Court Opinion

ID: 9614022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:21:45.051884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:02:58.867436
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
It now appears inevitable that whatever hope was left for workers unjustly deprived of benefits by the Industrial Commission may well be doomed to extinction. This Court seemingly is found embracing a standard of review for workers’ compensation cases that, in its bare form, states that “[t]he decision in each case is for the Commission to make.” 119 Idaho at 972, 812 P.2d at 279. A new component of that standard of review, announced in today’s majority opinion, makes final and conclusive a referee’s rulings, findings and conclusions that are not specifically and explicitly adopted by the Commission!
Another new component to this Court’s standard of review, that of assuming that the Commission will liberally construe the workers’ compensation laws in favor of coverage, will be discussed first. The majority states that “[i]n the absence of a contradictory reference, we assume that the Commission follows the rule of liberal construction in each case.” 119 Idaho at 972, 812 P.2d at 279 (emphasis added). The basis for that assumption is the fact that this Court has never required the Commission to demonstrate in its findings and con*973elusions of law the application of this appropriate rule of construction. There is virtually no support for the proposition that an appellate court is free to indulge in the assumption that an administrative or other adjudicative body is adhering to principles of law regardless of its failure to provide an acceptable analysis. The only assumption, if we as a reviewing court should ever assume, is that when the Commission does recite the rule of liberal construction in favor of coverage of benefits to workers, that the Commission has considered this rule and applied it to the case before them. But to assume that the Commission considered and applied a rule which was not given any mention makes absolutely no sense, unless, of course, the standard of review applicable, simplistieally recognized, is that “[t]he decision in each case is for the Commission to make.” 119 Idaho at 972, 812 P.2d at 279.
The other new component of this Court’s “no review” standard of review, mentioned in the first paragraph of this dissenting opinion, can be viewed as just another type of assuming. The Court is apparently going to henceforth assume that a referee’s ruling in a case was proper and unreviewable whenever the Commission does not specifically and explicitly reject that ruling. In other words, if the Commission adopts the findings and conclusions of the referee, and the referee fails to mention a controversy relative to discovery or some other ancillary matter, the referee’s decision in that ancillary matter is final. Period, end of sentence and message.
As is now all too readily apparent, the referee in the first instance and the Commission in the second, in essence and actuality decide for the parties what may or may not be reviewed by this Court. The involved contesting parties, and this Court, in turn, find themselves and itself helpless to address issues which the referee and the Commission failed to perceive and/or address.