Court Opinion

ID: 9548255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:00:39.547345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:43.033241
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
specially concurring.
I agree to affirm the benefit denial, but differ in extension of this decision to determinations not required for present disposition. Controlling in my perspective are the facts that the partnership had no account for worker’s compensation and that neither partner made any effort to comply with premium payment requirements which would demonstrate intent to establish an employer/employee status within the partnership operation for worker’s compensation purposes or otherwise.
I do not necessarily agree that a partnership is not a separate entity from its constituent partners as is to be found within various contexts, including initial liability and tax reporting status. Similarly, I see no need nor justification to presently determine that coverage will not be established if the partnership establishes the account and lists the partners as covered workers in premium payment. This result may be required by the constitutional mandate of Wyo. Const, art. 10, § 4, establishing worker’s compensation, and as similarly defined in due process and equal protection by Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 6 and Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 34, uniform operation of general law, which serve by conception of the Wyoming Constitutional Convention of 1890 to amplify and synthesize restrictions imposed by U.S. Const, amend. XIV.
Finding a specific factual basis for affirmation, I do not join the majority in presently pursuing the more pervasive issues of legislative intent, statutory construction or constitutional limitation that need not now be considered. In due time, if W.S. 27-12-102(a)(vii) (1983 Replacement) remains unamended, this court can then consider those broader issues when presented by the employee claimant partner who, having been listed for coverage with premium paid, sustains a job related injury.
GOLDEN, Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur in the majority’s analysis of the first issue in this case. On the second issue, I agree with the result reached by the majority, but disagree with its analysis in arriving at that result.
In the second issue, appellant specifically argues that if the Wyoming Worker’s Compensation Act is construed such that working partners cannot qualify as employees eligible for death benefits, the act violates appellant’s right to equal protection under the U.S. Const, amend. XIV and Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 34. Appellant asserts that all persons who do extrahazardous work in Wyoming, whether they are working partners or corporate officers, are similarly situated such that the legislature cannot rationally categorize among them when it defines an “employee” under the worker’s compensation laws. Before we reach the rational basis test analysis set forth in the majority opinion, we should satisfy ourselves that persons who are working partners and persons who are corporate officers are all persons “similarly situated” in the first instance when those categories are viewed in terms of the purpose behind Wyoming’s worker’s compensation laws.
The concept of equal protection deals with the government’s legislative ability to further a rational governmental objective or purpose by categorizing a specific group of persons from a larger initial group of persons who are “similarly situated.” Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312, 333-40, 42 S.Ct. 124, 129-32, 66 L.Ed. 254, 263-67 (1921). See also Tussman and tenBroeck, The Equal Protection of the Laws, XXXVII Calif.L.Rev. 341, 344-47 (1949). To be “similarly situated,” the initial group of persons must all possess some basic trait in relation to the purpose that the legislative classification attempts to achieve. Tussman and tenBroeck, supra. See also the analysis used by this court in Small v. State, 689 P.2d 420, 424-27 (Wyo. 1984), cert. denied, sub nom. Small v. Wyoming, 469 U.S. 1224, 105 S.Ct. 1215, 84 L.Ed.2d 356 (1985).
For example, consider the legislative classification presented by a zoning law *18restricting the height of buildings that can be constructed on city lots. Similarly situated persons affected by the law all possess the basic trait of ownership of a city lot upon which a building can be constructs ed; the classification among those persons targets those who want to build tall structures on their lots. The basic trait which similarly situates the initial group is evident only when viewed in terms of the purpose of the law making the classification. Tussman and tenBroeck, supra.
The purpose behind the constitutional amendment and the subsequent legislation that created the Wyoming worker’s compensation system was an economic one that essentially embodied “a compromise between employers and employees who recognized the need for a new system to compensate employees for employment related injuries without the employee having to rely upon tort concepts.” Baker v. Wendy’s of Montana, Inc., 687 P.2d 885, 887 (Wyo.1984) (emphasis added). See also Meyer v. Kendig, 641 P.2d 1235, 1238 (Wyo.1982) and cases there cited. The basic trait all employees shared in light of this governmental purpose was that, before worker’s compensation, they all possessed the common law right to sue their employers in tort for injuries they received during the course of their employment. Therefore, to be similarly situated in the first instance under the worker’s compensation laws, a person had to be an employee who would have been able to sue his or her employer in tort for work related injuries.
Working partners did not possess that basic trait when the legislature passed the worker’s compensation laws. At common law, a working partner has never been able to maintain an action at law, here a tort action, for injuries arising out of work that furthers the object of the partnership. Svetik v. Svetik, 377 Pa.Super. 496, 547 A.2d 794, 799 (1988). This is because partners are co-owners in a business for profit, who, like joint ventures, would have to sue themselves to sue the partnership entity. Id. See also W.S. 17-13-201(a); W.S. 17-13-305; W.S. 17-13-307(a)(i); W.S. 17-13-401(a)(ii). Cf. Boehm v. Cody Country Chamber of Commerce, 748 P.2d 704, 706 (Wyo.1987) (discussing the rule for joint venturers).
Viewed in this way, working partners never were “employees” who gave up the right to sue their employees in tort when the legislature made its worker’s compensation compromise between employees and employers. They were not “similarly situated” with corporate officers when the legislature passed the law that makes the challenged classification. Further, the legislature has the right to address a desired governmental objective in a piecemeal fashion if it desires to do so. See Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, 348 U.S. 483, 488-90, 75 S.Ct. 461, 465-66, 99 L.Ed. 563, 573 (1955). Since appellant cannot show that working partners and corporate officers were “similarly situated” under the purpose behind the worker’s compensation legislation, her argument fails at the outset.
I would affirm on appellant’s second issue using this approach.
URBIGKIT and GOLDEN, JJ., files specially concurring opinions.