Court Opinion

ID: 9647052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:22:13.064365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:45.038956
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I have no quarrel with the view that the public policy of this state proscribes retaliatory discharge by an employer because an employee files a workers’ compensation claim. Indeed, that policy is expressly embraced in the act: Ark. Code Ann. § 11-9-107 (1987) provides that an employer who willfully discriminates against any employee for claiming benefits is subject to fine and imprisonment. However, since the remedies provided by the legislature for the breach of that policy do not include a cause of action for damages, it is, for reasons I will attempt to demonstrate, beyond the power of this court to fashion that remedy on its own. My disagreement with the majority is that I believe the judicial branch has no power to broaden the scope of the Workers’ Compensation Act, nor any power to create a remedy not provided in the act. That power belongs to the legislature alone under the express provisions of Amendment No. 26. Given the unique status of the workers’ compensation law in Arkansas, our function, I believe, is decidedly narrow, consisting only of such interpretative role as necessarily attends appellate review. In fact, this court has pointedly observed that its authority is so restricted in workers’ compensation cases that if the legislature had not provided for court review, then the courts could not have considered workers’ compensation cases at all. J. L. Williams & Sons, Inc. v. Smith, 205 Ark. 604, 170 S.W.2d 82 (1943). The Workers’ Compensation Act was passed under the authority of Amendment No. 26 to the state constitution, which was initiated by the people and adopted by them in 1938. By the amendment the people directed that the General Assembly shall have power to provide “the means, methods, and forum for adjudicating” workers’ compensation claims (my emphasis). The legislature sent three bills to the governor. Two were vetoed. One was signed and then abated by referendum petitions until finally approved by the people in 1940. Thus, the people have been keenly involved in the adoption, drafting and approval of the legislation produced by the General Assembly at their direction. The act itself is comprehensive and thorough and we have declared it “plain and unambiguous.” Odom v. Ark. Pipe & Scrap Material Co., 208 Ark. 678, 187 S.W.2d 320 (1945). It provides in minute detail for every eventuality arising from the employment relationship. For example, if the employer fails to secure payment of benefits, the employee has the option between the benefits due under the act or asserting a cause of action for damages at common law without the crippling defenses which were available to an employer at common law. Ark. Code Ann. § 11 -9-105(b)(1) (1987). That same section, § 11-9-105, provides that the rights and remedies “shall be exclusive of all other rights and remedies of the employee” or anyone claiming under them. Over the half century that the Workers’ Compensation Act has existed in Arkansas, this court has withstood a battery of legal challenges to the act, including ingenious attempts to enlarge its scope, citing again and again §11-9-105 and declaring that rights and remedies granted to an employee “shall be exclusive of all other rights and remedies.” The act is a finely tuned trade-off of common law liabilities and defenses between industry and labor by which each class gave up certain rights in return for certain benefits. Young v. G.L. Tarlton, Contractor, Inc., 204 Ark. 283, 162 S.W.2d 477 (1942) summarized the end result: The act here in question takes away the cause of action on the one hand and the ground of defense on the other and merges both in a statutory indemnity fixed and certain. If the power to do away with a cause of action in any case exists at all in the exercise of the police power of the state, then the right of trial by jury is therefore no longer involved in such cases. The right of jury trial being incidental to the right of action, to destroy the latter is to leave the former nothing upon which to operate. By analogy, divorce in Arkansas is purely statutory, and just as this court has no power to create a ground for divorce not expressly provided by the legislature, it has no power to enlarge, or lessen, the scope of the Workers’ Compensation Act. In that vein, we said in Barth v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 212 Ark. 942, 208 S.W.2d 455 (1948): The cause of action of one claiming under the Workmen’s Compensation Act is purely statutory, and that one claiming under its provisions ‘has no claim or cause of action except the one given him’ by the act. In the Odom case, supra, speaking of the Workers’ Compensation Act, we wrote: Its purpose and effect was to substitute, as to employment embraced within its terms, the liability created by it for any and all liability of the master arising from the death or injury of his servant. The remedies provided by [the workers’ compensation law], are, unless the employer fails to secure the payment of compensation as required by the act, exclusive. [My emphasis.] In Huffstettler v. Lion Oil Co., 110 F. Supp. 222 (W.D. Ark. 1953), Judge Miller, in examining the exclusivity of Arkansas workers’ compensation law, recognized the power of the legislature to create new causes of action under Amendment 26 and that the only cause of action by an employee against an employer now existing is where the employer fails to afford the benefits provided under the act. In Seawright v. U.S.F. & G. Co., 275 Ark. 96, 627 S.W.2d 557 (1982), referring to Ark. Code Ann. § 11-9-105, we said: The rights and remedies herein granted to an employee ... on account of injury or death, shall be exclusive of all other rights and remedies of such employee, his legal representative, dependents, or next of kin, or any one otherwise entitled to recover damages from such employer. . . . And in Brothers v. Dierks Lumber & Coal Co., 217 Ark. 632, 232 S.W.2d 646 (1950), Justice Robert A. Lefler, in upholding the constitutionality of the act, referred to the right of the legislature to create new causes of action where none before existed. A great many more cases could be cited. Suffice it to say that as recently as 1986, this court stated with firmness and unanimity that “any change concerning the exclusivity of the statutory remedies must come legislatively.” [My emphasis.] Cain v. National Union Life Ins. Co., 290 Ark. 240, 718 S.W.2d 44 (1986). In sum, three provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act make it crystal clear that the legislature acted with purpose in not fashioning a cause of action at common law for retaliatory discharge by employers: one section provides that remedies shall be exclusive of all other remedies [§ 11-9- 105(a)], one section provides that an employee does have a cause of action for damages at common law where the employer fails to secure benefits under the act [§ 11-9-105(b)(1)] and yet another section provides penalties for the employer who willfully discriminates against an employee for filing a claim for benefits. [§ 11-9-107]. Hence, the legislature recognized the likelihood of retaliatory actions by employers and provided the measures to penalize such actions. Those remedies do not include the action now before us and it is not within our power to create it. The comments of Justice Robert C. Underwood of Illinois1 in reference to judicial self-restraint are especially apt: It is only stating the obvious to say that it is fundamental in our system of government that the law-making function is vested in the legislative branch. The majority’s intrusion into the legislative field in this case typifies the lack of judicial self-restraint which has been a source of concern and comment throughout our history. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall spoke to it as follows: “[The judicial] department has no will in any case. * * * Judicial power is never exercised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the judge; always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the legislature; or in other words, to the will of the law.” (Osborn v. Bank of United States (1824), 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 866, 6 L.Ed. 204, 234.) It is essential to a preservation of the separation of powers that those of us who serve in the judicial branch subordinate our desires and preferences to the actions of the legislative and executive branches as long as those are expressed in constitutional terms. Mr. Justice Harlan, dissenting in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), 376 U.S. 1, 48, 84 S.Ct. 526, 551, 11 L.Ed. 481, 509, phrased it thus: The Constitution does not confer on the Court blanket authority to step into every situation where the political branch may be thought to have fallen short. The stability of this institution ultimately depends not only upon its being alert to keep the other branches of government within constitutional bounds but equally upon recognition of the limitations on the Court’s own functions in the constitutional system. I would reverse and dismiss. Special Justice Alan D. Epley joins in this dissent.   Kelsay v. Motorola, Inc., 74 Ill. 2d 172 384 N.E.2d 353 (Ill. 1978).