Court Opinion

ID: 9682047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:04:20.108907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:37.194813
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Judge
(dissenting).
In this case and in Brock v. International Harvester Company, Ky., 374 S.W.2d 507, the Court has adopted a definition of "disability” which is unique. Under the Court’s definition of disability, Tibbs was not disabled despite his own statement that for several months he had been unable to do a full day’s work.
The whole trouble started with an ineptly drawn statute by which occupational diseases were sought to be treated in the same way as accidental injuries. In Mary Helen Coal Corporation v. Chitwood, Ky., 351 S.W.2d 167, it was held that the notice requirement of KRS 342.316(2) is “notice of disability.” See also Peabody Coal Company v. Guthrie, Ky., 351 S.W.2d 168; Peabody Coal Company v. Harp, Ky., 351 S.W.2d 170; and Peabody Coal Company v. Powell, Ky., 351 S.W.2d 172. This was done despite the plain provision of the statute that the procedure for filing claims in occupational disease cases shall be “the same as in cases of accidental injury or death,” with the added requirement that the employee shall give notice after he “first experiences a distinct manifestation of an occupational disease in the form of symptoms reasonably sufficient to apprise him that he has contracted such disease, or a diagnosis of such disease is first communicated to him, whichever shall first occur.” The provisions for filing a claim and giving notice have been ignored just as though they were not in the statute. This is contrary to all rules of statutory construction and hardly requires citation of authority.
Once having ignored and departed from the plain language of the statute, the Court has been in difficulty in every occupational disease case. In this case and in the Brock case, already mentioned, the height of confusion has been reached. The majority opinions in these two cases say now that nO' notice of filing of claim need be given “so-long as the employe, after first acquiring knowledge that he has the disease, continues to be employed in full-time employment by the same employer,” despite another express provision of the statute which bars the right to compensation “unless a claim is filed * * * within one year after the last injurious exposure to the occupational hazard or after the employe first experiences a distinct manifestation of am occupational disease in the form of symptoms reasonably sufficient to apprise him that he has contracted the disease, whichever shall last occur; * * KRS 342.-316(3). In the Brock case, the Workmen’s Compensation Board and the circuit court both held that the claim was barred under the statute.
The net effect of the two opinions is that the statute has been ignored almost entirely. The inept wording of the statute does not justify this Court’s ignoring other pertinent provisions of the statute and rewriting the statute in contradiction of those provisions. The 1962 General Assembly attempted to remedy the situation by substituting “notice of claim” in lieu of “notice of disability.” No doubt this will prove ineffectual.
This dissent is for the purpose of pointing up the need for a special statute on the procedure and handling of occupational disease cases. By their nature such cases cannot be and should not be handled in the same way as accidental injury cases. Neither the Legislature nor this Court has arrived at a satisfactory solution. It is hoped that the next General Assembly will address itself to this distressing and perplexing problem.