Court Opinion

ID: 9684279
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:52:27.610843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:54.585773
License: Public Domain

SUNDBY, J.
(dissenting). I conclude that it is bad public policy and contrary to the legislative purpose in enacting § 40.65, Stats., to permit protective occupation employees to "double dip"; that is, to receive benefits for the same injury under the worker's compensation act and the duty disability benefits statute. I therefore dissent.
The legislative history of § 40.65, Stats., shows that the legislature wished to give very generous duty disability benefits to protective occupation employees because of the hazardous nature of their duties. How*198ever, it recognized the danger of perpetuating a duty disability benefit program which allowed employees to retire on disability but receive benefits exceeding their earnings at retirement.
Although we consolidated these appeals, I can best show how the duty disability law operates and its potential for abuse by considering Ronald W. Coutts's case. The parties stipulated that:
1. Coutts was injured August 3,1988.
2. He suffered a permanent partial disability scheduled under § 102.52(1), STATS. — loss of arm at the shoulder: 500 weeks. However, because his loss of use was fifteen percent, his compensation was for seventy-five weeks.
3. By stipulation and order entered April 7,1989, Coutts was paid a lump sum to compensate him for the period between the date of his injury and the date of the order.
4. After payment of attorney fees and the lump sum payment, Coutts was entitled to worker's compensation of $6,393.84 payable in thirteen monthly installments. The insurer made those payments between May 8,1989, and February 19,1990.
5. Coutts continued to work full time for the Racine Fire Department until September 30,1989, and was paid full salary of $3,387.07 per month.
6. On March 20, 1989, Coutts applied for duty disability benefits under § 40.65, STATS. The parties stipulated that Coutts was required to retire because of his permanent physical limitations. On May 18, 1989, the department determined that Coutts was eligible for duty disability benefits of seventy-five percent of his monthly salary, or $2,540.30.
7. The department paid Coutts duty disability benefits for the payroll periods October 1989 through *199January 1990. From each payment it deducted $524.33 until the worker's compensation payments were recovered. The parties stipulated that, in effect, the department computed Coutts's duty disability benefits as if the effective date of such benefits was the date of Coutts's retirement, September 30,1989.
THE LAW
The department argues that where the employee's retirement is made necessary by the injury for which he or she has received worker's compensation and the employee seeks duty disability benefits under § 40.65, Stats., the department is required by § 40.65(5)(b)3 to reduce the amount of the participant's monthly duty disability benefit by any worker's compensation paid or payable to the participant. Coutts contends that such offset is permitted by the statute only when worker's compensation benefits and duty disability benefits are payable at the same time. Coutts gives the word "payable" a temporal component. The legislative history of § 40.65 shows that the legislature used "payable" solely in the sense of entitlement. Coutts's argument also fails because both the language of the statute and its legislative history show that duty disability benefits are intended to be in lieu of worker's compensation, not in addition thereto.
Section 40.65(2)(b), STATS., applies to protective occupation participants "who first apply for benefits under this section on or after May 3,1988." Thus, duty disability benefits are not automatic if the employee's disability causes him or her to retire. To be entitled to duty disability benefits, an employee who retires must demonstrate that he or she was injured on the job or contracted a job-related disease, his or her disability is *200likely to be permanent, and the disability caused the employee to retire. Section 40.65(4).
Coutts's monthly duty disability benefit "is 75% of [his] monthly salary adjusted under par. (b) and sub. (6)." Subsection (6) does not apply to Coutts's benefit.
Paragraph (b) of 40.65(5), Stats., provides in part:
The Wisconsin retirement board shall reduce the amount of a participant's monthly benefit under this section by the amounts under subds. 1. to 6.... The Wisconsin retirement board may assume that any benefit or amount listed under subds. 1. to 6. is payable to a participant until it is determined to the board's satisfaction that the participant is ineligible to receive the benefit or amount, except that the department shall withhold an amount equal to 5% of the monthly benefit under this section until the amount payable under subd. 3. is determined.
"[T]he amount payable under subd. 3" is "[a]ny worker's compensation benefit payable to the participant," see § 40.65(5)(b)3, STATS. The intent of the legislature that an employee's election of duty disability benefits shall be in lieu of worker's compensation is evident from its treatment of lump sum settlements. Subdivision 3 further provides:
A lump sum worker's compensation payment or compromise settlement shall reduce the participant's benefit under this section in monthly amounts equal to 4.3 times the maximum benefit which would otherwise be payable under ch. 102 for the participant's disability until the lump sum amount is exhausted.
If Coutts and the insurer had settled his claim by a lump sum payment, it is clear that his duty disability benefits would have been reduced by the worker's compensation payment. It is illogical to conclude that the *201amount of a participant's monthly duty disability payment depends on the way his or her worker's compensation claim is settled.
Coutts points to subd. 5 of § 40.65(5)(b), Stats., to illustrate the absurdity of giving the word "payable" a "retroactive" construction. That provision requires the board to reduce the amount of a participant's monthly duty disability payment by "[a]ll earnings payable to the participant from the employer under whom the duty disability occurred." He argues that the board's construction of "payable" would require it to apply against his duty disability benefit all wages he ever earned from the City of Racine. Of course, that would wipe out any duty disability benefits. That construction is unreasonable. See Currie v. Schwalbach, 132 Wis. 2d 29, 42, 390 N.W.2d 575, 580 (Ct App. 1986) ("Absurd and unreasonable constructions and applications of statutes are to be avoided."), aff'd, 139 Wis. 2d 544, 407 N.W.2d 862 (1987). Further, Coutts's argument does not consider that the duty disability benefit is a percent of the employee's monthly salary. It would give the employee an unintended windfall to require the department to determine his or her monthly benefit by including earned but unpaid earnings. The legislative history of § 40.65 shows that the legislature also intended to exclude subsequent earnings payable to the employee.
The majority avoids considering the legislative purpose of the statute by finding that the word "payable" is unambiguous. I agree that just because the parties disagree as to the meaning of a statute, phrase or word does not make it ambiguous. However, here, two highly competent, respected trial judges in well-written opinions reach opposite results. Our panel is divided. Not unexpectedly, each party believes that the *202plain meaning of § 40.65, STATS., supports its position. The difficulty, of course, is that the parties reach opposite conclusions as to the "plain" meaning of the language. I am satisfied that the statute is ambiguous and we may resort to extrinsic aids, including legislative history, to resolve the ambiguity. See Village of Shorewood v. Steinberg, 174 Wis. 2d 191, 202, 496 N.W.2d 57, 61 (1993).
Section 40.65, STATS., was created by ch. 278, Laws of 1981, which also created § 66.191(7), Stats., to read: "Beginning on the effective date of this subsection (1981), any person who is eligible for a duty disability benefit under s. 40.65 is not eligible for a benefit under this section."
The drafting records contain a memo prepared by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities describing the then current "special disability benefit" under § 66.191, Stats., for protective occupation employees and the alternative proposal agreed to by an ad hoc committee of municipal employers and representatives of employee organizations. The Director of Retirement Research, in a letter to the Legislative Reference Bureau, described the memo as "as good an outline of the 66.191 plan as there is." The memo stated:
A second benefit of this proposal is that it newly recognizes offsets against the guaranteed level of "maintenance income" and thereby reduces the potential for double or triple dipping. . . . While the proposal would establish a higher percent [then 50%] of final salary as the benefit level, this higher level would be reduced through offsetting the major collateral benefits which a disabled person could expect to receive, as well as subsequent wages and other income which that employe might earn ....
*203The majority criticizes my use of this memo as "defer[ring] to the intent of the League [of Wisconsin Municipalities] and not that of the legislature . . . Majority op. at 195. This is an unfair criticism because, as I pointed out in my dissent, the Director of Retirement Research, in a letter to the Legislative Reference Bureau, described the memo as "as good an outline of the 66.191 plan as there is." The author of the majority opinion has not researched the legislative history of § 40.65, Stats., because he finds the statute unambiguous. If that position is sound, why does the author spend so much time attacking my review of the legislative history? It is unfair for the author to attack my review of the legislative history without examining that history. As long as the majority is now willing to explore the legislative history, further development of that history is appropriate.
The bill which created § 40.65, STATS., was approved by the Joint Survey Committee on Retirement Systems, which found that "the bill reflects good public policy." Drafting record of ch. 278, Laws of 1981, LRB-4909/1 (Joint Survey Committee Report). The Joint Survey Committee was required to report to the legislature as to the public policy implicated in any legislative proposal affecting the retirement of or payment of pensions to public officers or employees. Section 13.50(6), Stats., 1981-82. In fact, the legislature could not enact any bill or amendment affecting the retirement or pensions of public officers or employees until it had received the report of the Committee. In its statement of the public policy of proposed § 40.65, the Committee stated that "[t]he [66.191 duty disability benefits] program is criticized by employers who believe that it provides duplicate benefits in some circumstances, and it is also criticized by employees who *204believe the program is inadequate in other circumstances." Drafting record, LRB-4909/1 at 3. The Committee pointed out that the duty disability benefit program "has been developed by employer and employee representatives who have met over the last year and one-half as an Ad Hoc Committee." Id. The Committee found that the bill "reflects good public policy" because it corrected these problem areas. See id.
Regrettably, the majority has chosen an approach to this debate which gives the reader only part of the story. Had the author of the majority opinion done the research of the legislative history which I have done, he would have understood what the League meant by "double dipping." The Report of the Joint Survey Committee makes clear that one of the problems studied-by the Ad Hoc Committee was that duty disability benefits under § 66.191, STATS., 1981-82, were "not . . . coordinated with other income replacement programs such as social security, worker's compensation, unemployment compensation, the state retirement system, etc." Drafting record, LRB-4909/1 at 3. The Committee described § 40.65, Stats., as follows: "The new program provides disability benefits at 80% of the salary at the time of disability, indexed for inflation, but offset by other sources of income such as social security, worker's compensation, unemployment compensation, other retirement benefits and current earnings." Drafting Record, LRB-4909/1 at 2 (emphasis added).
The legislative history of § 40.65, Stats., makes clear the purpose of the statute. The majority avoids giving effect to that purpose by ignoring it. The canon of legislative construction which does not permit examination of the legislative history of a statute is premised on the fact that the language of the statute is so clear that language must be followed regardless of *205what the legislature intended. In other words, the legislature dropped a stitch in expressing its intent. I cannot say with the majority's insouciance that the statute is so clear on its face that there is no room to determine and apply the legislative intent. I believe I am entitled to hold that opinion without being unfairly criticized by the majority for "picking and choosing" those parts of the legislative history which support my position. I challenge the majority to find any part of the legislative history of § 40.65 which supports its position.
While there is no suggestion in the record or briefs that Coutts delayed his retirement until he exhausted most of his worker's compensation benefits, his situation demonstrates how the "double dipping" the legislature targeted could be achieved if § 40.65(2)(b), Stats., is construed as plaintiffs urge. I reject that construction as bad public policy and contrary to the legislative purpose. I therefore dissent.