Court Opinion

ID: 9586181
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:08:03.686895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:57.773540
License: Public Domain

Judge KAPELKE
dissenting.
Because I believe there was no proper basis for joinder of Renaissance Salon and State Farm (petitioners) as parties to this proceeding, I respectfully dissent and would vacate the order.
Petitioners were joined pursuant to a motion filed by Oxford Club, Ltd., and its insurer, Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority (collectively respondents). At the time the joinder was permitted, neither the workers’ compensation claimant nor either of the respondents was asserting any claim against the petitioners. Moreover, the respondents would have had no basis for doing so.
In their motion to join the petitioners, respondents simply alleged that the last injurious exposure to the chemicals that caused the claimant’s condition took place when she was an employee of petitioner Renaissance Salon, rather than during the earlier period when she had worked for respondent Oxford Club, Ltd. Respondents did not assert either that claimant was asserting a claim against petitioners or that petitioners were indispensable parties to the proceeding.
As the majority notes in its opinion, the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure apply in workers’ compensation proceedings to the extent that such rules are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act. Nova v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 754 P.2d 800 (Colo.App.1988). No one has suggested that there is any provision of the Act that would be inconsistent with C.R.C.P. 19 or C.R.C.P. 20, which govern joinder.
I agree with petitioners that they were not indispensable parties whose joinder was required pursuant to C.R.C.P. 19. Indeed, respondents do not appear to be arguing that there was any basis for joinder under that rule. Respondents did not allege or demonstrate that complete relief regarding their liability to claimant could not be afforded in the absence of petitioners. See Intermountain Rubber Industries, Inc. v. Valdez, 688 P.2d 1133 (Colo.App.1984) (recognizing that a later employer and its insurer are not indispensable parties to an action involving claims against the previous employer).
The Panel in its ruling concluded that petitioners were properly added as parties under the permissive joinder provisions of C.R.C.P. 20(a). However, under that rule parties may be joined as defendants only “if there is asserted against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative, any right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences. ...” (emphasis added) If, as here, there is in fact no right of relief being asserted against the party whose joinder is being sought, such joinder is improper.
In its order upholding the ALJ, the Panel stated: “[I]t does not exceed the bounds of reason to grant a permissive joinder for the purposes of promoting judicial economy.” However, while judicial economy may be a relevant consideration, it does not by itself serve as a basis for a joinder that is not authorized by either the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure or the Workers’ Compensation Act itself.
Finally, I reject respondents’ contention that Colorado Auto Body, Inc. v. Newton, 160 Colo. 113, 414 P.2d 480 (1966) supports joinder in this situation. In that case, unlike here, no one objected to joinder of the later employer and its insurer. Moreover, in its opinion the supreme court did not address the propriety of the joinder at all.
Here, the first suggestion that claimant intended to assert a claim against petitioners was made at the hearing itself, after claimant’s counsel acknowledged that no actual claim had been asserted- against petitioners prior to that time. In the absence of such a *452claim, the joinder was, in my view, unsupportable and an abuse of discretion.
Finally, petitioners have demonstrated prejudice by showing that they were compelled to participate in a proceeding and ultimately were held liable despite the fact that they were never even given a “notice of the contraction of disease,” as required by § 8-43-102(2), C.R.S.1998. That they appeared at the hearing and proceeded to defend after the joinder had been allowed does not compel a different conclusion. Under the circumstances, they had no realistic choice to do otherwise.