribunal en banc.
The procedural vacuum the court sanctions today for the conduct of en banc review will undoubtedly have a profound effect on our own corrective process. Litigants aggrieved by a trial judge’s decision, freed by us from the strictures of the adversary process, will be encouraged to present en banc only some issues but withhold others to be raised, for strategy reasons, in a further appeal to this court. Since no one could ever be sure from the record of an unstructured en banc review what issues were in fact litigated or litiga-ble, we would be powerless to confine appellants in this court to the assignments of error made and presented by them en banc.
Because fairness cannot be afforded except within a framework of orderly procedure, I would vacate the “benefit” conferred en banc on a non-appealing litigant.
*1371I am authorized to state that LAVENDER, V. C. J., and IRWIN and BARNES, JJ., concur in my views.

 For definition of trial de novo see Shelton v. Lambert, Okl., 399 P.2d 467, 470 [1965] and In re Initiative Petition No. 281, State Question No. 441, Okl., 434 P.2d 941, 945, 946 [1967].