Court Opinion

ID: 9534196
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:37:29.437527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:54.677550
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(dissenting):
In my view, the Commission has no authority to hold an uninsured employer liable to the Default Indemnity Fund. That liability can only be established in a district court. The Commission’s findings of fact and conclusions of law establish that “the employer was in no position to pay the medical bills or the compensation benefits due” the injured worker and that those expenses were the obligation of the employer. The Commission also established that the Default Indemnity Fund was liable to pay to the injured employee the amount of the award. All that is simply a predicate for establishing the Default Indemnity Fund’s liability, which the Commission is clearly authorized by statute to do. But the Commission has no power to award the Fund subrogation rights against the uninsured employer or to hold the employer liable to the Fund. Even if that were the Commission’s intent, it has no statutory authority whatsoever to do that. The Fund’s right of subrogation against the employer ought to be established in a court of law, not by the Commission, and especially not by the so-called correction of a “clerical error.”