Court Opinion

ID: 9528209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:38:21.652241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:24.295143
License: Public Domain

Roe, A.C.J.
(dissenting)—I dissent. In order to allow this appeal beyond the 60-day limitation period set forth in RCW 51.52.060, the majority finds the department's initial award, made in 1975, void. It does this under the authority of Booth v. Department of Labor & Indus., 189 Wash. 201, 64 P.2d 505 (1937). In Booth, the plaintiff widow received a pension of $35 per month, which was terminated because of her alleged remarriage. Booth appealed that action. In settlement, the department agreed to return Booth to the pension rolls and to then convert her pension into a lump sum payment of $2,600. The order of the department which both reinstated Booth and converted the pension into a lump sum award was never signed by the State Insurance Commissioner as required by statute. Over 1 year later, Booth petitioned the department to readjust her award, seeking $1,400 to meet the $4,000 maximum allowed by statute. The department denied the petition and Booth appealed to the Superior Court, which found in her favor.
In upholding the trial court, the Supreme Court held the department must comply in amount with this computation as fixed by the statute.
It is not the function of the department, in such cases, to *485award an amount which it, for one reason or another, may deem just under the particular circumstances, even though the beneficiary may agree to accept such amount. Its function is to follow the method provided for the determination of the necessary facts and then apply the statutory measure of compensation to the particular case.
Booth, supra at 208. Booth addressed itself to departmental actions which involved mathematical computations set forth in the statutes. This interpretation is strengthened by later cases which relied on Booth. Hicks v. Department of Labor & Indus., 1 Wn.2d 686, 97 P.2d 111 (1939); Horton v. Department of Labor & Indus., 199 Wash. 212, 216, 90 P.2d 1009 (1939); Hagen v. Department of Labor & Indus., 193 Wash. 555, 561, 76 P.2d 592 (1938).
The Booth court held that such an award was void, Booth, supra at 209, and because it was void, no appeal from it was necessary and the statute of limitations did not apply. Booth, supra at 210. Later cases, in explaining Booth, agreed the department's order was void, but void "in the sense that it did not relieve the department from payment of the full amount due to the appellant." Sorenson v. Department of Labor & Indus., 19 Wn.2d 571, 575, 143 P.2d 844 (1943). See also Deal v. Department of Labor & Indus., 78 Wn.2d 537, 540, 477 P.2d 175 (1970).
The instant case is not concerned with the errors of the department in inaccurately computing the amount due Mrs. Fairley, but with the department's interpretation of the statute relating to the meaning of public insurance. This is not, for me, a case in which the order is void, but instead one in which the department's interpretation of a statute was found 4 years later by the Supreme Court in another case to be incorrect.3 Standing v. Department of Labor & Indus., 92 Wn.2d 463, 598 P.2d 725 (1979). I do not believe such a chain of events retroactively renders a previous order void. It if did, whenever a case overrules a *486prior case holding, all awards in other cases based on that holding would be void and there would be no limitation on their appeals. When our Supreme Court overrules a prior decision, does it permit appeal from all superior court cases which relied thereon and from which no appeal was ever timely taken? I do not believe this is what the Booth court intended, nor do I believe it to be a correct statement of the law. The department must be able to make awards based on its interpretation of a statute with the assurance that its awards may be challenged only by the statutory procedures until its interpretation is reversed by a court or by a subsequent legislative action. Is it the effect of the majority that overpayments or underpayments of welfare grants are not subject to a statute of limitations because of a misinterpretation of need, reportable income or clerical errors iri computing the amounts? The majority, in finding the order void, with its attendant decision that appeal is possible without time limitation, unduly and without reason hinders the department in its work and occasions a startling legal principle which will seriously trouble the courts. Accordingly, I dissent.
Reconsideration denied May 20, 1981.
Review denied by Supreme Court September 3, 1981.

After Standing, the legislature disagreed with the Supreme Court and reinstated the meaning given the statute by the department in the case at bench. Laws of 1980, ch. 156, §§ 1, 2, p. 504-05.