Court Opinion

ID: 9625406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:40:14.30225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:08.292514
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CARRIGAN
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
The majority opinion’s narrow construction of section 8-50-105(2) defeats the beneficent remedial and protective purposes the Workmen’s Compensation Act was designed to achieve. James v. Irrigation Motor and Pump Co., 180 Colo. 195, 503 P.2d 1025 (1972); City of Boulder v. Payne, 162 Colo. 345, 426 P.2d 194 (1967); Martin Marietta Corp. v. Faulk, 158 Colo. 441, 407 P.2d 348 (1965). I cannot agree with such a result.
The legislature has not stated, nor did it intend, that dependents are entitled only to the accrued and unpaid portion of compensation benefits already awarded. If we are to maintain the liberal interpretation of the Act this Court has repeatedly followed in the past, we should not write into the statute a requirement that benefits, claimed by one whose death is the only factor precluding his collecting them, cannot be paid to his widow and children absent their formalization into an “award.” Idardo Mining Co. v. Barnes, 148 Colo. 166, 365 P.2d 36 (1961); University of Denver v. Industrial Comm’n, 138 Colo. 505, 335 P.2d 292 (1959); Industrial Comm’n v. Johnson, 64 Colo. 461, 172 P. 422 (1918). The majority opinion enthrones form over substance while frustrating the well understood policy of workmen’s compensation. Moreover it amounts to holding that the dependents’ recovery of compensation to which the workman was entitled prior to his death is contingent upon circumstances beyond their control: the condition of the Industrial Commission’s hearing docket and *75its promptness in resolving cases. This practice squares with neither reason nor justice.
Even in the face of statutory language that could have been literally interpreted to prevent a dependent’s recovery in the absence of an award, many courts, recognizing the beneficent purpose of workmen’s compensation, have refused to construe their statutes narrowly and thus have reached a result opposite to that reached by the majority here. Reed v. Industrial Comm’n, 104 Ariz. 412, 454 P.2d 157 (1969); Greenwood v. Luby, 105 Conn. 398, 135 A. 578 (1926); State Dept. of Motor Vehicles v. Richardson, 233 Md. 534, 197 A.2d 428 (1964); Cureton v. Joma Plumbing and Heating Co., 38 N.J. 326, 184 A.2d 644 (1962); Snyder v. Wickwire Spencer Steel Co., 277 App. Div. 233, 98 N.Y.S.2d 1006 (1950); City of Milwaukee v. Roth, 185 Wis. 307, 201 N.W. 251 (1924).
In my view the majority opinion has construed the term “accrued,” as used in section 8-50-105(2), far more narrowly than could have been intended by the authors of this legislation. Once an employee has contracted a disease for which the statute authorizes compensation, and the normal procedures to claim benefits have commenced, the accrual of a workman’s right to compensation should keep pace with the calendar. Of course the amount of compensation ultimately due cannot be precisely calculated until the date of his death becomes known, but the other operative facts are available. Compensation he has “earned” through his work-related illness should not be forfeited at his death. It remains “accrued” and “unpaid” in the sense those words are used in the statute. Forfeiture at his death compounds the problems of those the statute intended to benefit. The contrary majority construction is not only harsh and unjust, it defeats the General Assembly’s intent to protect the workman and to prevent destitution of his dependents. Finnerman v. McCormick, 499 F.2d 212 (10th Cir. 1974); Frohlick Crane Service, Inc. v. Mack, 182 Colo. 34, 510 P.2d 891 (1973); University of Denver v. Nemeth, 127 Colo. 385, 257 P.2d 423 (1953); 3 A. Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law § 78.62.
Barring the workman’s dependents’ right to recover his disability benefits because of his fortuitous death prior to the entry of a final award may tempt some employers and their insurers to delay resolution of claims involving illnesses likely to be fatal such as the job-related cancer here. Delay is victory.
The law should not allow an employer or his insurer to reap a windfall from an employee’s death. This is especially true in Colorado, where, as an involuntary trade-off for the employee’s workmen’s compensation benefits, the covered employee’s spouse and children are deprived of the ordinarily much greater damages in a wrongful death action against the employer. Sections 8-42-102 and 8-43-103, C.R.S. 1973.
*76I am authorized to state that MR. JUSTICE PRINGLE and MR. JUSTICE ERICKSON join in this dissenting opinion.