Court Opinion

ID: 9792078
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:22:42.620361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:05.150718
License: Public Domain

AREND, Justice
(dissenting).
Appellee Annis contends, and in this the Court has sustained him, that the appellant by untrue averments contained in both its complaint and amended complaint to the effect that it had paid its annual corporation tax should not be allowed to commence or maintain an action or proceeding by way of mandatory injunction to set aside the award of the Alaska Industrial Board, especially as in this case where the tax was not paid until after expiration of the applicable period of limitation in which such action or proceeding may be instituted.
I cannot subscribe to this line of reasoning for it is based upon the faulty premise that the proceeding for relief from an unfavorable award by the Board is in the-nature of an original action in the District Court. A careful reading of the entire sec-, tion of the Alaska Workmen’s Compensation Act, which relates to judicial review,1, persuades me to conclude that the filing of an appeal from an award of the Alaska Industrial Board, in the form of a complaint for injunctive relief, does not transform the appellant employer’s role from that of, defendant in the action before the Board to that of plaintiff in the proceeding before the Court. That the employer, in the case before us, remained the defendant on review in the District Court seems to follow quite logically from the fact that he' is actually still defending against the claim initiated against him before the Industrial Board.
A contrary rule prevails in Texas. There the Industrial Accident Board established, under that state’s workmen’s compensation statute is held to be not a court but an administrative agency, and that a suit to set aside the final decision of the board is in fact a suit and not an appeal. Booth v. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n, 132 Tex. 237, 123 S.W.2d 322; Texas Reciprocal Ins. Ass’n v. Leger, Tex.Civ.App., 92 S.W.2d, 482, reversed on other grounds 128 Tex. 319, 97 S.W.2d 677; and Vestal v. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n, Tex.Com.App., 285 S.W. 1041, 1043. It was pointed out by the,court in the Vestal case that the Texas .statute (Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 8307, § 5). declares that, upon an “appeal” being taken, the trial shall be de novo and the court is authorized to determine the issues in such case and not the board.2
*381Under the applicable provisions of the Alaska Workmen’s Compensation Act we have an entirely different situation. With respect to court review of the orders of the Alaska Industrial Board, our statute specifically declares that an award by the full board shall be conclusive and binding as to all questions of fact. The reviewing court may suspend or set aside the award only if it was “not in accordance with law.” It is true that the proceeding to effectuate a review is designated “injunction * * *, mandatory or otherwise,” but that is not a controlling factor, especially since there is no provision in the statute for a trial de novo by the court. The findings of fact by the board cannot be disturbed by the court unless the party seeking the review is able to show that they are unsupported by any substantial evidence. Grant v. Alaska Industrial Board, 11 Alaska 355.3
The section of our statute here under consideration is very similar in substance to section 921 (b) of the Federal Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C.A. § 901 et seq., from which it was evidently copied. Grant v. Alaska Industrial Board, supra. The procedure for review under the federal statute though denominated “injunction proceedings” has been held to be purely one of judicial review of the action of an administrative agency. As was pointed out in Bassett v. Massman Const. Co. 8 Cir., 120 F.2d 230, 233, certiorari denied 314 U.S. 648, 62 S.Ct. 92, 86 L.Ed. 520, the proceeding lacks a cardinal characteristic of ordinary injunction proceedings directed at administrative orders in that there is [except as to jurisdictional issues] no trial de novo of the facts, and, being in the nature of a review proceeding, it is somewhat analogous to an appeal.
In the case of Scott v. Alaska Industrial Board, D.C.1954, 123 F.Supp. 361, 15 Alaska 146, Judge Folta had for determination the question of whether an employer may interpose a counterclaim for the amount of alleged overpayment in a statutory proceeding brought in the District Court for the District of Alaska by an employee to review an award of the Alaska Industrial Board.
Judge Folta, in his opinion, discusses the Bassett case and also the case of Associated Indemnity Corp. v. Marshall, 9 Cir., 71 F.2d 235 and 420. In the latter case the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of a cross complaint likewise interposed in a proceeding by an employee for review of an industrial award, though made by a Deputy Commissioner under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Judge Folta considered ' the reasoning of these two federal decisions highly persuasive, regarded the Alaska statutory proceeding for the review of orders of the Industrial Board to be in the nature of an appeal rather than an independent action, and concluded that the counterclaim of the employer in the case before him should be dismissed.
Both the Bassett case and the case of Associated Indemnity Corp. v. Marshall, declaring the proceeding for review by in*382junction under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act to be analogous to an appeal, had been decided several years prior to the enactment of the Alaska Workmen’s Compensation Act applicable to this case; so it is reasonable to assume that our Legislature was cognizant of the interpretation placed by the Federal courts upon the review proceeding by injunction as contained in the Federal Act from which our Legislature borrowed. This is further borne out by the actual use in our statute of the word “appeal” in reference to the review proceeding. The appellee in his brief also speaks of the review proceeding as an appeal.
Since in the review proceeding before the District Court the status of the appellant remained that of a defendant, the same as it had been when the case was originally instituted before the Industrial Board, it follows that the appellant as such defendant was under no obligation, statutory or otherwise, to allege and prove in the review proceeding that it had paid its annual corporation tax for the year 1959. North Star Trading Co. v. Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, 68 Wash. 457, 123 P. 605.
For the error pointed out, this case should be reversed and remanded to the Superior Court.

. Section 43-3-22, A.C.D.A.1949, a portion of which is quoted by the Court in its footnote 3, supra.

. In much the same vein the Supreme Court of Ohio has held that an appeal by a claimant for workmen’s compensation to the Common Pleas Court, pursuant to the Ohio Workmen’s Compensation statute (Gen.Code, § 1465-90), represents an action or proceeding within the meaning of another Ohio statute (Gen.Code, § 20) providing that whenever a statute is repealed or amended, repeal or amendment shall not affect pending actions or proceedings, and the appeal is an action or proceeding separate from the proceeding resulting from filing of the original claim with the Industrial Commission. Hallworth v. Republic Steel Corporation, 1950, 153 Ohio St. 349, 91 N.E.2d 690, 697. This case is cited by our court in its footnote -17,. supra, in support of the proposition that the Alaska proceeding in District Court *381for injunctive relief against an award of the Industrial Board is separate and apart from the proceeding resulting from the filing of the original claim of the Industrial Board. The case is distinguishable, however, for the reason that a trial by jury was had on appeal.

. In 1959 the Alaska Legislature passed a new Workmen’s Compensation Act, Chap. 193, S.L.A.1959, which repealed the old act in its entirety. While the new act in section 20(3) thereof provides that a compensation order which is not in accordance with law may be suspended or set aside, in whole or in part, through injunction proceedings in tbe District Court; this is not prefaced by any such statement as in the former act that an “award by the full Board shall be conclusive and binding as to all questions of fact.” To the contrary, the Legislature in the same session enacted the Administrative Procedure Act, Chap. 143, S.L.A.1959, providing for review of decisions of all administrative agencies, including the Alaska Industrial Board and declared that the “Superior Courts shall on appeal have the right to augment the agency record in whole or in part, even to the extent of holding a. hearing de novo.” Section 25.