Court Opinion

ID: 9736657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:01:58.496458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:07.919104
License: Public Domain

GOLDBERG, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The Court today departs from its long-standing rule that statutory amendments to Rhode Island’s Workers’ Compensation Act are-given prospective effect unless the Legislature specifically indicates otherwise or in the rare instance in which the amendment is either remedial or procedural and its provisions do not affect the substantive rights of the parties. Neither exception applies in this case.
In 1991, in response to concerns that the state’s workers’ compensation system was in crisis, the General Assembly overhauled the system and enacted numerous substantive changes to the Workers’ Compensation Act (the act). Among those changes was a codification of the long-standing common-law doctrine of the odd-lot employee. Heretofore an employee with no transferable skills who' as a result of a work related injury remained unable to perform his or her customary job but was deemed physically capable of doing some type of work would not suffer a diminution in his benefits unless the employer established that the worker actually could get a job. Olneyville Wool Combing Co. v. Di Donato, 65 R.I. 154, 13 A.2d 817 (1940). Thus, in seeking to obtain a diminution in the employee’s benefits, the employer bore the burden of proving that the employee was not only physically able to maintain a job but also that, taking into consideration his or her education, past employment and background, coupled with other transferable skills, there was a job the employee actually could perform.
When the General Assembly codified the odd-lot doctrine in G.L.1956 § 28-33-17(b)(7) (now § 28-33-17(b)(2)), it imposed two substantive changes: it relieved the employer of the burden of proving that the employee could actually obtain employment and it required the employee to demonstrate not only his or her inability to work, but also that a reduction in benefits from total incapacity to partial would amount to a manifest injustice. Obviously, as the majority acknowledges, these are substantive changes to this fixed doctrine that may not be given retrospective application without explicit direction from the Legislature.
We have long recognized that the rights of the employee in compensation cases “are governed by the law in force on the *690date of his injury.” State v. Healy, 122 R.I. 602, 606, 410 A.2d 432, 434 (1980); Ludovici v. American Screw Co., 99 R.I. 747, 748, 210 A.2d 648, 649 (1965). “A statute may be applied retrospectively only if it appears by strong clear language or necessary implication that the Legislature intended the statute to have retroactive effect.” Emmett v. Town of Coventry, 478 A.2d 571, 572 (R.I.1984). This rule applies as well to remedial statutes that operate to effect substantive rights. Healy, 122 R.I. at 607, 410 A.2d at 435; see also Cipriano v. Personnel Appeal Board, 114 R.I. 141, 330 A.2d 71 (1975).
Recently in Salazar v. Machine Works, Inc., 665 A.2d 567 (R.I.1995), this Court had occasion to pass upon the question of the retrospective application of the recent amendments to the act, and adhered to our long-standing rule that amendments to the act that effect substantive rights to compensation or the amount of compensation must be applied prospectively. Id. at 568 (citing Healy and Emmett, supra). In Healy, the employer, the State of Rhode Island, sought to take advantage of a recently enacted remedial provision of the act that allowed for the unilateral termination of a compensation agreement in workers’ compensation if the employee had returned to work and was receiving earnings equal to or in excess of wages earned at the time of the injury. Although this amendment provided a remedy heretofore unavailable to an employer and was enacted in direct response to our holding in Walker v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., 119 R.I. 581, 382 A.2d 173 (1978),8 we determined that it affected the employee’s substantive- right to benefits and only could be applied prospectively, and reiterated our established rule that an employee’s right to compensation must be determined according to the workers’ compensation statutes existing at the time of the injury. “A statute enacted thereafter cannot be applied retroactively to modify a preexisting compensation right which has already vested in the injured employee.” Healy, 122 R.I. at 608, 410 A.2d at 435. We concluded that to give retrospective application to this remedial statute would impair and violate rights that vested in the employee at the time of the injury. Thus, I do not believe we should deviate from our long-standing practice.
Additionally, I disagree with the majority’s reason for concluding that the employee is estopped from arguing the inapplicability of the statute because he “affirmatively invoked the provisions of § 28-33-17(b)(2) when he petitioned for total-disability benefits in 1995 and asked for relief under that statute.” This es-toppel determination, in my opinion, is unwarranted and works both an injustice upon the employee and ignores the travel of this case. The parties in the Workers’ Compensation Court entered into two stipulations, each of which has a bearing on the issue of the employee’s so-called waiver. First, while the trial was proceeding, the parties entered into a stipulation on May 8, 1996, that reads in part:
“[The] [p]arties agree to the following:
* * * “4. The sole issue before this court in 95-1339 is whether or not the ‘odd lot doctrine’ applies to this employee and whether or not benefits should be paid at a rate for total disability or partial disability.” (Emphasis added.)
The second, more critical, stipulation was entered into on August 23, 1996, months after the evidence was closed and well after the parties were directed to submit memoranda relative to the issues *691before the trial judge. This stipulation reads as follows:
“The Petitioner’s pleadings shall- be amended to allege total disability pursuant to the ‘odd lot doctrine.’ “The evidence already presented shall be applied to this amendment.” (Emphasis added.)
Thus, it is obvious that the employee amended his petition for review and abandoned his reliance on the statute or at the least he signaled his alternative reliance on the common-law doctrine. As of August 23, 1996, he alerted the trial judge and opposing counsel that he was alleging total disability based on the common law “odd-lot doctrine” and was no longer relying upon the provisions of § 28—33—17(b)(2). Therefore, I do not agree that he is claiming “for the first time on certiorari that this statute’s burden-of-proof and ‘manifest injustice’ requirements were inapplicable to his situation.” Although acknowledging that the employee amended his pleadings in this case, the majority fails to accord any import to this significant stipulation that was entered into between the parties with the approval of the trial judge and faults the employee for never abandoning his original invocation of the statute, maintaining that he never “suggested to the trial judge or to the Appellate Division, as he does to us now, that § 28—33—17(b)(2) was inapplicable to his situation.” I do not agree with this reading of the record in this case, and am satisfied that the employee did, in fact, alert the trial judge and opposing counsel of his reliance on the “odd-lot doctrine.” Further, I cannot fault the employee, as does the majority, for not taking an appeal from the decision of the trial judge in this case; he was, after all, the prevailing party. Additionally, this Court is not privy to what the employee may or may not have argued to the Appellate Division relative to the applicability or the non-applicability of the statute. Therefore, I cannot agree with the majority that the employee, on the basis of this record, has “waived any claim that § 28-33—17(b)(2) was inapplicable to his request for total disability benefits.” Such a conclusion fails to do justice to the employee and this Court’s long-standing tradition of giving retrospective application to substantive amendments to the Workers’ Compensation Act. Accordingly, I believe the Appellate Division erred in applying the more burdensome provisions of § 28—33—17(b)(2) to this employee.
Furthermore, I am satisfied that once the burden of proving that the employee was capable of performing some type of employment and identifying a job he could, in fact, perform is appropriately shifted to the employer in accordance with the common-law doctrine, it is obvious that the decision of the Appellate Division must be reversed. The parties to this dispute have stipulated that the employee remains permanently partially disabled. Thus the employee has met his burden of proving that he still suffers from effects from the work-related injury. It is the employer who must demonstrate that this employee is capable of joining the ranks of the gainfully employed and that there is, in fact, employment available that he can carry out.9 Although the employer attempted a vigorous cross-examination of the employee, it failed to identify any employment the worker was capable of performing, and was only able to establish that he was capable of balancing a simple checkbook.
Therefore, I conclude that this case represents a classic example of the odd-lot in the labor market who, under the law existing at the time of his injury, should not *692suffer a reduction in benefits unless the employer can establish that notwithstanding his permanent partial disability he is capable of working, and the employer identifies the particular alternative employment the employee can actually perform. Consequently, I dissent.

. In Walker v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., 119 R.I. 581, 382 A.2d 173 (1978), this Court decided that no employer may unilaterally suspend payment of compensation benefits but must obtain affirmative relief from the Workers’ Compensation Court pursuant to the procedure available by the act. The Legislature responded by enacting the so-called “double dipping” statute, G.L.1956 §§ 28-33-17.1 and 28-33-18.1 as found in P.L.1978, ch. 232. Although obviously remedial, in Healy we declined to give it retrospective effect.

. It was suggested by the respondent at oral argument that were the employee to be found to be an odd-lot in the labor market, he would “receive a free lifetime pension.” I respectfully suggest that this characterization is inappropriate and is not the case for a fifty-nine-year-old laborer who finished the ninth grade in 1952, has no education or employable skills, is permanently partially disabled, cannot stand or sit for long intervals, and cannot engage in twisting, turning or lifting anything heavier than fifteen pounds, and no lifting on a repetitive basis.