Court Opinion

ID: 9730654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:19:54.114738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:08.364841
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). The statutory amendments in question apply to injuries incurred between January 1, 1980 and May 12, 1980. Thus they have some retroactive effect.1 I reject the majority’s conclusion that the statutory amendments violate Art. I, see. 1, Wis. Const.,2 and the petitioners’ (employ*662ers’) contention that the statutory amendments violate the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution or the contract clause of the federal constitution.3 Therefore I dissent.
The retroactive effect of these statutory amendments is to alter duties incident to injuries occurring before the amendments were enacted. That the constitutionality of the statutes is problematic is apparent almost from this description alone. The majority resolves the constitutional question by describing the effect of the amendments. The majority concludes that the petitioners’ obligations are fixed by the worker’s compensation act in effect on the date of injury, that these fixed obligations are “vested rights,”4 and that the legisla*663ture “may not constitutionally impair them.” See, p. 657.
Labeling the petitioners’ obligations as “vested rights”, as the majority does, is conclusory and simplistic. Adams Nursing Home of Williamstown, Inc. v. Mathews, 548 F.2d 1077, 1081 (1st Cir. 1977); State ex rel. Bldg. Owners v. Adamany, 64 Wis.2d 280, 294, 219 N.W.2d 274 (1974). The label merely reflects the conclusion that the right is deserving of protection against the statute in issue. The label does not explain when a right should be viewed as so far perfected as to be deserving of such protection.
I begin by noting that the majority’s treatment of the issue of the constitutionality of the statute does not conform to the principles of law governing this question. This court has repeatedly said that a statute is presumed to be constitutional and that the party challenging the constitutionality of a statute bears a heavy burden. In some cases we have said that to overcome this presumption of constitutionality the challenger “must prove the law to be unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.” State ex rel. Bldg. Owners v. Adamany, 64 Wis.2d 280, 286, 219 N.W.2d 274 (1974). See also State v. Hart, 89 Wis.2d 58, 64, 277 N.W.2d 843 (1978); WKBH Television Inc. v. Dept. of Revenue, 75 Wis.2d 557, 566, 250 N.W.2d 290 (1977). The United States Supreme Court, taking a similar view, recently described the presumption of constitutionality applicable to statutes and the challenger’s burden as follows: It is by now well established that legislative Acts adjusting the burdens and benefits of economic life come to the Court with a presumption of constitutionality, and that the burden is on one complaining of a due process violation to establish that the legislature has acted in an arbitrary *664and irrational way.” Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 15 (1976).
Although our cases do not define the nature of the presumption or of the burden, neither the presumption nor the burden falls by the wayside when the statute is challenged on grounds of retroactivity. State ex rel. Bldg. Owners v. Adamany, 64 Wis.2d 280, 286, 219 N.W.2d 274 (1974). Not every statute is unconstitutional merely because its effect “is to impose a new duty or new liability based on prior acts.” Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 16 (1976).5 I recognize that although courts have frequently said that the legislature may readjust economic rights and burdens even if otherwise settled rights, obligations, interests or expectations are disturbed, retrospective laws are viewed with suspicion. As a result, justification suitable for prospective legislation may not suffice as justification for retrospective legislation. Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 17 (1976). This suspicion of retroactive enactments is grounded in several considerations including the notion that “laws that unsettle settled rights can be harsh, and they deserve a special scrutiny.” Adams Nursing Home of Williamstown, Inc. v. Mathews, 548 F.2d 1077, 1080 (1st Cir. 1977).
The cases pose two principal factors as determinative of the validity of a retroactive statute: (1) the nature and strength of the public interest served by the statute and (2) the unfairness created by its retroactivity. The extent of the party’s reasonable reliance on the law existing at the time of the conduct whose legal consequences would be altered is a useful gauge of the element of unfairness. State ex rel. Bldg. Owners v. Adamany, 64 Wis.2d 280, 288, 219 N.W.2d 274 (1974); *665Adams Nursing Home of Williamstown, Inc. v. Mathews, 548 F.2d 1077, 1080 (1st Cir. 1977); Hochman, The Supreme Court and the Constitutionality of Retroactive Legislation, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 692, 697, 727 (1960) ; Slawson, Constitutional and Legislative Considerations in Retroactive Lawmaking, 48 Calif. L. Rev. 216 (1960). Consequently, in deciding the validity of a retroactive enactment “courts have generally compared the public interest in the retroactive rule with the private interests that are overturned by it.” Adams Nursing Home v. Williamstown, Inc. v. Mathews, 548 F.2d 1077, 1080 (1st Cir. 1977) quoted with approval in Daughters of Miriam Center for the Aged v. Mathews, 590 F2d 1250, 1260 (3d Cir. 1978). The courts balance these competing considerations; the greater the alteration of the petitioners’ rights, interests and expectations, “the weaker is the case for the constitutionality of the statute.” Hochman, The Supreme Court and the Constitutionality of Retroactive Legislation, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 692, 712 (1960).
The majority opinion fails to compare the public and the private interests involved here. I consider this comparison to be essential to the disposition of the issue before us.6
*666This court will presume a constitutional public purpose “if there is any reasonable basis upon which the *667legislation can be explained by facts within the knowledge of this court.” State ex rel. Bldg. Owners v. Adamany, 64 Wis.2d 280, 301, 219 N.W.2d 274 (1974). The facts may be skeletal in nature and may be apparent from the face of the legislation or from the legislative history. The legislative purpose of the law in issue can be explained by facts within the knowledge of this court. The purpose of the workmen’s compensation laws is, as we have previously said, “to provide financial and medical benefits to the victim of ‘work-connected’ injuries and their families — regardless of fault, and to allocate the financial burden to the most appropriate source, the employer, and ultimately the consumer and the public.” Brenne v. ILHR Dept., 38 Wis.2d 84, 91-92, 156 N.W.2d 497 (1968). See also Anderson v. Miller Scrap Iron Co., 169 Wis. 106, 110, 170 N.W. 275, 171 N.W. 935 (1919). It is apparent that the statutory amendments periodically increasing the benefit is tied to inflationary economic conditions. As DILHR's brief points out, the legislature has in each session since 1972 increased the benefits to persons injured “to afford full and adequate compensation to injured workers . , . to meet changing conditions.” (DILHR brief, p. 12) I conclude that the public purpose to be served by the statute is to protect disabled workers in an inflationary economy.
Petitioners do not deny that a valid public purpose is served by the retroactive features of the statute. Instead they direct their arguments at the sufficiency of the action taken and then at the sufficiency of the public purpose.
Petitioners first contend that if the discernible public purpose is valid, the legislature did not go far enough. The petitioners argue that there is nothing to distinguish persons injured in December 1979 from persons injured in January 1980. This type of argument has not been *668accepted by the courts. It is for the legislature to choose the time for increasing the benefit, and the courts should not assess the wisdom of the legislature choosing January 1, 1980, May 13, 1980, or any other time. Whether the increases are adequate because of their timing or their amount is not a question of constitutional dimension. Cf. Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 19 (1976). It is sufficient, as a constitutional matter, that the amendments approach the problem of inflation rationally.
Secondly, the petitioners complain that the discernible public purpose does not amount to “exigent circumstances of vital public interest which would necessitate the exercise of the state’s police power and provide a sufficient basis on which to interfere with the vested rights of petitioners.” (Petitioner’s Reply Brief, p. 12.) The petitioners intimate that only exigent circumstances can justify this retroactive law. The majority, using similar reasoning, distinguishes Schmidt v. Wolf Contracting Co., 269 App. Div. 201, 55 N.Y.S.2d 162, 166-169 (1945), by saying there is no emergency or catastrophe present in this case such as a war. It is clear from the authorities that it is not “only an emergency of great magnitude [which] can constitutionally justify” a retroactive state law. Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 249, n. 24 (1978).7
The resolution of the issue of constitutionality requires an analysis of the harms caused by retroactivity and a determination of whether the discernible public purpose justifies the effects. The constitutionality of a retroactive law is thus a function of both the purpose the *669statute is intended to serve and the extent to which the statute abrogates an asserted preenactment right, interest or expectation. The severity of the effect on the private interest of the retroactive legislation “measures the height of the hurdle the state legislation must clear.” Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 244-245 (1978).
Having reviewed the purpose the statute in issue is intended to serve, I turn to an analysis of the effect of the law on the petitioners. I must examine the petitioners’ rights, interests and expectations affected by the law in issue, the petitioners’ reliance on the prior law,8 and the severity of the injury to the petitioners caused by the retroactivity of the law .
The petitioners concede that their expectations include the knowledge that the legislature may increase their obligations under worker’s compensation. Petitioners and DILHR agree that increasing the benefit every two years for persons injured after January 1 of each even-numbered year became a legislative practice in this state in the 1970’s. See ch. 150, Laws of 1973; ch. 147, Laws of 1975; and ch. 195, Laws of 1977.9 Notwithstanding this practice petitioners assert surprise that legislation adopted after January 1, 1980, was made applicable to injuries occurring on and after January 1, 1980. The petitioners were not too surprised, however, since DILHR advised employers prior to the adoption of the law that the new law would be applicable to employees injured on and after January 1, 1980. The gravamen of the petitioners’ argument is that *670their expectation was that the law increasing benefits would be applicable only to injuries occurring after the law was published. Sec. 990.05, Stats., provides: “Every law or act which does not expressly prescribe the time when it takes effect shall take effect on the day after its publication.” I view the law’s affect on the petitioners’ expectations as minor, particularly in light of the limited effect of the retroactive nature of the law. The statute limits increased benefits to those persons who are injured on and after January 1, 1980. Furthermore, the increases, as I interpret the law, do not begin on January 1, but on May 13,1980.
The petitioners’ rights and interests in their obligations have been affected. But the severity of the injury to the petitioners’ rights and interests resulting from retroactive application of the statute has not been described by the parties. The parties’ Statement of Stipulated Facts alleges that it is impossible to determine the total cost to the petitioners of retroactive application of the statute.10 Even if the total cost could not be determined, some estimates could have been made.11 Yet petitioners made no effort to set forth estimates of their increased expenses on the basis of their prior experience under the worker’s compensation act or on the basis of factors known as of the date of the briefs or oral argument. Petitioners’ brief indicates that per*671haps 10,000 employees in the state — not 10,000 employees of the petitioners — may be affected if the law is applicable to persons injured between January 1 and May 12, 1980. Petitioners do not tell us how many employers employ these 10,000 employees. DILHR noted that more than 100,000 employers are potentially affected by the law. Thus, barring a catastrophic accident injuring many employees of a single employer, it would appear, absent' a showing to the contrary, that the increased cost to any single employer in the state as a result of the retroactivity of the law might be very small indeed. And I note that the petitioners never assert that they — or employers similarly situated — will suffer severe, adverse or disproportionate economic costs or consequences as a result of the retroactive law. Petitioners rest their case on their assertion that their vested rights have been impaired; they make no analysis of the impairment. It is speculative on this record to surmise the effect of the retroactive application of the law on the petitioners. Cf. Gauge Lumber Co. v. Rowley, 326 U.S. 295, 303-305 (1945).
Because petitioners have failed to show that their rights, interests and expectations were significantly altered or affected by the retroactive legislation, the “height of the hurdle” the state legislation must clear is low. In the instant case, the state need not show exceptional and extraordinary exigent circumstances to justify the retroactive legislation in issue. Considering the level of impairment of the petitioners’ asserted pre-enactment rights, interests and expectations, I conclude that the legislature has demonstrated a valid legislative purpose for retroactivity. As we noted previously, the legislature has over the years increased the maximum benefits to allocate to the employer the increased cost of providing- compensation to the employee suffering a work-connected disability. The burden on the employers caused by this retroactive statute is part of the risk-sharing *672concept of worker’s compensation and implements the legislative judgment that benefits must periodically be increased in an inflationary era. The worker’s compensation law shifts the risk of employment inj uries from the employee to the employer who can spread the risk by insurance and who can pass the costs on to the consumer and the public.
I would find that the imposition of what appears on this record to be limited increased liability on employers for workers injured between January 1 and May 12 is justified as a reasonable measure to aid disabled employees and to spread the costs of employees’ disabilities to those who profited from the fruits of their labor and who can spread the costs to the purchasers of the products and services.
In sum, the petitioners have not overcome the presumption favoring the legislative judgment as to the necessity and reasonableness of their enactments and have not carried their burden of proving the law’s unconstitutionality beyond a reasonable doubt. Considering that the legislature is attempting to increase benefits and liabilities to help the employee keep up with inflation ; considering that the legislature has a history of increasing awards effective to injuries occurring after January 1 of a particular year; considering that the statute’s retroactive effect is limited to injuries occurring during a brief period (4Y¿ months) ; considering that the increased payments are to be made for the period after May 13, 1980, and not for the period January 1 through May 12; and considering that the petitioners have shown no significant alteration in their rights, interests and expectations, resulting from the legislation, I conclude that neither the federal nor the state constitution invalidates the legislation in issue. I therefore dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Nathan S. Heffer-nan joins in this dissent.

 It is unclear from the majority opinion whether it interprets the statute to provide increased payments to persons injured on and after January 1, 1980, for the period January 1 through May 12, 1980, or for the period after May 13, 1980. I conclude that the petitioners are liable for increased payments commencing with payments made on and after May 13, 1980, to persons injured after January 1, 1980.

 Art. I, see. 1, Wis. Const, provides: “All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The majority correctly states that this court has recognized that see. 1, Art. I, Wis. Const., encompasses the concepts of due-process and equal protection. The majority opinion should not be construed, however, to mean that this court is departing from its long-held view that this state may afford its citizens greater constitutional protections under the Wisconsin Constitution than are required of the state by the federal constitution. This court asserted its powers to construe our state constitution as early as 1855, saying: “The people then made this constitution, and adopted it as their primary law. The people of other states made for themselves respectively, constitutions which are construed by their own appropriate functionaries. Let them construe theirs — let us construe, and stand by ours.” The Attorney General ex rel. Bashford v. Barstow, 4 Wis. 567, 785, *758 (1855). For a discussion of the protections afforded by the state constitution, see, e.g., Carpenter v. Dane County, 9 Wis. 249 (1859); Hoyer v. State, 180 Wis. 407 *662(1923); State v. Taylor, 60 Wis.2d 506, 522, 210 N.W.2d 873 (1973); State v. Doe, 78 Wis.2d 161, 171, 254 N.W.2d 210 (1977); Terry v. Percy, 81 Wis.2d 693, 697-700, 767 N.W.2d 380, 382-83 (1978) (Abrahamson, J. concurring); Laasch v. State, 84 Wis.2d 587, 597-599, 267 N.W.2d 278 (1978) (Abrahamson, J. concurring); State v. Starke, 81 Wis.2d 399, 420-23, 260 N.W.2d 739 (1978) (Abrahamson, J. concurring); Zelenka v. State, 83 Wis.2d 601, 617, 266 N.W.2d 279 (1978). See generally, Hachey, Jacksonian Democracy and the Wisconsin Constitution, 62 Marq. L. Rev. 485 (1979).

 Art. I, sec. 10, U.S. Const.: “No state shall . . . pass any . . . law impairing the obligation of contracts.”
I conclude, as did counsel for petitioners on oral argument, that the analysis used to determine impairment of contract obligations and the analysis used to determine deprivation of due process under the “vested rights” theory are the same in this case.
For a discussion of the standard of review of retroactive legislation on contract clause or due process grounds, see e.g., Tribe, American Constitutional Law eh. 9 (1978), ch. 9 (1979 Supp.); Note, Constitutionality of. Retroactive Land Statutes — Indiana’s Model Dormant Mineral Act, 12 Ind. L. Rev. 455 (1979); Note, Revival of the Contract Clause: Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus and United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, 65 Va. L. Rev. 377 (1979).

 Prior to this case the court had not decided that the employer’s statutory obligations are vested rights. In Kleiner v. Milwaukee, *663270 Wis. 152, 156, 70 N.W.2d 662 (1955), this court refused to determine whether an increase of benefits after injury contravenes the contract clause or due process. In Kleiner the rights and liabilities of the parties were fixed by an award.

 In Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 19-20 (1976), the United States Supreme Court held that the “Due Process clause poses no bar to requiring an operator to provide compensation for a former employee’s death or disability due to pneumoconiosis arising out of employment in its mines, even if *665former employee terminated his employment in industry before the Act was passed.” The decision rests on the Court’s conclusion that the imposition of liability is justified as a rational measure to spread the costs of employees’ disabilities to those who have profits from the fruits of their labor.

 The petitioners’ brief (p. 32) asserts that “An examination of the decisions of courts in other states discloses that, with virtual unanimity, they have held that legislation which attempts to retroactively increase worker’s compensation benefits is unconstitutional, either as an impairment of vested rights or an interference with the obligation of contract.” The petitioners refer us to the following cases: Tennessee Coal & Iron Div., U. S. Steel Corp. v. Hubbert, 110 So.2d 260, 262-265 (Ala. 1959), and cases cited therein; Peterson v. Federal Mining & Smelting Co., 170 P.2d 611, 612 (Idaho, 1946); Harris v. National Trucking Service, 321 So.2d 690, 693-695 (Ala. App. 1975); Reggep v. Lunder Shoe Products Co., *666241 A.2d 802, 804 (Me. 1968); State v. Healy, 410 A.2d 432, 435 (R.I. 1980); Cooper v. Wicomico County Dept. of Public Works, 278 Md. 596, 366 A.2d 55, 57, 58 (1976); McAllister v. Bd. of Ed., Kearny, 79 N.J. Super. 249, 191 A.2d 212, 220 (1963); United Iron Works v. Smethers, 14 P.2d 380 (Okla. 1932); Noffsker v. K. Barnett & Sons, 72 N.M. 471, 384 P.2d 1022 (1963); Lyon v. Wilson, 443 P.2d 314, 319 (Kan. 1968); Maxwell v. State Compensation Director, 144 S.E.2d 493, 496-498 (Ct. App. W. Va. 1965). These eases do not persuade me that the statute in the case at bar is unconstitutional. In several cases, the court concluded, without analysis, that a vested right or a contract right was unconstitutionally impaired. In some cases, the court’s conclusion or discussion oí constitutionality was merely dicta. In the few cases in which the court balanced the legislative purpose and the degree of impairment to conclude that the law was unconstitutional, the facts were significantly different from those in the ease at bar. In Cooper v. Wicomico County Dept, of Public Works, supra, which involved a law increasing compensation awards, the court did not rule on the issue of constitutionality and remanded the matter to the trial court for testimony, saying “We think the lower court was correct [i.e., the law would be unconstitutional] if the operational effect of ch. 832 requires an employer or insurer to pay more than it was required to pay under the law in effect at the time of injury. It is generally held that the basis of a compensation award is contractual and that the amount payable thereunder by an employer or insurer cannot be increased retrospectively .... The facts of a case are, however, all important. The record before us does not contain facts which afford us the opportunity to determine — and the trial court did not go into the matter — whether any substantial vested right of either appellee was divested or any obligation either had was substantially increased.” On remand, the statute in issue was declared unconstitutional, Cooper v. Wicomico County Dept. of Public Works, 284 Md. 576, 398 A.2d 1237 (1979).
DILHR relies on the following cases which upheld retroactive legislation: Schmidt v. Wolf Contracting Co., 269 App. Div. 201, 55 N.Y.S.2d 162 (1945), aff’d 295 N.Y. 748, 65 N.E.2d 568 (1946); Price v. All American Engineering Company, 320 A.2d 336 (Del. 1974); Lahti v. Fosterling, 357 Mich. 578, 99 N.W.2d 490 (1959); Clark v. Chrysler Corp., 377 Mich. 140, 139 N.W.2d 714 (1966).
In American Stevedores, Inc. v. Salzano, 538 F.2d 933, 937, (2d Cir. 1976), the federal court of appeals said that “[t]he constitu*667tionality of retroactive provisions in workmen’s compensation type statutes is well established.”

 In Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 244-245 (1978), the Court struck down, under the contract clause, a Minnesota statute which undertook for the first time to subject existing pension plans to state regulation, which imposed severe and significant unexpected liability on companies in disabling amounts and which failed to state the economic conditions requiring such legislation. The dissent viewed the issue as one of due process.

 In a challenge to retroactivity, a key question is how the conduct of the petitioners or others similarly situated would have differed if the law in issue had applied from the start. The petitioners do not address this issue.

 Sec. 102.14(2), Stats. 1979-1980, requires the council on worker’s compensation to submit its recommendations for revisions of ch. 102, Worker’s Compensation, to each regular session of the legislature. Each of these laws, as well as the 1979 law, reflects an amendment proposed by the council.

 The stipulation states: “19. It is impossible to determine the total cost, including administrative costs, to Petitioners, other self-insured employers and insurance carriers of complying with the amended Act, as interpreted by respondent's because: (1) the total cost of the retroactive increased benefits has not yet been calculated by Petitioners and each other individual self-insured employer and insurance carrier; (2) in many cases, the payment of retroactive increased benefits will extend indefinitely into the future and (3) not all claims for which retroactive increased benefits would be due have as yet been made by qualified employees.”

 Estimates can be made. Fiscal Notes to the Worker’s compensation laws estimate the costs of the bill to the state in its capacity as an employer. See Bill Drafting files maintained by the Legislative Reference Bureau, State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin.