Court Opinion

ID: 9665125
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:40:47.898861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:13.187530
License: Public Domain

JOHN E. Jennings, Chief Judge, dissenting. The issue in this case is one of law because the facts were stipulated and are undisputed. Although we have always deferred to the Commission when it decides a question of fact, neither this court, nor the supreme court, has deferred to the Commission when the issue was the interpretation of a substantive workers’ compensation statute. It has long been the law in this state, as well as in most every other state, that an injury is compensable if it was one “arising out of and in the course of employment.” See, e.g., Barrentine v. Dierks Lumber & Coal Co., 207 Ark. 527, 181 S.W.2d 485 (1944); American Red Cross v. Wilson, 257 Ark. 647, 519 S.W.2d 60 (1975). An enormous body of case law has developed interpreting this phrase and in most every instance the interpretation has been guided by the familiar rule that workers’ compensation laws are remedial and to be liberally construed. Act 796 of 1993 made, as the majority says, “sweeping changes to the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Law,” among them a requirement that the act be “strictly construed.” Ark. Code Ann. § ll-9-704(c)(3) (Repl. 1996). A strict construction requires that the language of the statute be narrowly construed. Arkansas Conference Assoc. of Seventh Day Adventist, Inc. v. Benton Cty. Bd. of Equalization, 304 Ark. 95, 800 S.W.2d 426 (1990). Strict construction requires that nothing is taken as intended which is not clearly expressed. Thomas v. State, 315 Ark. 79, 864 S.W.2d 835 (1993). Strict construction is construction of a statute or other instrument according to its letter, which recognizes nothing that is not expressed, takes the language used in its exact and technical meaning, and admits no equitable considerations or implications. Arkansas State Highway Comm’n v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 206 Ark. 1099, 178 S.W.2d 1002 (1944), (McFadden, J., dissenting, quoting Black’s Law Dictionary, 3rd ed. p. 413). Moreover, the basic rule of statutory construction, to which all other interpretive guides must yield, is to give effect to the intent of the legislature. Graham v. Forrest City Housing Authority, 304 Ark. 632, 803 S.W.2d 923 (1991). In my view the language of the act leaves no doubt that the General Assembly intended the statute in issue to be narrowly construed. Under a strict construction of the statute the claimant here was injured “at a time when employment services were not being performed.” Under the stipulated facts she was using her own vehicle to travel and would not begin earning wages until her arrival at the home of her first patient. While the Commission’s decision is, in the abstract, a reasonable and sensible one and would be entirely supportable under prior law, I do not believe that this injury is “compensable” under current law. The legislature has made its intention clear and I would give effect to that intention. It is, after all, the body charged with the responsibility for making law. I am authorized to state that Judge Stroud joins in this dissent.