Court Opinion

ID: 9643547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:32:30.025393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:01.276973
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent from the opinion because it holds, erroneously I believe, that the three-year limitation period of KRS 342.185, applicable in 1957, was removed by KRS 342.-316(3), the amendment of 1960.
The opinion is to the effect that, as the amendment became effective before three years had run against appellant’s particular claim, the claim was not barred. The opinion states this is the “majority view” and, without giving any reason therefor, adopts it as a “sound” basis upon which to rest the opinion.
The annotation referred to in the opinion very carefully avoids classifying what appear at first to be conflicting views as “majority” and “minority.” Instead it is pointed out that the cases listed in one section (Sec. 11) of the annotation, “adhere to the view that statutes enlarging the limitation period are merely procedural and remedial in nature * * The cases appearing in a later section (Sec. 14) of the annotation (at 79 A.L.R.2d 1109 to 1113) reach a contrary result because in those jurisdictions such statutes are different, are more than procedural, are not ordinary statutes of limitations but are “considered as a limitation upon the rights as well as the remedy.”
Whatever may be the provisions of the workmen’s compensation laws in states that construe time limitations another way, in this state the time requirements are fixed by the statute that creates the liability. This principle is clearly declared in United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Tafel Electric Co., 262 Ky. 792, 91 S.W.2d 42, 44. That opinion said on this point:
“Where a statute creates a new legal liability, with a right to a suit for its enforcement, provided the suit is brought within a designated period, the time within which the suit must be brought operates as a limitation of the liability itself as created, and not of the remedy alone. In such cases it is treated as a condition attached to the right to sue and will control no matter in what form the action is brought.”
See also 34 Am.Jur., Limitation of Actions, Sec. 7, pp. 16,17.
We have here then a statute of creation. Just as the amount of compensation appellant shall be paid is fixed ats of the date of the injury (See Osborne Mining Corporation v. Mallie Blackburn et al., Ky., 397 S.W.2d 144, this day decided), so the time within which he must file his claim is *59fixed, by the statute which gives him the claim and not some other, later, different law.
It would seem to be beyond question that the workmen’s compensation law “creates a new legal liability.” In Taylor-Couch Construction Co. v. Elmore, Ky., 264 S.W.2d 56, 59, it was said: “ * * * the purpose of workmen’s compensation statutes is to create liability and corresponding right irrespective of fault * *
Since appellant did not assert his claim within the time allowed by KRS 342.185, effective at the time liability would attach, the circuit court correctly adjudged that appellant’s application for compensation could not be considered or allowed.
I would affirm the judgment.
MONTGOMERY, J., joins me in this dissent.