Court Opinion

ID: 9632585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:19:59.299407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:19.328446
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
dissenting:
At issue here is the constitutional validity of a provision in 85 O.S.1981 § 3.6 which requires the employer who seeks appellate review of an award made against him by the Workers’ Compensation Court to post a surety bond for the payment of the amount finally to be determined, together with interest and costs. The bond is a “jurisdictional prerequisite to judicial review.”1 Twice in the last two years this court upheld the statutory requirement here in contest.2 Neither of these decisions comes to grips with the infirmity claims being pressed upon us here. Because I am persuaded that the mandatory bond provision in § 3.6 is constitutionally impermissible, I cannot join the court’s dismissal of this case. I would let the uninsured employer prosecute this proceeding for review without the required § 3.6 surety undertaking.
I.
THE MANDATORY BOND PROVISION OFFENDS ART. 2 § 6, OKL. CONST.3
Where courts are by general statute made available for adjudication of disputes, access to them cannot be impeded by exaction of a “special tribute” from some litigants as a license to sue. The fiscal burdens imposed for the use of judicial institutions must be uniform.4 Access to courts must not be conditioned by coercive collection devices. Art. 2 § 6, Okl. Const.; Moses v. Hoebel, Okl., 646 P.2d 601, 604 [1982]; see also, State v. Waterfield, 167 Okl. 209, 29 P.2d 24, 32 [1934] and Howe v. Federal Surety Co., 161 Okl. 144, 17 P.2d 404, 405 [1932].
I view the bond requirement as a form of prohibited exaction in the nature of “special tribute”. It offends both the Open-Court-of-Justice as well as the Interdiction-of-Sale-of-Justice Clauses in Art. 2 § 6, Okl. Const. The fundamental right of access to an appellate court, granted by our general law, may not be arbitrarily withheld from the debtor for his failure to secure, with a surety bond, the liability that is in contention. The bond barricade is invalid.
II.
THE MANDATORY BOND PROVISION IN § 3.6 VIOLATES ART. 5 § 46, OKL. CONST., BECAUSE IT IS A PROHIBITED “SPECIAL LAW”
The terms of Art. 5 § 46,5 Okl. Const., prohibit the legislature from regulating the enforcement of judgments by “special law”. An unpaid monetary award of the Workers’ Compensation Court is enforceable as a money judgment.6 A money judgment is effective and enforceable while a proceeding-in-error is pending for its review. Su-persedeas is available as a debtor’s choice to stay execution pendente lite. An appeal may be prosecuted without posting an un*942dertaking.7 In such case the debtor exposes himself to enforcement process while the case is pending on review. The sole exception to this general rule of law is made by § 8.6 for an employer’s adjudicated obligation for compensation to an injured worker or for death benefits to his survivors. Only that obligation must be secured by a surety bond if its review is sought by the employer.
The mandatory bond provision in § 3.6 clearly offends Art. 5 § 46, Okl. Const. It is indeed “special law”8 that alters the method for the enforcement of judgments for but a single class of adjudicated obligations.
III.
THE MANDATORY BOND PROVISION IN § 3.6 OFFENDS THE EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION
State created classifications must bear a rational relationship to legitimate governmental objectives. The mandatory bond provision does not help screen out frivolous compensation appeals because it not only bars meritorious appeals by those who are unable to post a bond but also fosters merit-less appeals by those who are able to afford the bond. Neither can the provision be justified as a necessary measure for the protection of the workers. The state has ample legitimate alternative means to facilitate the collection of compensation awards. Employers subject to the Workers’ Compensation Act are required to secure their compensation liability with insurance or in some other officially approved form.9 Unsecured employers are subjected to unlimited tort liability without the benefit of most common-law defenses. 85 O.S.1981 § 12.
No other litigant in Oklahoma is subject to an automatic appeal bond requirement as a tribute for access to a reviewing tribunal. When an appellate remedy is afforded by general law, it may not be granted to some and capriciously or arbitrarily denied to others without offending the Equal Protection Clause.10 The § 3.6 bond provision is a needless burden. It serves no legitimate policy objective of the state.11 Its impact on those, like the petitioner here, is invidious. He is barred from access to this court’s portals to dispute an erroneous application of the Workers’ Compensation Act to his business activity solely because he has failed to secure the very liability whose existence he denies.
The mandatory bond provision is invidiously discriminatory not only in its terms but also in its application. As applied, § 3.6 precludes the employer from counter-appealing, without a bond, to dispute the same award that already has been tendered for review by the claimant,12 but it does permit him to invoke our reviewing cognizance, without a bond, so long as “the award to the injured employee ... [remains] unchallenged and no lis pendens delay or hindrance [results] to the injured *943employee ... ”.13 The practical impact of the § 3.6 bond provision is that, absent an undertaking, this court’s portals are shut to every employer’s claim for relief against his employee, even though the employer has secured his compensation liability in conformity with the statutory requirements in 85 O.S.1981 § 61.
IV.
THE MANDATORY BOND PROVISION IN § 3.6 OFFENDS THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE IN ART. 2 § 7, OKL. CONST.
Our due process clause in Art. 2 § 7, Okl. Const., has a definitional sweep that is coextensive with its federal counterpart.14 The latter — and hence our own — contains an anti-discrimination component that affords protection “against unreasonable or unreasoned classifications serving no important governmental objective.”15
The capriciousness of the § 3.6 barrier is thrown sharply into focus by the fact that it condemns review, sans automatic surety bond security, in but a single class of private appellate litigation.16
SUMMARY
The petitioner is constitutionally entitled to prosecute his claim to corrective relief without posting a § 3.6 surety bond.
I am authorized to state that DOOLIN, HARGRAVE and WILSON, JJ., concur in my views.

. Dritch v. Ray, 194 Okl. 235, 149 P.2d 260, 261 [1944]; Rule 1.101(11), Rules of Appellate Procedure, 12 O.S.1981, Ch. 15, App. 2.

. Uniroyal, Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Court et al., No. 56,096, an unpublished opinion dated February 11, 1981 and Texas Oklahoma Express v. Sorenson, Okl., 652 P.2d 285, 291 [1982]. In Sorenson the point here at issue was not in controversy because the employer had in fact posted a § 3.6 undertaking.

. Art. 2 § 6, Okl. Const., provides in pertinent part:
“The courts of justice ... shall be open to every person ... and right and justice shall be administered without sale ...” [Emphasis added],

. Art. 2 § 6, Okl. Const., supra note 3.

. Art. 5 § 46 provides in pertinent part:
“The Legislature shall not ... pass any ... special law ...
******
... providing or changing the methods for ... the enforcement of judgments ...”

. 85 O.S.1981 §§ 41 and 42; Excise Board of Grady County v. Griggs, 192 Okl. 636, 138 P.2d 829 [1943] and Dooley v. Broce Const. Co., Okl., 358 P.2d 815 [1961],

. Nicholson v. State, 132 Okl. 298, 270 P. 567 [1928] and In re Rettenmeyer’s Estate, Okl., 345 P.2d 872 [1959],

. “Special law” is one that rests on a false or deficient classification. It creates preference and establishes inequity, Barrett v. Board of Com’rs of Tulsa County, 185 Okl. 111, 90 P.2d 442, 446 [1939],

. 85 O.S.1981 §§ 61, 149 and 149.1, Rules 35 and 39, Rules of the Workers’ Compensation Court, 85 O.S.1981 Ch. 4, App.

. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 77, 92 S.Ct. 862, 876, 31 L.Ed.2d 36 [1972]; Compton v. Naylor, 392 F.Supp. 575, [U.S.D.C.N.D.Tex.1975] and Lecates v. Justice of Peace Court No. 4, Etc., 637 F.2d 898 [3rd Cir.1980],

. Review of contested private liability falls under a rubric distinctly separate from tax appeals. Because they facilitate revenue collection, statutory provisions that impose jurisdictional bond or advance-payment requirement for judicial review of a tax assessment protest could be viewed as serving a legitimate governmental objective. See, e.g., 68 O.S.1981 § 225, subdivs. (c) and (e); 40 O.S.1981 §§ 3-405 and 3-406 and O’Bannon v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, Okl., 633 P.2d 741 [1981].

. Bledsoe v. Munsingwear Corp., Okl., 579 P.2d 835, 837 [1978],

. Acme Construction Company v. Carr, Okl., 513 P.2d 113, 115 [1973],

. McKeever Drilling Co. v. Egbert, 170 Okl. 259, 40 P.2d 32, 36 [1935].

.Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 [1979]; see State ex rel. State Bd., Etc. v. Naifeh, Okl., 598 P.2d 225, 226 [1979] (Opala, J., dissenting).

.See supra note 11.