Court Opinion

ID: 9655029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:58:20.991029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:15.625537
License: Public Domain

SCOTT, Justice
(dissenting).
The Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals concluded that:
It is axiomatic in workers’ compensation law that the date of the injury controls the benefits that the employee is entitled to. We are of the opinion that the effective date of Minn.St. 176.102, Subd. 11, is October 1, 1979. As the accident in question took place in February of 1979, the new law would not apply.
With this we have always agreed. To adopt a contrary ruling at this time throws all future amendment applications into utter confusion.
This court has uniformly held since at least 1916 that the substantive rights and liabilities of the parties under Minnesota’s workers’ compensation laws are fixed by the law in force at the time the compensa-ble injury or death occurs. Lakics v. Lane Bryant Dept. Store, 263 N.W.2d 608 (Minn.1978); Kress v. Minneapolis Moline Co., 258 Minn. 1, 102 N.W.2d 497 (1960); Yaeger v. Delano Granite Works, 250 Minn. 303, 84 N.W.2d 363 (1957); Warner v. Zaiser, 184 Minn. 598, 239 N.W. 761 (1931); State ex rel. Anderson v. General Accident Fire & Life Assurance Corp. Ltd., 134 Minn. 21, 158 N.W. 715 (1916).
In the instant case respondent employee would have had the right to apply for retraining benefits under Minn.Stat. § 176.-101, subd. 7 (1978), the statute in effect at the time of his injury. Minn.Stat. § 176.-151 (1978) allowed an injured employee three years from the time his employer made a written report of his injury to the commissioner of the Department of Labor and Industry to initiate an action to determine or recover compensation. Under well-settled Minnesota law, respondent expected that these statutes in effect at the time of his injury would control his rights to compensation. The decision of the majority in this case destroys these rights of respondent. This is an unfair and perhaps unconstitutional result.
In Yaeger v. Delano Granite Works, supra, the court, commenting on the reason for the long-standing rule that the law in effect at the time of injury fixes an employee’s right to compensation, stated that:
Since a workmen’s compensation act is contractual in nature, any statute which purports to alter a substantial term of the contract which was in effect at the time the controlling event occurred * * * *810impairs the obligation of such contract and is therefore unconstitutional.
84 N.W.2d at 366.
The rule that the statute in effect at the time of the compensable injury governs the rights of the parties involved has the advantage of certainty for employees, employers and insurers. In this case, the insurance premiums paid by the employer to the insurer were based upon the law that existed at the time of the injury. The expectations of the various parties when they entered into contractual agreements for insurance protection were based upon the law that existed at the time of the injury.
The law in effect at the time of the injury has been applied to the right to retraining in the past. The legislature was well aware of this fact and thus could have clearly and expressly provided that the 125% limitation was to apply to all retraining benefits for which liability had not been established prior to the effective date of the subdivision. The legislature did not do so, and it is not for this court to apply the statute retroactively absent a clear and manifest intention by the legislature to do so. Minn.Stat. § 645.21 (1980).
I would affirm.