Court Opinion

ID: 9627874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:57:47.461137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:51.772233
License: Public Domain

Andersen, J.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part) — I concur with the majority opinion except as to the majority's conclusion that the Department's responsibility for claimant's attorneys' fees should be based on the state compensation owed claimant less the social security disability benefits he is to receive. I would hold that the Department's share of attorneys' fees must be based on the claimant's entire entitlement under the Industrial Insurance Act.
*161I base my dissent on the following wording of RCW 51.24.010:
In any action brought under this section wherein recovery is made by compromise and settlement or otherwise, the department or self-insurer, to the extent of the benefits paid or payable under this title, shall bear its proportionate share of attorney's fees and costs incurred by the injured workman or his widow, children, or dependents, as the case may be, and the court shall approve the amount of attorney's fees.
(Italics mine.) RCW 51.24.010 (part).
The italicized portion of the statute makes it clear that the Department's share of attorneys' fees is to be based on the entire sum of benefits "payable" to a claimant. While this statute has since been repealed, it was still in effect when RCW 51.32.220, requiring state compensation under the Industrial Insurance Act to be reduced by the amount of federal disability benefits received, was adopted.1
These statutes are not inconsistent for the following reasons. Whether the State pays the entire amount due a claimant under the Industrial Insurance Act, or whether the federal government pays some portion thereof pursuant to RCW 51.32.220(1), the claimant's entitlement remains the same. It is that entitlement, in its entirety, that forms the basis of the Department's share of attorneys' fees under RCW 51.24.010, set out above. This statute plainly states that the Department's share of attorneys' fees shall be based on the "benefits . . . payable under this title". Those benefits consist of the entire amount due to the claimant from the State, regardless of what portion is paid by what governmental body.
To my view, the majority errs when it holds that the Department's share of attorneys' fees is to be based on the claimant's entitlement less his social security benefits and I dissent from that part of the opinion. I would hold that the Department's share of the claimant's attorneys' fees should *162be based on the entire amount of claimant's entitlement, regardless of the share paid by the federal government.
Utter, Dolliver, and Durham, JJ., concur with Andersen, J.

See Laws of 1975,1st Ex. Sess., ch. 286, § 3.