Court Opinion

ID: 9534532
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:40:39.216961+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:31:13.324290
License: Public Domain

Fatzek, J.,
dissenting: The legislature has provided in K. S. A. 44-532 how an employer may become a self-insurer. Such an employer is required to furnish proof to the director of his or its financial ability to pay compensation awarded to his employees. The purpose of this requirement is obvious. It is to permit the director to determine in advance the financial ability of the employer to pay compensation, and if proof of such ability is lacking, to deny the application and require the employer to insure and keep insured the payment of compensation with a corporation or association authorized to transact the business of workmen’s compensation in this state.
*226Since it is conceded that Gibraltar had not furnished proof to the director of its financial ability to pay compensation and thus be classified as a self-insurer within the meaning of 44-532, I think the court is unwarranted in construing 44-556 so as to include Gibraltar as a self-insurer. The legislature can speak with drastic clarity on all matters dealing with workmen’s compensation and it is not to be supposed it would provide the manner in which an employer could be classified as a self-insurer in one section of the Act and ignore that classification or requirement in another section. Not being a self-insurer within the meaning of 44-532, Gibraltar was not entitled to make the tenders of compensation it did and, thereby, present a defense to plaintiff’s action to recover a lump-sum judgment for all compensation then due and unpaid.
Wertz, J., joins in the foregoing dissent.