Court Opinion

ID: 9770778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:21:18.41076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:20.683269
License: Public Domain

COMBS, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result, but write separately because I take issue with a number of statements contained in the majority opinion. In speaking of the parties’ right of appeal to this Court, my learned colleague writes, “[t]hey have the power to do so as a matter of right by reason of our decision in Vessels v. Brown-Forman Distillers Corp., Ky., 793 S.W.2d 795 (1990).” Ante at 686. The Vessels decision is the law of that case and nothing else. The employer and the Special Fund have the right to bring this appeal because the citizens of Kentucky gave them that right by adopting Section 115 of our constitution. The pertinent portion of that section is as follows:
In all cases, civil and criminal, there shall be allowed as a matter of right at least one appeal to another court....
I also disagree with the following statement in the majority opinion:
The AUs were created and empowered to function the same as a trial court trying a case without a jury. The WCB was divested of the fact-finding function and restructured to carry out the same functions as an intermediate court re*689viewing the decisions of a court of original jurisdiction....
Ante at 687. Even if that was the intention of the General Assembly, they, like us, are bound by our constitution and like us are sworn to support it. The people have constitutionally created a unified court system consisting of the district court, the circuit court, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. The WCB is not a court. It is what it always was, an administrative tribunal.
KBS 342.285(2)(d) and (e) authorize the board to reverse the AU if the order, decision or award is “clearly erroneous on the basis of the reliable, probative and material evidence contained in the whole record,” or if it is “arbitrary or capricious or characterized by abuse of discretion or clearly unwarranted exercise of discretion.” KRS 842.290 gives the Court of Appeals in its review the same power that the new board has and “inelude[s] all matters subject to review by the board and also errors of law arising before the board and made reviewable by the rules of the Supreme Court...." Moreover, our own CR 52.01 envisions reversal where factual findings are clearly erroneous.
I see no reason or authority to limit the scope of our review, on a matter-of-right appeal. In order to reach today’s result, we need only perform our appellate duty— review the record and determine whether the findings of the AU were clearly erroneous, giving due consideration to the reasoning of the AU, the WCB, and the Court of Appeals. Yet the majority unnecessarily, and in my view unwisely, states that the “function of further review in our Court is to address new or novel questions of statutory construction, or to reconsider precedent when such appears necessary, or to review a question of constitutional magnitude.” Ante at 688. Presumably as to all other issues the WCB and the Court of Appeals provide “adequate appellate review.” Ante at 688. In entertaining the issue of clearly erroneous findings, we would not second-guess the fact-finder or the court below in Workers’ Compensation cases any more than we do in other appeals where the sufficiency of evidence or similar issues are raised. But in confining our review so as to exclude this issue, we do label as second-rate a particular species of constitutionally guaranteed appeal. By implying that we will treat none but lofty issues, the majority diminishes that right of appeal, and in fact creates an issue of constitutional magnitude. By constitutional amendment the people gave the Supreme Court the power to promulgate rules of practice and procedure. It did not give us the power to make substantive law or to bypass the constitution.
LAMBERT and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., join in this concurring opinion.