Court Opinion

ID: 9819121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:18:38.079094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:41:52.889631
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GARMAN, dissenting: This case can be resolved in two ways: by analyzing the statute or by analyzing the facts. First, this court could conduct statutory construction to determine whether a worker must be contemporaneously on the payroll of two or more employers at two or more jobs to be “working concurrently” under section 10 of the Act or whether the legislature intended to include seasonal workers within section 10. Second, this court could weigh the specific factual circumstances of the present case to resolve whether it falls under the unambiguous term “working concurrently” of section 10. See 339 Ill. App. 3d 994, 999. I dissent not because I necessarily disagree with the result but because the majority confuses the issue by claiming to do the first analysis before proceeding to do the second. As stated by the appellate court, “The parties to this appeal do not argue that the statute is ambiguous or dispute the ordinary meaning of ‘concurrently.’ Instead, they disagree whether claimant falls within the statute under the facts of this case. This issue does not involve statutory construction, and the manifest weight of the evidence standard is applied.” 339 Ill. App. 3d at 999. This brief excerpt of the appellate opinion in this case touches on the three main aspects of the majority opinion with which I disagree. First, the majority conducts incomplete — and perhaps unnecessary — statutory construction of the phrase “working concurrently.” Second, the majority weighs the facts of the case to arrive at its holding without explicitly outlining how this evaluation should be done. Finally, the majority may be applying the wrong standard of review. The majority lays the foundation for conducting statutory construction by quoting relevant principles of statutory construction and statutory provisions from the Workers’ Compensation Act (Act) (820 ILCS 305/1 et seq. (West 1996)). 211 Ill. 2d at 554-55. Relevant statutory provisions include section 8(d)(1) (820 ILCS 305/8(d)(l) (West 1996) (describing calculation of the amount of compensation)) and section 10 (820 ILCS 305/10 (West 1996) (“When the employee is working concurrently with two or more employers and the respondent employer has knowledge of such employment prior to the injury, his wages from all such employers shall be considered as if earned from the employer liable for compensation” (emphasis added))). The majority finds sections 8(d)(1) and 10 in conflict before concluding that section 10 controls. 211 Ill. 2d at 556. However, the majority does not then apply statutory construction rules to ascertain the meaning of “working concurrently.” The majority does not discuss whether the phrase “working concurrently” is ambiguous; the legislative histoiy of section 10 is not analyzed. The use or definition of this phrase in other statutory provisions or dictionaries is not consulted. In short, the majority fails to construe “working concurrently” even though it identifies this task as being required to resolve the sole issue of this case. 211 Ill. 2d at 548-49. The result reached by the majority implies that it construes “working concurrently” to include workers who are temporarily laid off from one job if that job is consistently seasonally recurrent, although the holding is never expressly explained as such. If the majority is in fact performing statutory construction, then its opinion should give explicit meaning to the phrase. For example, after applying statutory construction rules, the majority could construe “working concurrently” in the negative, i.e., a worker need not be actively working for two or more employers and receiving pay for two or more jobs at the same time to be “working concurrently” under section 10 of the Act, consistent with the result currently reached. Rather than construing “working concurrently,” the majority switches to a factual analysis to support its conclusion that claimant was in fact working concurrently. The majority explains its holding: “We believe that the Commission erred in concluding that on the undisputed facts in this case, the claimant was not concurrently employed within the meaning of the Act. Although claimant was laid off from his main job as an asphalt truck driver at the time of the injury, the consistent recurrent seasonal nature of his employment makes it clear that the layoff endemic to his profession was merely temporary. His willingness and intent to return to his main employment are evinced not only by his having done so following similar temporary seasonal layoffs for almost two decades before the accident, but also by his actions after the accident — in point of fact, he did return to his work as an asphalt truck driver, stopping only when the injury precluded him from obtaining the required license for that job.” 211 Ill. 2d at 561-62. The majority weighs several factors in its analysis. The factors, mostly drawn from an Illinois appellate case, Jacobs v. Industrial Comm’n, 269 Ill. App. 3d 444 (1995), include: whether the worker was subject to recall to his primary employment; whether the temporary layoff was customary in the industry; whether the second job was supplemental to rather than a substitute for the primary employment; whether the second employer was aware of the worker’s other job; and whether the primary employment was of a “consistent seasonally recurrent nature.” 211 Ill. 2d at 557-58. I acknowledge that Jacobs involves some similar facts to the present case and that these factors appear relevant to determining the nature of claimant’s employment relationships. However, the present case, like Jacobs, merely identifies certain factual circumstances before concluding that the claimant was working concurrently. In fact, the circuit court’s opinion in this case noted that the Jacobs court merely applied section 10 “to that specific factual context.” This is not statutory construction. The majority merely corrects the error of the lower court without providing guidance to Illinois courts in evaluating future cases. Because the majority fails to define its analysis, many questions arise. First, the nature of the analysis is unspecified. Should courts weigh all relevant factors under a totality-of-the-circumstances test? Are any factors conclusive or more important than others? The majority appears to evaluate several relevant factors, so it seems as though a totality-of-the-circumstances test is being applied. See, e.g., People v. Ballard, 206 Ill. 2d 151, 177 (2002). However, the analysis is never explicitly identified as such. Second, the meaning of “working concurrently” is left unaddressed by the majority, raising additional questions. Must the worker be subject to recall? Must the worker have an established pattern of layoff and recall with the same employer? For how many years? Is there an upper limit to the length of the layoff period, or can any employment from the prior 52 weeks potentially be considered concurrent employment? Perhaps all of these questions need not be answered when resolving the present case. However, Illinois courts can better address future cases presenting different facts if the majority explained the appropriate analysis in general terms rather than only discussing the proper evaluation of the specific facts of this case. In addition, if the majority really intends to weigh the facts to arrive at its result instead of perform statutory construction, its application of the de novo standard of review is in doubt. The majority explains “there is no indication that the Commission drew any inferences, or indeed did anything other than apply the law to the undisputed facts. There is no question of inference or weight. In this situation review is de novo.” 211 Ill. 2d at 553. First, the majority provides no citation for this assertion. Second, as discussed above, the majority fails to “apply the law to the undisputed facts.” The majority does not provide a definition of “working concurrently” or describe what test is used to evaluate the undisputed facts. Thus, “the law” is not defined, much less applied, so the majority does nothing more than weigh the facts to which a manifest-weight-of-the-evidence standard should be applied. 339 Ill. App. 3d at 999. If the majority retains its current justification for de novo review, then the opinion should explain the legal rule it claims is being applied to undisputed facts. If the majority retains its finding of error through weighing the facts of the case, then the opinion should incorporate a manifest-weight-of-the-evidence standard of review. Finally, I question the majority’s decision to make a finding about whether claimant was “working concurrently” and to remand the cause for calculation of claimant’s award. When a court sets aside a decision of the Commission, but the facts found by the Commission are sufficient to determine the correct decision, a reviewing court may enter the correct decision. 820 ILCS 305/ 19(f)(2) (West 1996). However, when it is not clear from the record what decision is appropriate, the reviewing court should remand to the Commission so that it may decide in the first instance. Furlong Construction Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 71 Ill. 2d 464, 470 (1978). The record in this case is as clear about claimant’s compensation at the two jobs as it is about the other circumstances of his employment. If the majority has found the record insufficient to calculate claimant’s section 8(d)(1) award to avoid a wasteful remand, then perhaps it also needs to reconsider whether the record is complete enough to support its finding that claimant was working concurrently. In conclusion, the majority explains that the sole issue in this case requires statutory construction of the phrase “working concurrently” in relation to seasonal workers. 211 Ill. 2d at 548-49. However, the majority fails to construe this phrase; no definition or rule is provided. Instead, the majority seems to consider several factors in a sort of totality-of-the-circumstances test before concluding that claimant was working concurrently as an asphalt truck driver and a snow blower. 211 Ill. 2d at 562. In doing so, the majority mixes two different types of analysis. The majority should use only one of these analyses and perhaps alter the standard of review accordingly. Because of the confusion that may be generated from the majority’s opinion, I respectfully dissent. CHIEF JUSTICE McMORROW joins in this dissent.