Court Opinion

ID: 9542858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:39:33.172881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:07.050196
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice,
dissenting:
¶ 53 I dissent from the result and reasoning of the lead opinion. I am sympathetic with the result, but cannot find a legitimate way to interpret the statute to reach it. I also cannot join in the separate opinion of Justice Russon. Although he deals more directly with the operation of the statute, and points out the true character of the statute and how it operates, I am not prepared to hold Mr. Vigos entitled to the protection of our estoppel case law. Therefore, I would affirm the court of appeals.
¶ 54 I first address the lead opinion’s interpretation of the statute. In 1988, the legislature passed section 35-1-99(3), which provided that “a claim for compensation for temporary total disability benefits, temporary partial disability benefits, permanent partial disability benefits, or permanent total disability benefits is wholly barred, unless an application for hearing is filed with the industrial commission within six years after the date of the accident.” As Justice Russon points out, this provision requires that any claim for benefits be denied unless “an application for hearing” is filed within six years of the accident. Prior to the passage of this *220provision, section 35-1-99(1) required only the filing of a “claim for compensation,” and that could be filed the later of three years after the accident, or three years after the last payment of some compensation relating to the accident. Our cases had been liberal in finding this requirement to be met, holding that no particular formality was required for something to constitute a filed “claim.” See, e.g., Utah State Ins. Fund v. Dutson, 646 P.2d 707, 709 (Utah 1982). Plainly, the 1988 legislature passed the requirement that an “application for hearing” be filed to preserve a right to compensation in an attempt to tighten the earlier statute, to reject orn-eases, and to set a firm cut off for those seeking compensation by requiring a clear action asserting their claim by the end of the sixth year after the accident. As Justice Russon notes, because the commission, employer, and insurers have not been uniformly requiring the injured person to file an “application for hearing” before paying compensation, in operation the 1988 statute can act as a statute of repose in a broader range of settings than might have been anticipated. For example, where, as here, the injured worker accepts compensation payments and does not file an application, after the six years have run, the commission can reject any request for a new form of compensation by citing the failure to file an application for hearing.
¶ 55 Against this background, the lead opinion purports to set out to determine whether the language of the statute really requires the filing of an application for hearing as a precondition to preserving a claim. The lead opinion pays lip service to the rule that we first look to the language of a statute in finding its meaning, but then it promptly ignores it. Although the statute seems clear on this point, the lead opinion finds the statute unclear and then reads the requirement out of the statute, returning things to the pre-1988 state of affairs and saving Mr. Vi-gos from his failure to file an application for hearing. The only justification Justice Stewart offers for ignoring the text of the statute is the bald assertion that “[t]he filing of [an application] is not the only way to ... preserve an applicant’s rights to benefits,” and the further assertion that under our prior case law, there is “no need for a formal claim, or application for hearing.” ¶¶ 15 & 16. We may not like what the legislature did, and we may not like the way that the agency, the employers, and the insurers are failing to follow the statute, but the legislature certainly has the power to reject our case law and to condition the vesting of a right to compensation upon the filing of an application for hearing. It did so, and I would apply the plain language of the statute. I might encourage the legislature to correct the obvious problem that the requirement of an application for a hearing has created for persons who have been paid compensation without having to file a formal application for hearing and whose injuries become aggravated after the six-year period runs, something that the legislature may not have foreseen. But I do not claim the power to tell them that they must do so, at least not through a creative “interpretation” of this statute that effectively repeals it.
¶ 56 As an alternative to finding that the statute permits him to recover, Mr. Vigos asks us to hold the 1988 statute to violate the Utah Constitution, article I, section 11, as construed in our Berry line of cases. See generally Berry v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 717 P.2d 670 (Utah 1985). Interestingly, neither the lead opinion nor Justice Russon nor Chief Justice Howe in dissent addresses this claim, although at first glance, Berry and its progeny would seem well-suited to address any statute that seems to operate as a statute of repose. See Sun Valley Water Beds of Utah, Inc. v. Herm Hughes & Son, Inc., 782 P.2d 188 (Utah 1989); Horton v. Goldminer’s Daughter, 785 P.2d 1087 (Utah 1989). My colleagues’ silence may be explained by the fact that to use Berry against a statute that itself provides a remedy that the common law did not is to break new ground and raise doctrinal questions about the reach of the Berry line of eases that may be hard for even them to answer. See generally Craftsman Builder’s Supply, Inc. v. Butler Mfg. Co., 974 P.2d 1194, 1224 (Utah 1999) (Zimmerman, J., concurring in the result).
¶ 57 I would decline to address the merits of Mr. Vigos’ article I, section 11 claim for a separate reason: he has entirely failed to *221brief the issue. His brief quotes the constitution and refers cryptically to Berry, but it contains no reasoned discussion of that case, its progeny, or the analytical scheme that they have created. This sort of inadequate briefing routinely leads us to decline to address constitutional questions. See, e.g., Springville Citizens for a Better Community v. City of Springville, 979 P.2d 332, 336 n. 2 (Utah 1999); see also State v. Jaeger, 973 P.2d 404, 410 (Utah 1999); State v. Holland, 777 P.2d 1019, 1022 n. 1 (Utah 1989).1
¶ 58 Justice Russoris non-constitutional estoppel discussion is the one argument advanced on behalf of Mr. Vigos’ position that strikes me as actually addressing how the language of the 1988 statute has interacted with the commission’s maladministration of that same statute to the prejudice of Mr. Vigos. Justice Russon properly notes that despite the statute’s plain requirement, the commission, the employers, and their insurers are regularly paying compensation in the absence of an application for hearing. The consequence of these payments has been to obscure for claimants such as Mr. Vigos the statute’s requirement of an “application for hearing.” Here, it is that failure that his heretofore-benefactors have pounced upon to deny his new claim. At first blush, this seems a situation that cries out for the application of the doctrine of estoppel. Indeed, Justice Russon flatly states that as a matter of law the doctrine of estoppel precludes the assertion of the “application for hearing” requirement to Mr. Vigos’ detriment, and he would so hold. However, he engages in no analysis, simply citing State Department of Human Services v. Irizarry, 945 P.2d 676, 680 (Utah 1997), as setting out the relevant estoppel elements.
¶ 59 The difficulties with this position are several. First, Mr. Vigos has never raised estoppel in any of his briefs, and we do not address issues that are not briefed. See Holland 777 P.2d at 1023 n. 1. Second, there has been no factual determination as to whether the elements of estoppel have actually been met by Mr. Vigos. We are not in a position to make those factual findings, especially when we are aware from the record that he did know of his changed situation before the six year period ran.2
¶ 60 Third, and perhaps most critically, the estoppel law cited in Irizarry is not the only pertinent law for this case. Here, the party against which an estoppel is being asserted is a state agency. The general rule is that a government agency acting in a governmental capacity cannot be estopped. See Utah State Univ. of Agric. & Applied Science v. Sutro & Co., 646 P.2d 715, 718 (Utah 1982). There are exceptions to this rule, as we explained in Sutro and its progeny. See id.; Anderson v. Public Service Comm’n, 839 P.2d 822, 827 (Utah 1992). But to decide whether those exceptions apply, a court must have detailed information about whether the application of the general rule “ ‘would result in injustice, and there would be no substantial adverse effect on public policy.’ ” Plateau Mining Co. v. Utah Div. of State Lands & Forestry, 802 P.2d 720, 728 (Utah 1990) (quoting Sutro, 646 P.2d at 718). Here, we know that Mr. Vigos would be denied the compensation he seeks if the state is not estopped. But we do not know with any certainty what the adverse effect on public policy would be if we were to hold that anyone who has been paid benefits without filing an application for hearing was freed from the six-year statute. I assume that the only adverse effect would be that many persons who the legislature did not intend to be able to recover from the Fund would now be free to do so. But to know whether that result would have a financial or other consequence so great as to warrant our not estop-ping the state would require that we have further briefing, at a minimum. The most *222this court could do under these circumstances would be to order such further briefing sua sponte, a step that still would be a reach when the issue has never before been raised, much less briefed. But we certainly cannot legitimately proceed to the estoppel holding that Justice Russon suggests on this record.3
¶ 61 For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the court of appeals.

. Even if we reached the merits of the constitutional issue Mr. Vigos attempts to raise and applied the ever-changing Berry analysis, he would lose. The statute in question did not operate as a statute of repose for Mr. Vigos and cannot legitimately be analyzed as such. Mr. Vigos knew of his changed disability status for somewhere between nine and twenty-one months before the six-year period ran. Therefore, on these facts, there is no occasion to view him any differently than someone who fails to file on a claim that has become known before the statute of limitations has run. See Brigham Young Univ. v. Paulsen Constr. Co., 744 P.2d 1370, 1374 (Utah 1987).

. See note 1, supra.

. Justice Russon states that this analysis is necessary because the agency is not functioning as a governmental entity. He cites no authority for this proposition; I can find none, and it is certainly not self-evident.