Court Opinion

ID: 9763140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:37:25.468889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:39.629304
License: Public Domain

GLASSMAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent. In my opinion the court ignores the clear and unambiguous language of section 100(2)(B).
At the time that New England Telephone Co. filed its first petition for review, in July 1979, section 100 provided in pertinent part:
While compensation is being paid or ... being provided under any agreement, award or decree, the incapacity of the injured employee due to the injury ... may from time to time be reviewed by a single commissioner upon the petition of either party upon the grounds that such incapacity has subsequently increased, diminished or ended.... Pending a hearing and final decision upon such review ... the payment of compensation shall not be decreased or suspended.... Upon the request of the petitioner, the commission shall order the employee to submit to examination by an impartial physician or surgeon designated by the commission for the geographical area where the employee resides. If the employee refuses to submit to such examination, or if after examination such physician or surgeon certifies to the commission that in his opinion the employee is able to resume work, the payment of compensation may be decreased or suspended pending final decision on the petition for review.
Upon such review the commissioner may increase, diminish or discontinue such compensation ... in accordance with the facts, as the justice of the case may require.
In Haney v. Lane Const. Corp., 422 A.2d 1292 (Me.1980), we reviewed the deci*1040sion of a Commissioner on an employer’s first petition for review. The employee had been receiving compensation for total incapacity based on an agreement entered into between the parties and approved by the Commission. The agreement did not reflect its underlying basis. We stated that there can be two bases supporting an agreement to pay compensation for total incapacity: (1) a total physical disability of the worker caused by the work-related injury, in which event the employer was required to produce comparative medical evidence showing improvement in the employee’s physical condition, or (2) a partial physical disability coupled with the unavailability of work for a worker so disabled, in which event the employer could meet his burden by proving that the employee’s incapacity for remunerative work had diminished as a result of improvement in the availability of such work to him.
In Curtis v. Bridge Const. Corp., 428 A.2d 62 (Me.1981), we again reviewed a Commissioner’s decision on an employer’s first petition for review where an employer had been paying the employee compensation for total incapacity based on an approved agreement that did not state its basis. We explained that if the approved agreement for payment did not disclose the employee’s physical condition at the time the agreement was made, the employer seeking the reduction of the employee’s compensation could only meet his burden of proof by competent and adequate evidence of the employee’s physical disability at the time of the execution of the agreement in comparison to the employee’s present physical disability. We distinguished the case, however, where, as in Curtis, the employer had not offered this comparison evidence but had established by competent and adequate medical evidence that the employee’s physical disability attributable to his work injury had ended. “In this latter context the rationale for the requirement of comparison evidence disappears; under the Act, a worker who suffers from no physical disability attributable to the original incident, since he no longer has a disabling ‘injury’, is simply not entitled to payment of compensation.” Id. at 64.
Folsom v. New England Telephone & Telegraph Co., 432 A.2d 1244 (Me.1981), followed our decisions in Haney and Curtis. The record discloses the following pertinent facts: On January 18, 1978 Folsom had stopped work because the clerical position was beyond his post-injury physical capacity. NET filed its first petition for review in July 1979 based on an approved agreement between NET and Folsom, dated January 31, 1978, providing total disability compensation for Folsom on the basis of “Low back strain — Displaced IV Disc.” Despite the fact that the only evidence as to Folsom’s physical condition was basically unchanged, the Commissioner found that Folsom’s medical disability had diminished since the 1978 agreement and his capacity for gainful employment as of the date of the hearing was 25% of his pre-injury capacity. The Commission also found that total compensation should continue in light of Folsom’s unsuccessful good faith work search.
Folsom appealed, contending that the Commission’s finding as to Folsom’s diminution of physical disability was unsupported by any comparative medical evidence that would support a determination of diminution and should not be allowed to stand. Contrary to the contention of NET that Folsom’s appeal did not present a jus-ticiable issue because he was not prejudiced by the Commission’s decision that Folsom had a continuing right to compensation for total work incapacity, we stated:
Regardless of what rule would be appropriate in other civil litigation, the nature of the continuing jurisdiction of the Workers’ Compensation Commission over these proceedings may elevate findings of fact to the level of an order that operates ‘prejudicially and directly’ upon Folsom’s rights.... We have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the record of prior proceedings when faced with questions of diminution in work incapacity.... Subsequent proceedings between Folsom and his employer will be influenced by the factual findings concerning physical disability. Therefore, Folsom is *1041a party aggrieved even though his complaint with the decision below is based solely upon its factual basis rather than its result.
... [W]e do not find in the record the requisite evidence to support any finding of a change or diminution of his physical disability. This is so because, as we have said repeatedly, we cannot permit different conclusions as to the extent of disability to be based upon the same medical condition.
Id. at 1245, 1246 (emphasis in original). We vacated the Commission’s decision on the ground that NET had failed to meet its requisite burden of proof and remanded the case to the Commission for further proceedings. On remand the Commission found “that there was not requisite evidence to support any finding of a change or diminution of Dale A. Folsom’s physical ability since January 1978 when, by Agreement, he was deemed to be totally incapacitated from gainful employment,” and denied NET’s petition for review. No appeal was taken from that decision.
Following these decisions, the Legislature in 1981, by P.L.1981, ch. 514, § 4, effective September 18, 1981, repealed and replaced section 100. At the same time, and by the same chapter, the Legislature created the Appellate Division and provided for review of its decisions by this court. Section 100, subsection 2, of the 1981 statute, designated as “Standard for review,” clearly differentiated between the first petition and any subsequent petitions for review as to the role comparative medical evidence would have in proving the present degree of incapacity of the employee. 39 M.R.S.A. § 100(2)(A) and (B). We subsequently recognized the Legislature’s intent to limit the changes in section 100 to an easing of the evidentiary burden of the first time petitioner for review. See Dillingham v. Andover Wood Products, Inc., 483 A.2d 1232, 1235 (Me.1984) (“At most, the 1981 revision of § 100 affects the burden of proving a change in earning incapacity on a party’s first petition for review.”).
In the instant case, because NET has already sought and obtained a determination under section 100, NET’s present petition must be governed by section 100(2)(B). Folsom contends that the plain language of subsection (2)(B) requires that a change in his earning incapacity attributable to his work-related injury must be proved by comparative medical evidence. He argues that the Appellate Division erred in granting NET’s petition because by its failure to offer such evidence NET did not meet its requisite burden of proof. He points to the approved agreement between the parties dated January 31, 1978 providing that “Low back strain — Displaced IY Disc” was the sole basis for Folsom’s total disability compensation and the decision of the Commission on NET’s first petition for review. The court agrees with the contention of NET that, notwithstanding the clear language of subsection (2)(B), those judicially crafted exceptions to the comparative medical requirement applicable to a first petition for review are applicable to all subsequent petitions.
We have repeatedly stated that the rights of a party under the Workers’ Compensation Act are purely statutory, see, e.g., LaVoie v. International Paper Co., 403 A.2d 1186, 1191 (Me.1979), and that when the language of the statute is clear and unambiguous and the statute itself does not disclose a contrary intent, we will give the statute its plain meaning, see, e.g., Stanley v. Tilcon Maine, Inc., 541 A.2d 951, 952 (Me.1988). See also Simpson’s Case, 144 Me. 162, 167, 66 A.2d 417, 419 (1949) (“The function of the Commission, and of this court in a case brought to it by appeal from a decision of the Commission, is to construe the Act without either adding to or subtracting from its language.”). Comparative medical evidence is expert medical testimony “which would permit comparison of [the employee’s] physical condition on the date of the prior decree to [the employee’s] physical condition at the time of the hearing.” Cote v. Osteopathic Hosp. of Maine, Inc., 447 A.2d 75, 76 (Me.1982). This precise definition of the term “comparative medical evidence” has been understood and accepted for decades in determining the rights of a party under the Act. “In the absence of comparative *1042[medical] evidence, the degree of incapacity attributable to the physical injury remains fixed by force of the prior award....” Id.
In the instant case, it is uncontradicted that the compensation for Folsom’s total incapacity in the approved agreement between the parties and the Commission’s decision on NET’s first petition for review are based on a total incapacity attributable solely to Folsom’s physical injury and that his medical condition remains unchanged. I find nothing in the legislative history of the amendment to section 100 or in the plain unambiguous language of section 100(2)(B) indicating the Legislature intended that on a second petition for review there be any other manner of proof of diminution or increase of an employee’s earning capacity other than by comparative medical evidence. Nor do I agree with the court that to give the unambiguous language of section 100(2)(B) its plain meaning leads to absurd results. The Appellate Division and the court must assume that “the equities” of the result of the statute, even though providing an apparent “windfall” to Folsom and other employees in a like situation, have been considered and weighed by the Legislature.
Accordingly, I would vacate the decision of the Appellate Division and affirm the decision of the Commissioner that because NET failed to meet its burden of proof its petition for review must be denied.