City of St. Louis v. Grimes

• Decision Date: 09 March 1982
• Docket Number: No. 62584,62584
• Citation: 630 S.W.2d 82
• Parties: CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Appellant, v. Beverly GRIMES, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 82

630 S.W.2d 82

CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Appellant, v. Beverly GRIMES, Respondent.

No. 62584.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

March 9, 1982.

Rehearing Denied April 6, 1982.

Thomas A. Connelly, City Counselor, James R. Hartung, Robert H. Dierker, Jr., Asst. City Counselors., St. Louis, for appellant.

John J. Larsen, St. Louis, for respondent.

MORGAN, Judge.

In this Workers' Compensation case under Chapter 287, RSMo 1978, the City of St. Louis as appellant (employer) seeks review of the trial court's judgment which affirmed summarily a Final Award of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission in favor of respondent (employee) and rejected any offset against the permanent partial disability award for wages paid by appellant while respondent was disabled and not working. We reverse.

The facts of the case are not in dispute. Respondent suffered an accidental injury in the course of her employment and was off work for 321/7 weeks during which time appellant continued to pay her full wage of $254.95 per week. A claim for workers' compensation was filed and the Administrative Law Judge entered an award on March 14, 1979, granting to respondent 321/7 weeks of temporary total disability and 40 weeks of permanent partial disability (10%) for a total award ¹ of $6,253.57. It is agreed, and obvious, that the wages paid during the period of total disability in the amount of $8,194.82 exceeded the amount of the total award.

As noted, the Administrative Law Judge in his Findings of Fact and Rulings of Law (adopted by the judgment of the trial court) allowed credit against the award for temporary total disability but did not allow credit for the wages paid in excess thereof against the permanent partial disability award. The ruling was predicated upon that portion of § 287.100 (captioned: "Legislative Intent Relative to Other Laws Expressed") which reads:

Nor shall anything in this chapter be construed as interfering with the right of any public employee to draw full wages ... but the period during which the same are received after the injury shall be deducted from the period of compensation payments due hereunder. (Emphasis added.)

He construed the latter provision as only permitting wages to offset awards for the same period as that for which wages were paid, i.e., a "period-for-period credit". As a result, no credit was allowed against the permanent partial disability because such award is deemed to begin after the temporary total disability ends. He reasoned that: the latter period coincides with the recuperation period and it was during this period only that wages were paid even though respondent was not working.

Two points have been carried forward on appeal.

First, the appellant questions the constitutionality of applying § 287.100 or any other section in Chapter 287 (Workers' Compensation Law) to the City of St. Louis, a constitutional charter city. The challenge is based on Art. VI, § 22, of the Missouri Constitution, which provides, in part, that:

No law shall be enacted creating or fixing the powers, duties or compensation of any municipal office or employment, for any city framing or adopting its own charter under this or any previous constitution....

Resolution of the question turns on whether or not Chapter 287 creates or fixes powers, duties, or compensation of charter city municipal employees; and, we look to cases wherein similar issues were considered.

State ex rel. Sprague v. City of St. Joseph, 549 S.W.2d 873 (Mo.banc 1977), reflects this Court's most recent interpretation of § 22 of Article VI. Under §§ 341.010-.080, RSMo 1969, the legislature provided a scheme for licensing and regulating plumbers in cities with 15,000 or more inhabitants. Sprague attempted to have his Gladstone (Missouri) license honored under the statute by the City of St. Joseph, a constitutional charter city. We held the statute not applicable because:

Under the Preisler decision (Preisler v. Hayden, 309 S.W.2d 645 (Mo.1958)) the only offices St. Joseph can have are municipal offices, it being a constitutional charter city. That being the case, the legislature cannot create or establish for St. Joseph a board of examiners of plumbers or say who its members shall be or their duties or compensation or who shall appoint them.

Id. at 877.

The decision in Sprague is particularly important because most all of the cases submitted by the parties were discussed therein; and, we necessarily repeat some points brought out in that case relative to § 22 of Article VI and matters of "statewide concern."

In State ex rel. Burke v. Cervantes, 423 S.W.2d 791 (Mo.1968), §§ 290.350-. 360, RSMo (Cum.Supp.1963), involving the Firemen's Arbitration Board Act, were found not applicable to charter cities even though fire protection arguably was a matter of statewide concern.

In City of Joplin v. Industrial Comm'n of Mo., 329 S.W.2d 687 (Mo.banc 1959), §§ 290.210-.310 (Supp.1957) ("Prevailing Wage Law") were held applicable to employees of city contractors because "... employment by private contractors is not municipal employment." The Court did comment, by way of dictum, however, that:

To construe the Act as applicable to direct employees of public bodies would make it unconstitutional as to ... (constitutional charter cities) ... because Sec. 22 of Art. VI provides: 'No law shall be enacted creating or fixing * * * compensation of any municipal office or employment for any city framing or adopting its own charter * * *.' "

In City of St. Louis v. Missouri Comm'n on Human Rights, 517 S.W.2d 65 (Mo.1974), the Court upheld the application of Chapter 296, RSMo 1969, (Discriminatory Employment Practices) to charter cities. Respondent argues that the holding supports vesting the legislature with broad authority to regulate compliance by charter cities with programs of "statewide concern."

The manner of enforcement of the state law is what really gives rise to the problem in this case. Respondents assert and the trial court agreed that the law would permit the Commission on Human Rights "to substitute its judgment for the Charter mandated decisions of the Civil Service Commission in such matters as determination of rates of pay, working conditions, competitive testing for hiring and promotion of black firemen * * *." The initial stage in the enforcement procedure, i.e., "conference, conciliation and persuasion" (§ 296.040, subd. 2.) to eliminate the unlawful employment practice, does not entail an overriding by the state agency of the municipal hiring authority. The trial court ignored this phase of the enforcement process and respondents here offer no showing of how such procedure would preclude the exercise of their own judgment by the municipal officials.

The state has the right in the exercise of the police power to prescribe a policy of general state-wide application which applies to special charter cities. Petition of City of St. Louis, 364 Mo. 700, 266 S.W.2d 753, 755(4, 5) (1954). There must be some method of enforcement if the policy is to be effectuated. Here the basic enforcement is by way of order of an administrative body.

"Interference" in the performance of the duties of the city officers, for the purpose of securing compliance with state policy, is not "fixing the powers (or) duties" of a municipal office which is what the constitution prohibits. If an act of the legislature is to be declared unconstitutional, it must be demonstrated that the legislation is unquestionably violative of a constitutional prohibition or guaranty. Chapter 296, as applied to the City of St. Louis, has not been shown to violate the prohibition of Article VI, § 22, and the trial court was in error in so holding.

Id. at 70.

State ex rel. McClellan v. Godfrey, 519 S.W.2d 4 (Mo.banc 1975), involved a challenge under Art. VI, § 22, to a statute abolishing county coroners and establishing county medical examiners. We found no conflict, but the holding was based on the statute establishing a county office and not a city office. For instance, as said at page 9: "The activity of the mayor, called for by the Act, creates no constitutional violation because such activity does not involve the city of St. Louis in its capacity as a city...."

In Cohen v. Poelker, 520 S.W.2d 50 (Mo.banc 1975), this Court ruled that Chapter 610, RSMo (Cum.Supp.1973), commonly referred to as the "Sunshine law," was not violative of Art. VI, § 22. As said at page 54:

Chapter 610 represents a legislative determination and declaration of the public policy of the state relating to meetings, records, and votes of all public governmental bodies; that policy being, in general, that such meetings, records and votes be open and available to the people these bodies serve. This policy, of general interest and import, is applicable state-wide at all levels of government in the state.... Chapter 610 does not violate the provisions of Mo.Const.Art. VI, § 22.

Respondent cites Patton v. Patton, 573 S.W.2d 71 (Mo.App.1978), apparently to emphasize that workers' compensation benefits have a unique and rather singular status not limited alone to "compensation" as the term is used in the constitutional section. Therein, the court did say at page 72 that:

... it is readily apparent the legislative enactments permitting specific and limited compensation recoveries to workmen and their dependents for medical services, death, burial expenses, scheduled injuries, hernias, miscellaneous disabilities, et cetera, cannot logically be equated to wages or the stipend paid for the rendition of services.

Appellant responds that the distinction made between "wages" and "compensation benefits" is not persuasive nor helpful to respondent as the constitutional proscription uses the term "compensation" and not "wages." Additionally, respondent submits that "compensation" as used in Chapter 287 differs from "compensation" as used in Art. VI, § 22, by contending that the former refers to "benefits paid for...