Court Opinion

ID: 9564739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:06:13.515512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:38.708707
License: Public Domain

Quillian, Judge,
dissenting.
The question for determination in the case sub judice is whether the State Board of Workmen’s Compensation erred in applying the 1968 amendment to the Workmen’s Compensation Act (Code § 114-709 as amended, Ga. L. 1968, pp. 3, 7-8) to the present case. The amendment provides in part that an award determining that the claimant has undergone a change in condition “shall be effective as of the time the change in condition actually occurred as found by the board, notwithstanding the retroactive effect of such award, but shall not affect any compensation actually paid to any employee.”
There is a general prohibition against giving laws a retroactive effect. Art. I, Sec. Ill, Par. II, Ga. Constitution (Code Ann. § 2-302); Ross v. Lettice, 134 Ga. 866, 868 (68 SE 734, 137 ASR 281). However, such a prohibition does not apply to statutes which are remedial or procedural in nature. In Darby v. Cook, 201 Ga. 309, 311 (39 SE2d 665), it is stated: “Any statute which changes or affects the remedy merely, and does not destroy or impair vested rights, is not unconstitutional, though it be retrospective, and although in changing or affecting the remedy the rights of parties may be incidentally affected.”
The issue then arises whether the 1968 amendment which states that the award on a change in condition “shall be effective as of the time the change in condition actually occurred, notwithstanding the retroactive effect of such award,” is remedial or substantive in nature.
That portion of Code § 114-709 as amended is, in my opinion, remedial in nature because it provides the procedure or remedy by which either the claimant or the employer may obtain *836a review of an award based on a change in condition. If the claimant receives an injury which arises out of and in the course of his employment, he has a vested right to receive the compensation benefits due him as provided by law during the period of his disability. However, the claimant has no vested right to receive workmen’s compensation benefits during any period when he is not disabled as a result of such injury. Neither has the employer any vested right not to pay the claimant compensation during any period while he is disabled as a result of said injury. Therefore, it is only just that if a claimant has an award for a partial disability and has a change in condition from partial to total disability the fact that he might wait some time before applying for a hearing to determine a change in condition should not preclude him from receiving compensation from the date his condition actually changed rather than the date he made the application for a hearing. Likewise, the employer should not be precluded from showing a change in the claimant’s condition as of the date it actually occurred. It is true that prior to the 1968 amendment the board was not authorized to find that the claimant’s condition changed prior to the date the board received a request for a hearing to determine a change in condition. General Accident, Fire &c. Corp. v. Beatty, 174 Ga. 314 (2) (162 SE 668). However, former Code § 114-709 was amended by the 1968 Act. Neither the employer nor the claimant has any vested rights in the procedural rule existing prior to passage of the 1968 amendment.
McMullen v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 119 Ga. App. 410, supra, cited by the majority, should not be controlling here. In that case the court found, in effect, that what constitutes a change in condition under the provisions of Code Ann. § 114-709 was substantive and not procedural and relied on the rule of construction that a statute will not be given a retrospective connotation unless its language imperatively requires such construction. In this regard we point out that a law will be given a retroactive effect “when the language imperatively requires it, or when an examination of the act as a whole leads clearly to the conclusion that such was the legislative purpose. *837It is at last and always a question of legislative intent.” Barnett v. D. O. Martin Co., 191 Ga. 11, 12 (11 SE2d 210, 131 ALR 725). Here the clear and compelling language of the provision in question requires a finding that the legislature manifestly intended that it operate restrospectively.
Of course, there is no prohibition against a retroactive application of remedial or procedural laws. Hill v. Willis, 224 Ga. 263, 265 (161 SE2d 281). In the opinion of the writer, the provision of the 1968 amendment being procedural or remedial in nature, the board did not err in applying it to the present case.
I am authorized to state that Judges Eberhardt and Whitman concur in this dissent.