Court Opinion

ID: 9563122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:37:02.880672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:44.322130
License: Public Domain

*323Chief Justice TOAL:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act and the regulations promulgated pursuant to the Act are the sole authorities for determining the responsibility for providing workers’ compensation coverage. For this reason, I would reverse the holding of the court of appeals and affirm the circuit court’s finding that Travelers, not United, is responsible in this case.
As I stated in Rodriguez,7 the majority misconstrues the law to the extent that it reads the Workers’ Compensation Act in conjunction with the guidelines set forth by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI). The NCCI is not a rulemaking body, and furthermore, the NCCI possesses no authority to promulgate regulations with any binding force in South Carolina.8 The NCCI is simply an advisory body that provides its subscribers with information and data analysis services.
Like Rodriguez, at issue in this case are NCCI provisions regarding how assigned risk insurance policies should be terminated when an insured obtains voluntary coverage at a later time. In my opinion, the majority continues to misinterpret S.C.Code Ann. § 38 — 73—540(A)(1) to grant the director of the Department of Insurance the discretionary authority to adopt binding regulations governing assigned risk insurance policies. The statute does not grant such power to the director, but instead allows the director to approve agreements made among assigned risk insurance carriers. Any approved agreement would of course bind the agreeing parties, but the question of whether these agreements bind an individual insured is an entirely different matter.
Any agreement that has not undergone the process of regulatory approval called for in the Administrative Procedures Act cannot be viewed as a regulation that carries the force of law. Furthermore, unless these agreements or their *324terms appear in the individual assigned risk insurance policies, it is clear that the terms of these agreements cannot be viewed as binding contractual provisions. The assigned risk policy at issue in this case says nothing about termination of the policy upon the purchase of a voluntary policy by the insured. Therefore, I would rely solely on the Workers’ Compensation act and its corresponding regulations to determine coverage.
The applicable workers’ compensation regulation provides that when there are two insurance policies securing the same liability, the policy with the later effective date is responsible for coverage. 25A S.C.Code Ann. Regs. 67-409(A) (1976). In the instant case, Travelers’ policy has an effective date of August 24, 1997 and United’s policy has an effective date of July 1, 1997. Pursuant to Regulation 64-409(A), I would hold that Travelers is the proper carrier because its policy has the later effective date.
With this decision, the majority has significantly weakened South Carolina’s Administrative Procedures Act and, in my view, improperly empowered the head of an administrative agency to promulgate rules having the force of law. The legislature may not empower the head of an agency to unilaterally make declarations carrying the binding force of law; therefore, we cannot interpret § 38-73-540(A)(l) in this manner. I find it extremely telling that the majority would give binding force to these NCCI regulations which do not appear in the State Register, have not been debated in the Legislature, and are published in no public resource. Although the majority is arguably not creating “secret law” in the sense that it existed in several agencies prior to the enactment of the APA, unfortunately, it appears we now must purchase an NCCI subscription to ascertain the particulars of South Carolina workers’ compensation law.
Accordingly, I would reverse the court of appeals and affirm the circuit court’s finding that Travelers is the responsible carrier.

. Rodriguez v. Romero, 363 S.C. 80, 88-89, 610 S.E.2d 488, 492-93 (2005) (Toal, CJ.dissenting).

. Under South Carolina law, the Workers’ Compensation Commission is responsible for promulgating all regulations relating to the administration of the workers’ compensation laws. S.C.Code Ann. § 42-3-30 (1976).