Court Opinion

ID: 9860479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:23:11.536781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:15:51.020859
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I concur in division II of the court’s opinion and in the result. The questions remain, of course, as to whether claimant did not in fact discover the injury until September 1977 and, if he did not, whether he should have discovered it sooner in the exercise of reasonable diligence.
I do not agree with division I. I think the circumstances surrounding the amendment of section 85.26 are not sufficient to warrant our overruling Otis v. Parrott, 233 Iowa 1039, 8 N.W.2d 708 (1943). Besides, the following reasoning in Otis seems irrefutable:
The only injury Otis received in the course of his employment was the injury of January 4, 1939, when the truck turned over near Cumberland, Maryland. The statute of Iowa states “within two years from the date of the injury causing such death or disability.” The statutes in the other states stop at the word “injury.” This afforded the courts of those states a basis for saying that “injury” meant “compensable injury.” Our statute gives us no such opportunity. It is reasonable to interpret the word “injury” to mean when “disability occurs” or “compensable injury” where that word stands alone in the statute. But it is not reasonable to so interpret it when the legislature has followed the word “injury” by the words “that caused the death or disability.” By these latter words the legislature has designated the injury it means. It does not mean the compensa-ble injury or the state of facts or conditions which first entitle the claimant to compensation. It is the causal injury without reference to whether it is com-pensable or not. With this description of the word “injury,” we cannot arrive at a conclusion that the “resultant injury” was meant by the legislature. In all compensation cases there may be two injuries. The first injury, without which there can be no compensation case, is synonymous with accident. This may be serious or it may be trivial. It may result in immediate disability or death, or it may not result in disability or death for a long time. If this first injury or accident is trivial, then there may be a second injury which occurs when the disability arises. This is the resultant injury. It is caused by the first injury. If the legislature, by using the single word “injury,” allows the courts to speculate on which injury was intended, the courts can, upon reason and authority, arrive at a conclusion that the second or resultant injury was meant. When, however, the legislature specifies that the causal injury will control, then the court is bound by the words of the statute. The language of this statute evidences an intention to set a definite limitation to the period within which proceedings may be commenced without reference to the exigencies which arise from a trivial injury that later causes a compensable injury. The statute relates not only to proceedings for compensation for death but also to proceedings for compensation for disability. In each instance it is the causal injury that is the starting date for the limitation period within which the proceedings may be maintained.
233 Iowa at 1042-43, 8 N.W.2d at 711.