Court Opinion

ID: 9558708
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:15:51.268144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:33.037148
License: Public Domain

OP ALA, Chief Justice,
with whom KAUGER, Justice, joins, concurring in result.
The court holds that (a) the provisions of 85 O.S.Supp.1985 § 3(11)1 — referred to as a “constitutional statute” — control over *1309Rule 20(i), Workers’ Compensation Court Rules, which is no longer in force,2 and (b) the claim’s denial must be vacated because the employer’s physician, who had found the claimant to be free from respiratory impairment, failed to administer an additional test prescribed by the Guides3 for uncooperative patients.4 I accede to the latter part of today’s pronouncement for the following reasons: a) the employer’s physician-expert offered no legal, medical or any other scientific basis for deviating from the Guides, b) the unwarranted departure from Guide-prescribed standards saps the employer’s report of its probative value and c) the court wisely remands the case for reexamination of all issues.5
As for the first part of the court’s holding — that a constitutional statute supersedes a contrary court rule — I accept this norm as a correct exposition of the law only in the abstract. The terms of § 3(11) in force at the time critical to this cause provided that
“... any examining physician shall only evaluate impairment in accordance with the latest [Guides] ... adopted and published by the American Medical Association. The examining physician shall not deviate from said guides except as may be specifically provided for in the guides. * * * ” (Emphasis added.)6
The quoted version of § 3(11) bound the physician to the AMA’s standards unless a specific exception was found in the Guides. The operative terms of Rule 20(i),7 on the other hand, allowed deviations as long as the physician gave a “full medical explana*1310tion.” The real issue to be decided here is whether § 3(11) must in all cases override Rule 20(i).
I would give here a far more qualified affirmative answer by holding that in this case the court rule will have to yield to the contrary text of the statute whose constitutional validity has not been challenged. A statute that is free from fundamental-law infirmity prevails over the contrary content of a rule which is not rested upon the promulgating court’s constitutional authority.8 There is no suggestion in this case that under the doctrine of delegata potestas non potest delegari9 § 3(11) may in its present or former version constitute an unlawful delegation of the state’s legislative power to a private entity (the AMA),10 or that the AMA text’s binding force may be vulnerable to challenge as an impermissible legislative predetermination of an adjudicatory scientific fact.11 I would hence narrowly conclude that § 3(11) must control here over the contrary content of Rule 20(i) because the statute’s validity has not been drawn in question.

. The pertinent terms of 85 O.S.Supp.1985 § 3(11), the statute’s version which applies to this case, provided:
" * * * Except as otherwise provided herein, any examining physician shall only evaluate impairment in accordance with the latest 'Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment’ adopted and published by the American Medical Association. The examining physician shall not deviate from said guides except as may be specifically provided for in *1309the guides. These officially adopted guides shall be the exclusive basis for testimony and conclusions with regard to permanent impairment with the exception of paragraph 3 of Section 22 of this title, relating to scheduled member injury or loss_” (Emphasis added.)
Its current version, 85 O.S.Supp.1990 § 3(11), provides:
" * * * Except as otherwise provided herein, any examining physician shall only evaluate impairment in accordance with the latest publication of the American Medical Association’s ‘Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment' in effect at the time of the incident for which compensation is sought. However, revisions to the guides made by the American Medical Association which are published after January 1, 1989 shall be operative one hundred twenty (120) days after the last day of the month of publication. The examining physician shall not follow the guides based on race or ethnic origin, but otherwise shall not deviate from said guides except as may be specifically provided for in the guides. These officially adopted guides shall be the exclusive basis for testimony and conclusions with regard to permanent impairment with the exception of paragraph 3 of Section 22 of this title, relating to scheduled member injury or loss ” (Emphasis added.)

.The pertinent terms of Rule 20(i), Workers’ Compensation Court Rules, 85 O.S.1981, Ch. 4, App., provided:
" * * * Whenever the physician deviates from the ‘Guides’, the basis for his deviation shall be stated together with full medical explanation ” (Emphasis added.)
This rule no longer exists. It appears to have been replaced by Rule 20(D), Workers’ Compensation Court Rules, 85 O.S.Supp.1990, Ch. 4, App., whose terms provide:
"Except as provided in Rules 32 and 33, all written medical reports rating the extent of permanent impairment shall be prepared in substantial compliance with the appropriate edition of the AMA Guides as set forth in Rule 21.” (Emphasis added.)

. The term "Guides” refers to the American Medical Association’s "Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment” whose second (1984) edition applies to this claim.

. See York v. Burgess-Norton Manufacturing Company, Okl., 803 P.2d 697, 701 (1990), where the court vacated a claim's denial because the employer's physician failed to administer an additional Guide-prescribed test suited for patients whose efforts during the ventilatory function test were inadequate. See also York v. Burgess-Norton Manufacturing Company, supra at 703-704 (Opala, V.C.J., concurring).

. This court has in numerous other cases remanded a claim for reexamination when the trial judge’s decision rested on a flawed, yet curable medical report. See, e.g., Wheat v. Heritage Manor, Okl., 784 P.2d 74, 79 (1989); Bill Hodges Truck Co. v. Gillum, Okl., 774 P.2d 1063, 1069 (1989).

. This version of § 3(11) was superseded by the 1990 amendment. See supra note 1.

. For the pertinent terms of Rule 20(i) see supra note 2.

. See Tweedy v. Oklahoma Bar Ass’n, Okl., 624 P.2d 1049, 1052-1053 (1981); Winters v. City of Oklahoma City, 740 P.2d 724, 730 (1987) (Opala, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Ass’n v. Perceful, Okl., 796 P.2d 627, 631 (1990) (Opala, V.C.J., dissenting).

. Delegata potestas non potest delegari means that a delegated power cannot be redelegated. Black’s Law Dictionary at 426 (6th ed.1990). See also State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Ass’n v. Perceful, supra note 8 at 631 n. 6 (Opala, V.C.J., dissenting).

. See American Home Products Corporation v. Hornsey, Okl., 361 P.2d 297, 298 (1961) (the court’s syllabus ¶ 3); Associated Industries v. Industrial Welfare Com’n, 185 Okl. 177, 90 P.2d 899, 904 (1939). In Hornsey the court struck down as an unlawful delegation of legislative power the Oklahoma Fair Trade Act, 78 O.S. 1951 § 41 et seq., because “it delegate[d] to private persons the right to prescribe a rule governing conduct for the future which is binding upon those who do not consent.” In Associated Industries the court noted the distinction between legislative power and the administrative authority to promulgate rules for the law’s execution. The former is nondelegable. It includes discretion in what the law shall be, while the latter, which is delegable, may only be exercised to carry out the law’s policy and to apply it to various conditions.
See also generally, Annot.: Delegation of legislative power to nongovernmental agencies as regards prices, wages, and hours, 3 A.L.R.2d 188; Annot.: Validity of regulations as to plumbers and plumbing, 22 A.L.R.2d 816.

.See Art. IV § 1, Okl. Const., infra; Sterling Refining Co. v. Walker, 165 Okl. 45, 25 P.2d 312, 318, 320 (1933).
The terms of Art. IV § 1, Okl. Const., provide:
"The powers of the government of the State of Oklahoma shall be divided into three separate departments: The Legislative, Executive, and Judicial; and except as provided in this Constitution, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of government shall be separate and distinct, and neither shall exercise the powers properly belonging to either of the others." (Emphasis added.)