Court Opinion

ID: 9595713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:42:49.322326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:30.355779
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Vice Chief Justice,
with whom LAVENDER, SIMMS and SUMMERS, Justices, join, dissenting.
The court appears to hold that, whenever claimant’s adjudged disability is permanent and total, a counsel-fee award against the Special Indemnity Fund [Fund] must be commuted to a lump sum. I cannot accede to today’s pronouncement. Unlike the general provision of workers’ compensation law (85 O.S.1981 § 30),1 which expressly sanctions lump-sum payments to satisfy an attorney’s fee award in ordinary claims against the employer, the specific, self-containing statute (85 O.S.1981 § 172),2 which governs the Fund’s liability in suit to the *434exclusion of all others, explicitly prohibits commutation of any part of a permanent total disability adjudication. In short, the controlling norm of our statutory law interdicts the acceleration of all periodic payments due from the Fund for satisfaction of permanent total disability.
Liability of the Special Indemnity Fund is derivative, separate and self-containing.3 Indeed, the Fund was established as a scheme of benefits supplementary to the compensation regime which governs employers. The Fund’s obligation is controlled by free-standing provisions that are not amendatory of the workers’ compensation law.4 They do not modify benefits awardable against the employers, but rather shift — from the last employer to the Fund — only that liability which is attributable to the worker’s “increased” permanent disability.5
The Workers’ Compensation Court is a tribunal of legislative creation; its authority to accelerate payments of adjudicated benefits — nay, to exercise any judicial power — is completely dependent upon statutory sources.6 In the absence of a legislative norm that either expressly or impliedly confers upon it the requisite authority to act, the court is utterly powerless.
It is hornbook law that a provision like § 172 — one enacted for the primary purpose of dealing with a particular, narrow subject — will control over any general legislation — such as that embodied in § 30 — even though the latter may contain language broad enough to serve as the applicable legal norm if the more specific statute had not been in force.7 The terms of § 172 do not authorize a counsel-fee commutation of the Fund’s liability that is here in dispute. The general commutation provisions of § 30, which regulate proceedings against employers only, are clearly contrary to those in § 172. The former are hence unavailable against the Fund. The latter enactment — one of special application to the Fund — controls over the former, which is general and invocable only against affected employers of covered workers.
I would vacate the trial judge’s commutation order and direct that the award’s periodic payment schedule be adapted to satisfy the counsel-fee portion.

. The pertinent terms of 85 O.S.1981 § 30 provide:
"If the Court before which any proceedings for compensation or concerning an award of compensation have been brought, under the Workers' Compensation Act, determines that such proceedings have not been brought on a reasonable ground or that denial of benefits has not been based on a reasonable ground, the Court shall assess the total cost of the proceedings on the party, who has brought them or the party who has unreasonably denied payment of benefits. * * * Claims for legal services for temporary disability awards shall be paid periodically. Claims for legal services for permanent partial disability awards may be paid in a lump sum the same to be deducted from the end of the award. Claims for legal services for permanent total disability awards or death awards may be paid in a lump sum which shall be deducted from the periodic compensation payments at a rate of ten percent (10%) per payment until the attorney fee is satisfied.” (Emphasis added.)

. The pertinent terms of 85 O.S.1981 § 172, the statute in force at the time of claimants' injuries in suit, provided:
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"B. * * * In permanent total disability cases the same [the amount of compensation payable by the Special Indemnity Fund] shall be paid in periodic payments ... and shall not be commuted to a lump-sum payment. * * * ” (Emphasis added.)

. Cameron & Henderson v. Franks, 199 Okl. 143, 184 P.2d 965, 970-971 (1947); Levi v. Special Indemnity Fund, Okl., 389 P.2d 620, 622 (1964); Reynolds v. Special Indem. Fund, Okl., 725 P.2d 1265, 1268 (1986).

. Special Indemnity Fund v. Barnes, Okl., 434 P.2d 218, 220 (1967).

. Special Indemnity Fund v. Barnes, supra note 4 at 220; Special Indemnity Fund v. Davidson, infra note 6 at 1018.

. Special Indemnity Fund v. Davidson, 196 Okl. 118, 162 P.2d 1016, 1018 (1945).

. Parks v. Stith, 204 Okl. 625, 232 P.2d 614, 614-615 (1951) (the court's syllabus ¶2); State v. O’Bannon, 182 Okl. 173, 77 P.2d 70 (1938) (the court’s syllabus ¶ 1).