Court Opinion

ID: 9534231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:37:46.576442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:49.549234
License: Public Domain

SCOTT, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I concur with the opinion of the majority as to the denial of death benefits, but dissent as to the denial of permanent partial disability benefits.
It is clear that under our recent decisions in the area of permanent partial disability benefits, beginning with Umbreit v. Quality Tool, Inc., 302 Minn. 376, 225 N.W.2d 10 (1975), such benefits would have to be denied in the present case. This is so because the rule of Umbreit prevents the heirs from recovering either accrued or unaccrued disability benefits where the employee dies from a nonwork-related cause. 302 Minn. 382, 225 N.W.2d 14. Furthermore, the limited exception we created to the Umbreit rule in Knoble v. Storer Realty Co., Minn., 255 N.W.2d 388, filed herewith, is not applicable here because the award of permanent partial disability benefits to Matt-son was not “fixed in amount” prior to his death. It is necessary to review our decisions in this area for the purpose of establishing a consistent rule which can be fairly and equitably applied to future cases.
The seminal case is Tierney v. Tierney & Co., 176 Minn. 464, 223 N.W. 773 (1929). In Tierney, the employee sustained a work-related injury for which he was granted $20 per week for 100 weeks as partial disability benefits.1 He received this weekly sum until his death from nonwork-related causes 13 weeks later. His wife, as his sole heir, brought suit to collect the remaining 87 weeks of compensation. We stated the issue to be:
“* * * [Wjhether the right of a workman to receive a specified amount weekly for a specified period as compensation for an injury terminates at his death, where he dies before the expiration of the period from causes other than the injury, or whether it survives for the *386benefit of either his estate or his dependents.” 176 Minn. 465, 223 N.W. 774.
We summarized the applicable rule as drawn from the decisions of other jurisdictions as follows:
“ * * * While they hold that the beneficiary has a vested right in the in-stalments which became due and payable in his lifetime and that such instalments, if unpaid, belong to his estate and may be recovered by the representative of the estate, they also hold that he has no vested right in instalments to accrue in the future, and that all rights as to such instalments terminate at his death.” 176 Minn. 466, 223 N.W. 774.
We adopted this reasoning as the rule in Minnesota, by holding that the heirs of a worker who dies from nonwork-related causes have no right to recover compensation “unaccrued” at the time of death. 176 Minn. 467, 223 N.W. 775.
The rule of Tierney can be stated as follows: When an employee has received an award for what is now termed “permanent partial disability,” and then dies from causes unrelated to his injury, his estate may recover accrued benefits, that is, benefits which were due and payable prior to his death, but may not recover unaccrued benefits, that is, benefits which apply to periods after his death. The death of the employee thus serves only to divide the award into two parts, one of which the heirs may recover and the other of which they may not. The right to accrued benefits vests at the moment the award is made, and is not divested by the employee’s death. It is a property right passing to the estate of the employee, and can be enforced by his heirs. There is no such vested right in benefits applicable to periods following the employee’s death.
The facts of Umbreit were considerably different from Tierney. In Umbreit, the injured employee died from a nonwork-re-lated accident prior even to filing a petition for permanent partial disability benefits. The petition was filed after the employee’s death by his parents, and a lump-sum award for permanent partial disability was made by the compensation judge. We found the issue presented to be:
“ * * * [Wjhether [the] employee’s heirs are entitled to payment of such accrued permanent partial disability benefits when [the] employee died from causes not proximately related to his industrial injury.” (Italics supplied.) 302 Minn. 378, 225 N.W.2d 12.
At the time of the employee’s death, his healing period had ended, and thus we stated that “had he lived, his right under Minn. St.1967, § 176.021, subd. 3, to a lump-sum payment for such [permanent partial] disability benefits had accrued.” 302 Minn. 378, 225 N.W.2d 12. We relied on Tierney in concluding that the employee’s heirs had no legal right “to recover either accrued or unaccrued disability benefits where the employee dies from a nonwork-related cause” (italics supplied), 302 Minn. 382, 225 N.W.2d 14, and therefore denied the recovery of benefits. The emphasized language is an extension of the Tierney rule which I find to be unwarranted.
The rule of Tierney correctly applied to the facts of Umbreit leads to the same result, but for a different reason which may alter the result reached herein. We did not hold in Tierney that the heirs of the employee could never recover accrued benefits — we held only that they could not recover unaccrued benefits, that is, benefits applicable to periods beyond the date of the employee’s death. We did hold in Tierney that when an award has been made prior to the death of the employee, he acquires a vested right to payments due and payable before his death, a right which passes to his estate. There are thus two criteria which must be satisfied for heirs to recover unpaid permanent partial disability benefits: (1) the benefits are accrued, in the sense that they are applicable to periods prior to the employee’s death, and (2) the right to such benefits vested in the employee prior to his death. This second criterion is satisfied if an award is made in the employee’s favor, at any level of the administrative process, prior to his death. The award may be fixed in amount, or may be left for future deter*387mination or stipulation by the parties, but in any event it must be made in some form prior to the employee’s death. Once the award is made, the employee acquires a vested right to all accrued benefits — his subsequent death from nonwork-related causes serves only to act as a limitation on the amount recoverable if the award has not yet been paid.
In Umbreit there were a few days between the end of healing and the employee’s death which would have resulted in accrued permanent partial disability benefits. The right to the accrued benefits, however, had not vested in the employee prior to his death, since no award for such benefits had been made, in any form, prior to the employee’s death. Benefits were thus properly denied, but based upon an unfortunate extension of the Tierney rule rather than on its direct application.
A similar analysis leads to the same result in our next decision in this area, Ró-zales v. Peerless Welder, Inc., Minn., 246 N.W.2d 851 (1976). In Rózales as in Um-breit, the healing period had ended before the employee died from a nonwork-related cause. If the employee qualified for permanent partial disability benefits, some portion of those benefits would have accrued prior to his death. Also as in Um-breit, however, no award was made for these benefits until some time after the employee’s death. The right to the benefits had therefore not vested in the employee prior to his death, and his heirs acquired no right to recover the accrued benefits. Again, the denial of benefits was proper upon direct application of the Tierney rule.
We approached a restatement of the Tier-ney rule in Knoble v. Storer Realty Co., Minn., 255 N.W.2d 388. In Knoble the employee received an award for permanent partial disability benefits prior to his death, but the award was not paid to him during his life because of an appeal to the Workers’ Compensation Board. We allowed the heirs to recover the accrued benefits under the following rationale:
“ * * * [A]n unpaid award of benefits and expenses attributable to a work-related injury made to an employee during his lifetime is not extinguished by the death of the employee from causes not related to the injury to the extent that it is fixed in amount and relates to periods which terminated either before or upon the death of the employee and would have been paid to him during his lifetime had no appeal been taken by the employer.” 255 N.W.2d 388.
This in essence reiterates the rule of Tierney v. Tierney & Co. supra, but with one addition: The right to accrued benefits does not vest unless the award made prior to the employee’s death is “fixed in amount.” In the present case, this condition results in a denial of benefits to Mattson’s heirs, since the award for permanent partial disability, while initially made prior to Mattson’s death, did not become fixed in amount until after his death.
I would decline to continue this condition, and in so doing return fully to the rule of Tierney as set out above. To restate the rule: Accrued permanent partial disability benefits may be recovered by the heirs of the employee if unpaid prior to his death, if the right to those benefits was vested in the employee prior to his death by an award made at any level of the administrative process, whether or not fixed in amount at the time it was made. The obvious corollaries are that unaccrued benefits may never be recovered, and accrued benefits may not be recovered if the right to them did not vest in the employee prior to his death.
Application of this rule to the facts of the present case would require affirmance of the Workers’ Compensation Board. Its decision awarded recovery of permanent partial disability benefits to Mattson’s widow in the amount of $4,687.20, representing payments of $63 per week for the 74⅜ weeks between the end of healing and Mattson’s death. The right to such accrued benefits vested in Mattson on December 27, 1972, when the board initially gave him the right to permanent partial disability benefits. Mattson’s death 13 days after this decision served only to lessen the amount eventually recoverable as accrued benefits, *388but could not divest him or his heirs of the right to recover the benefits.

. This award would now be paid as a lump sum under Minn.St. 176.021, subd. 3, “upon termination of the healing period, or as soon as such disability can be ascertained.”