Court Opinion

ID: 9788983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:23:51.602529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:18.205445
License: Public Domain

OPALA, V.C.J.,
concurring in the court’s answer but not in its pronouncement.
¶ 11 concur in today’s answer to the federal court’s question. By the provisions of 85 O.S.2001 § 481 all workers’ compensation awards, regardless of their amount, are totally exempt from all creditors’ claims (except those asserted for the enforcement of a valid child support lien or income assignment). Because my analysis for the court’s conclusion varies somewhat from that expressed in the opinion, I submit my own views by offering this statement of concurrence in the result reached today.
¶ 2 Although for resolution of a legal question before the court the total corpus of pertinent law should be taken into consideration, not all of its sources need be contribu-tive to the answer ultimately pronounced. This principle must guide the court’s answer in this case. The two statutes drawn here to our attention — 85 O.S.2001 § 48 and 31 O.S. 2001 § 1(A)(21)2 — are not in pari materia and hence need not be construed together as a harmonious whole.3 They deal with different subjects. The former section is found in a comprehensive act that addresses itself specifically and solely to the Workers’ Compensation Law, while the latter section deals generally with exemptions from creditors’ levy. Section 48, as well as the entire act of which it forms a part, is public law4 of *1075employers’ liability. In contrast, § 1(A)(21), which relates to the rights of debtors in proceedings to enforce adjudged obligations, constitutes private law. We need not resolve the apparent conflict between the texts of the two sections. The former must be declared to control over the latter.
¶3 Where a matter before the court is addressed by two statutes — one specific and the other general — the specific enactment which clearly focuses on the point in controversy and prescribes the legal norm for resolving the contest, will control over the general statute.5
¶ 4 Section 48 specifically addresses itself to the exemption provided for proceeds of workers’ compensation awards, while § 1(A)(21) generally deals broadly with numerous classes of exemptions from the creditors’ levy. The former section must be allowed to govern here to the exclusion of the latter.
¶ 5 Extant Oklahoma jurisprudence on the matter dealt with here does not form a harmonious body of precedent. I would hence expressly disapprove of all unguarded language found in the past pronouncements which may be regarded as not entirely consistent with today’s conclusion. In the interest of attaining optimal clarity for the contested point of law we settle here, the Bench and Bar deserve to have the court wipe the slate clean of yesteryear’s decisional cacophony. Today’s opinion falls short of achieving that goal.

. The terms of 85 2001 § 48 are:
Claims for compensation or benefits under the Workers' Compensation Act shall not be assigned, released or commuted except as provided by the Workers’ Compensation Act, and shall be exempt from all claims of creditors and from levy, execution or attachment or other remedy for recovery or collection of a debt, which exemption may not be waived. Compensation and benefits shall be paid only to employees; ... Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit any party from the enforcement of any valid lien for child support or valid income assignment for child support.

. The terms of 31 O.S.2001 § 1(A)(21) are:
A. Except as otherwise provided in this title and notwithstanding subsection B of this section, the following property shall be reserved to every person residing in the state, exempt from attachment or execution and every other species of forced sale for the payment of debts, except as herein provided:
* * *
21. Such person’s interest in a claim for personal bodily injury, death or workers’ compensation claim, for a net amount not in excess of Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,-000.00), but not including any claim for exemplary or punitive damages;

. Where the same subject is treated in several acts having different objects the statutes are not in pari materia. Holleyman v. Holleyman, 2003 OK 48, 78 P.3d 921, 942 (supplemental opinion on rehearing’s denial); Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction, § 51.03, pgs 210, 211.

. Workers' Compensation Law falls under the rubric of public-law legislation. Special Indemnity Fund v. Reynolds, 1948 OK 14, 188 P.2d 841, 842, 199 Okla. 570; Reynolds v. Special Indemnity Fund, 1986 OK 64, 725 P.2d 1265, 1270; PFL Life Ins. Co. v. Franklin, 1998 OK 32, 958 P.2d 156, 164 n. 21; Jobe v. American Legion # 7, 2001 OK 75, 32 P.3d 860, 867 n. 22; Amos v. Spiro Public Schools, 2004 OK 4, 85 P.3d 813 n. 18.

. Hall v. Globe Life and Acc. Ins. Co., 1999 OK 89, 998 P.2d 603, 605; State ex rel. Trimble v. City of Moore, 1991 OK 97, 818 P.2d 889, 899; Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction, § 40:3 et seq, pgs. 230 et seq.