Arrow Tool & Gauge v. Mead

Citation16 P.3d 1120,2000 OK 86
Decision Date31 October 2000
Docket NumberNo. 92,782.,92,782.
PartiesARROW TOOL & GAUGE and Sentry Claims Service, Petitioners, v. Deborah J. MEAD and The Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma

Michael W. McGivern and Andrew D. Downing, Rhodes, Hieronymus, Jones, Tucker & Gable, Tulsa, OK, for Petitioners.

John L. Harlan, John L. Harlan & Associates, P.C., Sapulpa, OK, for Respondents.

OPALA, J.

¶ 1 The dispositive issue tendered for corrective relief on certiorari is whether claimant's motion to reopen her workers' compensation claim, based upon a change in her condition, was filed within the time prescribed by the provisions of 85 O.S. Supp. 1997 § 43(C). We answer in the affirmative.

I ANATOMY OF LITIGATION

¶ 2 On 13 January 1990 Deborah J. Mead (Mead or claimant), a press operator for Arrow Tool & Gauge (Arrow),1 felt a popping sensation in her left knee as she swept the floor around her work area. When she awoke the next day with a swollen knee, she sought medical attention. The condition of her knee failed to improve. Over the next year Mead underwent two knee surgeries. Pain spread to other parts of both her lower extremities as well as to her lower back. After receiving temporary total disability payments for approximately two years, Mead filed a claim for compensation, which named as respondents Arrow and its insurance carrier, Sentry Claims Service. On 15 January 1993 Mead was awarded compensation for permanent partial disability.2 An order nunc pro tunc — to correct an error in the award's calculation — was entered on 26 January 1993.

¶ 3 The next month Mead moved the trial tribunal to provide her with vocational rehabilitation services.3 This was followed in March by her motion to find Arrow in default for want of payment upon the January 15/26 award and to make that award immediately due and payable in its entirety.4 These two motions were disposed of by separate orders entered on 16 August 1993.5 In one of these the trial tribunal ordered that Mead be furnished with a vocational rehabilitation evaluation; in the other, Mead's motion to commute (to a lump sum) payments due under the January 15/26 permanent disability award was denied. Four and one-half years later, on 26 February 1998, Mead moved to reopen her claim (on a change in condition) to authorize additional surgery on her left knee. Arrow responded by denying that a change had occurred. It also asserted that Mead's quest was time-barred by the provisions of 85 O.S. Supp.1997 § 43(C).

¶ 4 On 16 July 1998 the trial tribunal rejected Arrow's time-bar defense, ruling that Mead's motion had been filed within the time prescribed by statute — 260.5 weeks from the date of the last order entered in the case, which was identified as that of 16 August 1993.6 The trial tribunal also found that Mead had undergone a change of physical condition for the worse since the last order had been entered and directed Arrow to provide her with all reasonable and necessary medical care and treatment to correct her worsened condition. Arrow appealed to a three-judge review panel (the panel). On 25 February 1999 the panel adopted the trial tribunal's order.

¶ 5 Arrow then sought review of the panel's order.7 In a single assignment of error, it argued that the panel erred in ruling that Mead's request for relief was timely brought. The Court of Civil Appeals, Div. III, agreed with Arrow that Mead's quest to reopen was initiated after the statutory time for so doing had expired. We granted Mead's certiorari petition and now vacate the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion, sustaining the panel's order which adopted the trial judge's conclusions.

II STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 6 The dispositive issue is whether Mead's motion to reopen on change in her condition stands time-barred by the provisions of 85 O.S. Supp.1997 § 43(C). Resolution of this question, one of first impression, calls for ascertaining the meaning of certain critical words found in the statutory text. Our task is to consider whether the panel correctly construed those words. Statutory construction presents a question of law.8 A compensation tribunal's legal rulings, like those by a district court judge, are on review subject to an appellate court's plenary, independent and nondeferential reexamination.9 We hence review de novo the panel's ascription of the meaning that is to be attributed to the critical part of the statutory text.10

III

MEAD'S POSTAWARD MOTION TO REOPEN ON CHANGE IN CONDITION WAS FILED WITHIN THE TIME PRESCRIBED BY THE PROVISIONS OF 85 O.S. SUPP.1997 § 43(C)

¶ 7 The law governing the reopening of a compensation claim upon a change in condition is that which was in effect at the time the claimant's condition underwent a change, and not the law in effect at the time of the injury or the law in force at the time of the original award.11 Mead's condition is deemed to have undergone a change on 16 January 1998, when her physician made a medical determination that her condition had worsened.12 The statutory time-bar applicable to Mead's reopening quest is hence governed by the terms of 85 O.S. Supp.1997 § 43(C). That statute provides in pertinent part:

"C. The jurisdiction of the Court to reopen any cause upon an application based upon a change in condition shall extend for that period of time measured by the maximum number of weeks that could be awarded for the particular scheduled member where the change of condition occurred, or for three hundred (300) weeks in the case of injuries to the body or injuries not otherwise scheduled under the provisions of Section 22 of this title, and unless filed within said period of time after the date of the last order, shall be forever barred. An order denying an application to reopen a claim shall not extend the period of the time set out herein for reopening the case." (emphasis added)

¶ 8 Mead argues the words "last order", found in the penultimate sentence of the quoted text, clearly and unambiguously refer to the trial tribunal's most recently issued order, regardless of the order's substance or content. Arrow urges that such a construction would render any limitations period utterly meaningless. This is so because a claimant could retrigger ad infinitum the applicable limitation by repeatedly bringing immaterial, collateral post-award motions and obtaining orders that grant or deny those successive motions. To avoid this absurd result, Arrow exhorts us to hold that the words "last order" in § 43(C) encompass only the original order that determines the presence or absence of permanent disability. We disagree and, for the reasons to be stated, declare today that for purposes of § 43(C) a "last order" is only that which substantially affects the monetary, medical, or rehabilitative benefits conferrable by the workers' compensation law.

¶ 9 A permanent disability award made under the provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act (the "Act")13 constitutes a solemn adjudication that a worker's healing period has come to an end and his/her condition (or state of health) has reached the very optimum that is then medically attainable.14 Once adjudged to have permanent disability, a worker is entitled to medical attention only upon establishing recurrence of the post-award healing period in a reopening proceeding under the provisions of 85 O.S.1991 § 28.15 That section provides in pertinent part:

"Upon its own motion or upon the application of any party in interest, on the ground of a change in conditions, the Court may at any time review any award, and, on such review, may make an award ending, diminishing or increasing the compensation previously awarded, subject to the maximum or minimum provided in the Workers' Compensation Act,. . . ."

¶ 10 Originally enacted in 191516 in substantially the same form as that just quoted here, § 28 provided statutory authority for the continuing jurisdiction of the trial tribunal to entertain reopening claims — those for a modification of compensation due one upon a changed condition — without any time-bar for commencement of such proceeding. Although § 28 has never been amended in this respect, it is no longer true that lapse of time does not affect the commencement of a reopening claim. This is so because in 1933 the legislature amended § 43 of the Act by adding a provision that established a point in time beyond which a claim could no longer be reopened.17

¶ 11 Until 1986 (when it was again amended), the 1933 version of § 43 provided in pertinent part,

"The jurisdiction of the [tribunal] . . . to reopen any cause upon an application based upon a change in condition shall extend for the maximum period of time measured by the number of weeks for which compensation could have been awarded by the [tribunal] . . . had the condition of the claimant existed at the time original award was made thereon and unless filed within said period of time, same shall be forever barred." (emphasis added)

Without specifically discussing the conflict between the seemingly unlimited time prescribed by § 28 and the later-enacted time-bar imposed by § 43, the court held in 1935 that the latter's enactment ended the tribunal's18 unrestricted authority to hear claims based on a changed condition. It prescribed a time-bar for commencing reopening quests.19 Until the 1986 amendment of § 43(C),20 this court consistently construed that section's applicable time period as running from the date of the determination of the presence or absence of permanent disability resulting from an injury.21

¶ 12 When the legislature amended § 43(C) in 1986, it changed the language describing the event from which the reopening bar runs. The statute stated in pertinent part:

"C. The jurisdiction of the Court to reopen any cause upon an application based upon a change in condition shall extend for that period of time measured by the maximum number of weeks that could be awarded for the particular scheduled member where the change of
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