Court Opinion

ID: 9786581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:58:35.602593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:53.255700
License: Public Domain

EASTAUGH, Justice,
with whom MATTHEWS, Justice, joins, dissenting in part.
A. Introduction
This appeal turns in part on the interplay between the Alaska Employment Security Act, AS 28.20, and the Alaska Workers' Compensation Act, AS 28.30. Both protect workers against wage loss. A worker recovering under both schemes is potentially overcompensated. The statute that controls this case, AS 23.30.187, avoids overcompensation by prohibiting workers from receiving total disability workers' compensation benefits for weeks for which they received unemployment compensation. This method of avoiding overcompensation reflects a legislative policy choice. The method the court chooses here-allowing the worker to repay unemployment compensation benefits to regain eligibility for workers' compensation benefits-also avoids overcompensation. But the clear words of the statute preclude that choice. The legislative history does not permit us to read the statute to say something it does not; rather, it conflicts with the court's interpretation of section .187. Because it is impossible to square the result reached here with the statute's words, I respectfully dissent from that part of the opinion permitting the worker to recover workers' compensation benefits for weeks when she received unemployment compensation.
B. Background Facts
Mabel DeShong suffered an employment-related injury in 1997 while employed by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. She continued to perform light-duty work for Alyeska until December 2, 1998, when she was laid off. Invoking the Alaska Employment Security Act (AESA) after she was laid off, she sought and received unemployment compensation for 1999. Invoking the Alaska Workers' Compensation Act (AWCA), she also sought temporary total disability (TTD) benefits for the period between December 27, 1998 to September 15, 1999 (when she had successful surgery). The Alaska Workers' Compensation Board, rejecting the employer's argument to the contrary, concluded that DeShong was eligible to receive workers' compensation for that eight-and-a-half month period, even though she had already received unemployment compensation for the same period, "provided she repays the [unemployment benefits] received as required by AS 23.30.1800." The superior court affirmed, observing that the board's interpretation of the statute "is within its expertise."
C. The Result the Court Reaches
Applying, as it must, the nondeferential standard of its own judgment to the statutory interpretation issue presented here, this court affirms the superior court and the board.1 It reasons that requiring DeShong to repay her unemployment benefits before she is "entitled" to receive TTD benefits was an "appropriate response to her situation." 2
D. The Result We Should Reach
Workers' compensation is purely a creature of statute.3 There is no common law right to it.4 Our sole responsibility here is to determine what AS 28.80.187 means. No *1239other provision in the AWCA or the AESA addresses the issue presented.
In interpreting a statute we have rejected a mechanical application of "the plain meaning" rule in favor of a sliding scale approach. " 'The plainer the statutory language is, the more convincing the evidence of contrary legislative purpose or intent must be' The language of a statute is 'construed in accordance with [its] common usage, unless the word or phrase in question has 'acquired a peculiar meaning by virtue of statutory definition or judicial construction. "5 "In ascertaining the plain meaning of a statute, we refrain from adding terms."6 We have observed that legislative history "may provide an insight which is helpful in making a judgment concerning what a statute means, and since words are necessarily inexact and ambiguity is a relative concept." 7
Section .187 is conceptually simple. Its words are simple, clear, and unambiguous. It states that "Compensation is not payable to an employee under AS 23.30.180 or 23.30.185 for a week in which the employee receives unemployment benefits." (Emphasis added.) It thus renders a worker who received unemployment compensation ineligible to receive workers' compensation for total disability for the same period.8 DeShong "received" unemployment compensation for the same weeks for which she seeks TTD benefits. To "receive" is commonly defined as to "acquire or take (something given, offered, or transmitted)"9 Whether or not DeShong repays her unemployment benefits, she "received" them as that word is used in section .187. Section .187 therefore prevents her from recovering TTD benefits for those weeks.
The meaning of section .187 is confirmed by AS 01.10.050(a), which dictates how we are to read the Alaska Statutes. It provides in pertinent part "Words in the present tense include the past and future tenses. ..." This provision requires us to interpret "receives" to include "received" and precludes us from distinguishing between "receives" and "received" when we apply AS 28.80.187.
The extraordinary clarity of the words of section .187 would allow us to deviate from its text only if the legislative history were extremely convincing. Its words are so clear, it is hard to imagine any legislative history that could contradict them.10 But as we will see, the legislative history confirms the words' plain meaning. It certainly does not permit the result the court's opinion reaches.
E. The Problem of Overlapping Benefits
The preeminent workers' compensation treatise has addressed the possibility of eu-mulative wage loss benefits. Larson's treatise recognizes that duplication of benefits from different parts of the system of protecting workers against wage loss should *1240not ordinarily be allowed.11 The treatise recognizes that in reality, a worker experiences only one wage loss and "in any logical system" should receive only one wage-loss benefit.12 Larson observes that some jurisdictions have "permitted collection of both unemployment and workers' compensation benefits for the same period, in the absence of any statutory prohibition.13 The treatise notes, however, that "[the majority of unemployment statutes ... now specifically forbid benefits to anyone drawing workers' compensation." 14 The treatise cites AS 28.80.187 as an example of one such statutory provision15 Larson summarizes acts from other states and observes that state statutes vary considerably, some restricting eligibility under the unemployment compensation acts and some restricting eligibility under the workers' compensation acts.16 Larson observes that "a few compensation acts have recently added an offset for unemployment insurance benefits," and describes how some courts have struggled to coordinate inconsistent statutory systems.17
Before 1982, the legislature offered no clear guidance for how to resolve this potential problem in Alaska. There were possible implicit inconsistencies in seeking both remedies. A worker is entitled to unemployment compensation benefits if the worker is "able to work,"18 and a disabled worker is not necessarily "able to work." Conversely, a worker who is "able to work" is not obviously "disabled," and is therefore not obviously eligible for workers' compensation benefits.19 It is at least arguable that applying for unemployment compensation benefits would be inconsistent with applying for temporary total disability benefits, whether or not the employee, as DeShong did here, indicated that she could only work at light duty tasks. If the two applications are inherently inconsistent, the worker has arguably misrepresented either her ability to work or her disability. Making a misrepresentation or false statement potentially disqualifies a worker from unemployment compensation.20 A person making a false statement or representation to obtain workers' compensation benefits may be required to repay them.21
Yet a worker who is only partially disabled may be able to return to work in some capacity. So in theory, a partially disabled employee who has been laid off "is able to work" in some capacity, and is thereby eligible for both unemployment compensation benefits under AS 28.20, and temporary partial disability or permanent partial disability workers' compensation benefits under AS 23.30.190 or AS 28.30.200. This theoretical dual eligibility is more problematic for a worker who, like DeShong, claims to be totally disabled for workers' compensation purposes.
In 1982 the legislature addressed this problem by enacting AS 28.30.187. The concept behind section .187 is simple. It does only one thing: it precludes an otherwise eligible workers' compensation claimant from receiving temporary total or permanent total disability workers' compensation benefits for a week in which unemployment compensation benefits were received. It thus withdraws eligibility for workers' compensation benefits for those weeks. It does so unconditionally. It contains no words describing or implying a procedure for restoring a claimant's eligibility to recover workers' compensation benefits for those weeks. It contains no words offering an interpretative finger hold for finding such a procedure.
*1241There are many other possible ways to avoid overcompensation. For example, one way might make one scheme or the other the exclusive remedy. Another might permit an offset, reducing workers' compensation benefits by unemployment compensation received for the same period. Another might require pro rata apportionment of benefits under both schemes. And another might require the employee to repay the unemployment compensation benefits before receiving workers' compensation benefits for the same period. Each way allocates burdens and benefits differently. Some favor the worker; some favor the employer who purchases workers' compensation insurance; and some favor the state's employment security. fund (which is in turn funded by employer contributions). Legislatures are best suited for making such choices, because they can decide how best to balance all the interests involved. Courts are ill-suited for choosing among so many possibilities. We have been provided with none of the facts bearing on which way is socially superior, which is the most efficient way to protect workers against wage loss, who best can bear that loss, and how best to apportion the loss if it is to be shared.22
No doubt the legislature could have rationally chosen the method adopted by the board and this court (placing the entire loss on the workers' compensation insurer for the duplicate weeks and reimbursing the unemployment compensation fund). But the legislature did not choose that method. It enacted a statute that treats the receipt of unemployment compensation benefits as an event that disqualifies the worker from receiving workers' compensation benefits.
These policy choices are for the legislature. Our job here is to determine what choice the legislature made. Because its choice is clear, we must adhere to it.
F. Legislative History
The legislative history does not contradict the statute's text and provides no support for rewriting its words. Instead, it suggests that the legislature was aware of other possible ways to avoid overcompensation and nonetheless adopted the simple ineligibility scheme described in section .187.
House Bill 159, introduced in 1981 at the first session of the Twelfth Legislature, was proposed in part because some employers were concerned that injured workers were receiving workers' compensation after they reached medical stability; the employers thought that the primary benefit should bé unemployment compensation.23 The employers proposed that workers' compensation, if still payable, was to be supplemental to the unemployment compensation benefits.24 This proposal contained two provisions, one which was equivalent to section .187 as it now exists, and a second which contemplated eligibility for both unemployment and workers' compensation benefits, in which event the unemployment compensation benefits were to be primary and the workers' compensation benefits were to be only supplemental.25 The origins of section .187 do not support an interpretation-such 'as the court's-that makes workers' compensation the primary wage-loss benefit.
A Senate Labor and Commerce Committee section-by-section analysis of the bill noted that the provision that became section .187 clarified the relationship between workers' compensation and unemployment benefits.
Temporary total and permanent total disability compensation are not consistent with the eligibility of an injured worker to receive unemployment benefits, and accordingly, are not payable to a injured worker receiving unemployment benefits. This section does not affect the payment of *1242temporary partial or permanent partial disability compensation to a worker who is receiving unemployment benefits.[26]
This analysis confirms that the legislature considered total disability workers' compensation benefits to be "not consistent" with eligibility for unemployment benefits, and chose to resolve this inconsistency by making them "not payable" to workers "receiving" unemployment benefits. It also notes that the bill preserved the eligibility of workers who seek only partial disability benefits. DeShong sought total disability benefits, not partial disability workers' compensation benefits.
The history also reveals that legislators were aware of other possible ways of avoiding an overlap. During consideration of HB 159, Representative Terry Martin circulated a memorandum discussing several issues and referring specifically to unemployment compensation.27 He noted that there were situations in which a person could be able to work but could not perform "his old job because of the disability." He proposed this result; "If he is receiving unemployment compensation for any such week, the worker compensation should reduce dollar for dollar any unemployment benefit the individual could otherwise receive." 28 Representative Martin thus proposed a dollar-for-dollar reduction, what this court seems to characterize as an "offset." 29 But the statute as enacted says nothing of such a reduction.
Although the legislature was aware of other ways to address the issue of overlapping benefits, it enacted the flat prohibition expressed in section .187. There is no possibility that in doing so it thought that it was allowing an employee to repay unemployment compensation benefits to regain eligibility for workers' compensation benefits, or that it was making workers' compensation the primary wage-loss remedy. Because employer cost was a motivating factor in adopting section .187, it seems unlikely the legislature wished to adopt a means of preventing double recovery that was apparently the most costly way (for employers) of resolving the problem.
In short, the legislative history reveals nothing ambiguous about section .187. It confirms that the legislature made a policy choice that is inconsistent with the court's interpretation of the statute.
G. Problems with the Court's Rationale
The court permits DeShong to recover TTD benefits even though the statute does not.
In affirming, the court approves the procedure adopted by the board: "Because the board ... did not err in requiring DeShong to repay her unemployment benefits ..., we AFFIRM." 30 But the board based that result on the board's fundamental misreading of section .187. Thus, the board concluded that DeShong was eligible for TTD benefits for the disputed period, "provided she repays the [unemployment] benefits received as required by AS 28.30.187." (Emphasis added.) If the statute had contained such a requirement, it would have implied the remedy the board fashioned. But nothing in section .187 "requires" repayment of other benefits. The linchpin of the board's remedy does not exist. Indeed, the statute says nothing about repayment. And it says nothing about regaining eligibility for workers' compensation. Because the statute makes receipt of unemployment benefits the disqualifying event, and because repayment does not negate the fact of past receipt, the statute's words expressly and implicitly foreclose the board's notion that repayment restores eligibility.
*1243This court's opinion also seems to rest on a similar misapprehension. It reasons that repayment enabled DeShong to receive the workers' compensation benefits "she was entitled to."31 But per section .187, for the weeks for which DeShong received unemployment compensation, she is "entitled to" no workers' compensation benefits.
The court's opinion also implicitly reads the statute to make retention of unemployment compensation the disqualifying event. If it were, repayment might be a fair way to avoid the statutory bar. But the statute's words make receipt, not retention, the disqualifying event.32 Ineligibility does not arise exclusively out of present receipt of benefits; per the plain language of section 187 and AS 01.10.050(a), past receipt is also a disqualifier. DeShong received unemployment benefits in the past; she is consequently ineligible for TTD benefits for those weeks.
The procedure fashioned by the board and endorsed by this court's opinion has the unavoidable effect of adding new words to the statute.33 By limiting the preclusion, the opinion creates a procedure, not implied or expressed by the legislature in section .187 or anywhere else, by which workers' compensation claimants seeking TTD benefits can restore their eligibility. This procedure gives claimants an option the legislature did not choose to give them. Section .187 does not provide injured workers a choice between benefit systems.
Given the clarity of the statute, the legislative history would have fo be remarkably clear to support the court's interpretation of the statute. I do not read the legislative history discussed by the court to imply, much less clearly and unequivocally express, an intention to allow the reading the board and this court attribute to the statute. Moreover, after reviewing the legislative history, the court's opinion observes that "It certainly does not appear that the legislature envisioned the situation currently before this court. ..." 34 That observation seems to conflict with any contention that the statute is ambiguous because it fails to carry out the legislature's intentions with respect to the present situation, or that the legislature actually intended the statute to provide relief in a "situation" like DeShong's.
At first glance, it may seem to make sense to condition recovery of workers' compensation benefits on repayment of unemployment compensation. But section .187 gives the Alaska Workers' Compensation Board no authority to order a workers' compensation claimant to repay benefits the claimant recovered under AS 28.20. The board does not administer unemployment _. compensation claims. Its authority is limited to claims under AS 28.30. Had DeShong declined to repay the unemployment benefits, section 187 would have given the board no legal basis for requiring her to do so as a condition for becoming eligible for TTD benefits. Her refusal would have forced the board to decide whether section .187 permits a worker to receive (and retain) overlapping benefits, or whether (as I think) section .187 prohibits recovery of TTD benefits for the same period. A claimant's willingness to repay the unemployment benefits cannot unilaterally alter the meaning of a statute. The legislature elsewhere gave the board authority to order a person improperly obtaining benefits under AS 23.30 to reimburse the cost of all such benefits, but that authority only covers benefits under "this chapter," ie., workers' compensation benefits.35 That grant of authority reveals that the legislature knew how to write a statute giving the board authority to require repayment when that was what the legislature intended. Nothing I see in AS 283.30 gives the board general authority to do what it did here. Assuming the board has inherent authority to resolve disputes fairly and in a way that maximizes workers' compensation benefits, that authority would not *1244justify reading section .187 to "require" repayment, or to authorize a procedure for regaining eligibility.
The existence of express remedies in other provisions in these acts militates against the procedure approved here. An AESA section, AS 23.20.390, provides for repayment of unemployment compensation benefits, but only if the worker was not entitled to receive them. Section .390 does not refer to the Alaska Workers' Compensation Act or to receipt of workers' compensation benefits; there is no claim here that DeShong was not eligible for Alaska Employment Security Act benefits when she sought and received unemployment compensation payments. Nor does the AESA disqualify a worker from receiving unemployment compensation benefits if the worker also received workers' compensation benefits. Other provisions in these remedial acts reveal that the legislature knew how to enact statutory provisions calling for redue-tions in benefits (AS 28.20.3862), repayment (AS 23.20.390), offsets (AS 23.30.225), or reimbursement (AS 23.30.155(J)), when it wished to do so.
Implicit in the decisions of the board and this court is the notion that the statute permits a partially disabled worker, like DeSh-ong, to be treated differently from a totally disabled worker. But insofar as this distinction seemingly turns on whether a worker, in applying for unemployment compensation, candidly reveals that she was only partially disabled, it is foreclosed by the words of section .187. They flatly preclude recovery of total disability benefits for the weeks for which an employee received unemployment compensation, without regard to what she said in her unemployment compensation application. This distinction is also factually foreclosed here: DeShong sought temporary total, not temporary partial, workers' compensation benefits. Section .187 expressly applies to an employee seeking workers' compensation benefits for total disability.
The court relies on the purpose of the legislation, characterizing it as having the purpose of precluding double recovery.36 Treating that purpose as controlling, the court reads the statute in a way that avoids double recovery, by making DeShong repay the unemployment benefits in order to be eligible to receive TTD benefits. This purpose does not justify misreading the statute. First, this is not the only statutory purpose; the legislative history reveals a variety of motivations; the section-by-section analysis refers to eligibility.37 Second, the words of the statute are so transparent that they control.38 Third, having a purpose of avoiding double recovery does not say how it is to be achieved. The method the legislature chose to prevent double recovery-ineligibility-is effective. That other methods arguably might have been equally effective or socially more desirable does not allow us to rewrite the statute.
The court declines to decide whether an offset might have been superior to reimbursement.39 An offset would be another way to avoid an overlap. An offset would also require both schemes to contribute. On its face, the statute would not permit that result. Of course, it does not permit the result the court reaches, either. Because it declines to consider the offset method, the court simply chooses the repayment method. Each method implicates policy choices best left to the legislature. Permitting a claimant to repay unemployment benefits before receiving TTD benefits means that the full loss is ultimately borne by the workers' compensation system. The choice the court makes today is a policy choice. That there is more than one way to fashion a remedy and that choosing one way necessarily burdens one interest or another confirms that these are choices we should not be making. That is especially so given the complete absence of words in section .187 giving the court any basis for deviating from the choice the legislature made.
*1245The opinion says that requiring DeShong to repay her unemployment benefits before she is entitled to receive TTD benefits is "an appropriate response" to DeShong's "situation." 40 Likewise, the court assumes the legislature did not envision the "situation" now before us. It then describes DeShong's precise "situation."41 That the legislature was arguably not omniscient when it enacted section .187 would not give us authority to craft a remedy the legislature did not. But in this case, the words of the statute are broad enough to include DeShong's situation. It does not matter that her situation is only a subset, even one that may be unique and sympathy provoking, of the situations swept up by AS 23.30.187. This cireumstance does not make the statute less applicable to her, or justify altering it.
Finally, the opinion today creates a problematic legacy for legislators trying to write statutes and parties and courts trying to apply them. If this statute does not mean what it so clearly says, when will a statute ever be applied as written? What could the legislature have said to make its intentions clearer?
H. Conclusion
The court reaches a result the statute does not permit. We should reverse and remand to the board with instructions to deny TTD benefits during the period when DeShong received unemployment compensation.

. Op. at 1233-1234, 1237.

. Op. at 1238.

. See Nickels v. Napolilli, 29 P.3d 242, 247 (Alaska 2001) (explaining that the Workers' Compensation Act is a mutual arrangement of reciprocal rights between employer and employee, whereby both parties give up and gain certain advantages; in exchange for guaranteed recovery for post-injury wage loss and medical expenses, employees give up opportunity to seek full scope of tort or negligence damages); AS 23.30.

. Nickels, 29 P.3d at 248 ("[The remedies offered by the workers' compensation statute su-percede any common law remedies outside of the statutory scheme.").

. Municipality of Anchorage v. Suzuki, 41 P.3d 147, 150-51 (Alaska 2002) (quoting Muller v. BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., 923 P.2d 783, 788 (Alaska 1996) (footnotes omitted)).

. Id. (citing Hickel v. Cowper, 874 P.2d 922, 927-28 (Alaska 1994) ("Our analysis of a constitutional provision begins with, and remains grounded in, the words of the provision itself. We are not vested with the authority to add missing terms or hypothesize differently worded provisions in order to reach a particular result.")).

. Bullock v. State, Dep't of Cmty. & Reg'l Affairs, 19 P.3d 1209, 1214 (Alaska 2001) (quoting State, Dep't of Natural Res. v. City of Haines, 627 P.2d 1047, 1049 n. 6 (Alaska 1981)).

. The two statutes cited in section .187 both deal with total, not partial, disability claims. AS 23.30.180 provides for awards of permanent total disability. AS 23.30.185 governs awards of temporary total disability, the sort of claim DeShong made here. Section .187's prohibition therefore applies only to applicants for total disability benefits.

. Wepster's II New Corneer Dictionary 924 (1995).

. See Enders v. Parker, 66 P.3d 11, 14 (Alaska 2003) ("Where a statute's meaning appears clear and unambiguous, ... the party asserting a different meaning bears a correspondingly heavy burden of demonstrating contrary legislative intent." (quoting Univ. of Alaska v. Tumeo, 933 P.2d 1147, 1152 (Alaska 1997))). See also Evans ex rel. Kutch v. State, 56 P.3d 1046, 1065 (Alaska 2002) ("'When interpreting the language of a statute, we normally give unambiguous language its plain meaning. We may also rely on legislative history as a guide to interpretation, but the plainer the language of a statute, the more convincing contrary legislative history must be to interpret a statute in a contrary manner.") (citations and quotations omitted).

. Artaur Larson & Lex Larson, Larson's Workers' Compensation Law § 97.00 (1999).

. Id. § 97.10, at 18-9, 18-11.

. Id. § 97.20, at 18-12.

. Id.

. Id.

. Id. at 18-12 n. 13.1.

. Id. at 18-12 to 18-21; see also app. B-18A (offset provisions in state workers' compensation laws).

. AS 23.20.378(a).

. AS 23.30.180,.185, .190, .200.

. AS 23.20.387.

. AS 23.30.250(b).

. In addressing the various policy considerations raised by the problem of overlapping benefits, Larson's treatise notes that "the optimum solution is to have this coordination achieved by the legislature, since detailed questions are certain to arise that can only be handled by carefully considered legislation." Larson & Larson, supra note 11 § 97.20, at 18-18. ‘

. House Bill (H.B.) 159, 12th Leg., 1st Sess. (Feb. 13, 1981); Eowarp L. Hitr, RecommEnpEp CHaness to tHE Araskan Workers" Compensation Act, Preparep ror THE Araska CoxnrerEnce or Emprovers, Inc. (1982) (House Labor & Commerce Comm. File, HB. 159 (1981-82)).

. Hite, supra note 23.

. Id.

. Secrion ay Section Anatysts, C.S. ror House Birr No 159 (Senate Labor & Commerce Comm. File, H.B. 159 (1981-82)); see also Comm. Substitute for House Bill (C.S.H.B.) 159, 12th Leg., 2d Sess. (1982).

. Letter from Representative Terry Martin, Chairman House Labor and Commerce Committee, Alaska State Legislature, to All Concerned About Alaska's Worker's Compensation, Referencing More Points of View to Consider for Alaska's Worker's Compensation Legislation, H.B. 159, 1981 (January 5, 1982) (House Labor & Commerce Comm. File, HB. 159 (1981-82)).

. Id.

. Op. at 1235-1236.

. Op. at 1237-1238.

. Op. at 1237.

. Retention would prove unworkable as a disqualifying event under section .187 because the statute does not specify how long one would have to retain unemployment benefits to be disqualified from workers' compensation benefits.

. See supra note 6.

. Op. at 1236-1237.

. AS 23.30.250(b).

. Op. at 1236-1237.

. The only legislative intent expressed in the act that included AS 23.30.187 addressed a completely different provision, and said nothing of double recovery. Ch. 93, § 1, SLA 1982.

. See supra notes 5-7, 9.

. Op. at 1237 n. 51.

. Op. at 1237-1238.

. Op. at 1236-1237.