Cockle v. Dept. of Labor and Industries

Decision Date18 January 2001
Docket NumberNo. 68539-8.,68539-8.
Citation142 Wash.2d 801,16 P.3d 583
CourtWashington Supreme Court
PartiesDianne L. COCKLE, Respondent, v. The DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES of the State of Washington, Petitioner.

Christine Gregoire, Atty. Gen., John R. Wasberg, Asst. Atty. Gen., Seattle, for Petitioner.

Terry James Barnett, Tacoma, for Respondent.

Nancy Thygesen Day, Seattle, Amicus Curiae on Behalf of Washington Self-Insurers Association.

William D. Hochberg, Edmonds, Amicus Curiae on Behalf of Washington State Labor Council.

BRIDGE, J.

We are asked for the first time to decide whether the value of employer-provided health care coverage is included in the basis used to calculate workers' compensation payments under RCW 51.08.178.

The Department of Labor and Industries calculated Respondent Dianne Cockle's workers' compensation payments based strictly on her paycheck at the time of her work-related injury. RCW 51.08.178(1) mandates that "wages' shall include the reasonable value of board, housing, fuel, or other consideration of like nature received from the employer as part of the contract of hire ..." (emphasis added). We conclude that Cockle's health care coverage was "consideration of like nature" to "board, housing [and] fuel" in that it represented a readily identifiable and reasonably calculable in-kind component of her lost earning capacity at the time of injury that is critical to protecting workers' basic health and survival. We affirm the Court of Appeals' ruling, with modifications, and remand to the Department for recalculation of her workers' compensation payments.

FACTS

On November 4, 1993, Dianne Cockle was injured in the course of her employment for the Pierce County Rural Library District. She had been working 40 hours a week and, in accordance with her written employment contract, was being paid $5.61 an hour plus medical and dental care coverage, for which her employer paid premiums of $205.52 a month.1 The parties stipulated that the coverage was worth "approximately 20 percent of her monetary compensation." Br. of Appellant at 34.

Initially, Cockle was unable to work at all, qualifying her for temporary total disability (time-loss) compensation under RCW 51.32.090(1). From June 6, 1994, to October 24, 1994, though, she was able to return to work, but only part-time, qualifying her for temporary partial disability (loss of earning power) compensation under RCW 51.32.090(3)(a)(ii). Cockle's health care coverage was suspended from the date of her injury until June 6, 1994, and from August 1, 1994, through October 24, 1994, because she was not working enough hours to qualify under the rules of her employer's health care program.

The Department calculated Cockle's compensation based strictly on her paycheck earnings at the time of the injury. She appealed to the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, arguing that her health care coverage was a substantial component of her negotiated "contract of hire" compensation and thus part of her "wages" as defined in RCW 51.08.178. The Board disagreed and affirmed the Department's order. She then appealed to the Pierce County Superior Court, which granted her partial summary judgment, finding that health care coverage represented "other consideration of like nature received from the employer as part of the contract of hire," RCW 51.08.178(1), and thus should have been included in the calculation of Cockle's "wages." The Court of Appeals, Division Two, affirmed in a published opinion. Cockle v. Dep't of Labor & Indus., 96 Wash.App. 69, 977 P.2d 668 (1999). We granted the Department's petition for discretionary review.

ANALYSIS

Time-loss and loss of earning power compensation rates are determined by reference to a worker's "wages," as that term is defined in RCW 51.08.178, at the time of the injury. See RCW 51.32.090(1) (referencing RCW 51.32.060) and RCW 51.32.090(3)(a)(ii). We are asked to construe RCW 51.08.178, which provides, in relevant part,2

For the purposes of this title, the monthly wages the worker was receiving from all employment at the time of injury shall be the basis upon which compensation is computed unless otherwise provided specifically in the statute concerned.
....
The term "wages" shall include the reasonable value of board, housing, fuel, or other consideration of like nature received from the employer as part of the contract of hire, but shall not include overtime pay except in cases under subsection (2) of this section.

Statutory construction is a question of law and is reviewed de novo. Stuckey v. Dep't of Labor & Indus., 129 Wash.2d 289, 295, 916 P.2d 399 (1996). The primary goal of statutory construction is to carry out legislative intent. Rozner v. City of Bellevue, 116 Wash.2d 342, 347, 804 P.2d 24 (1991). If a statute is plain and unambiguous, its meaning must be primarily derived from the language itself. Dep't of Transp. v. State Employees' Ins. Bd., 97 Wash.2d 454, 458, 645 P.2d 1076 (1982).

The Department argues that the meaning of the term "wages" is made clear in various dictionary entries and other statutory provisions, which often use the term in contradistinction to in-kind "benefits." Cockle cites entries from the Black's Law Dictionary where the term "wages" expressly includes in-kind "benefits." The Court of Appeals found that a dictionary in use in 1971, when RCW 51.08.178 was enacted, states that the term wages "`often includ[es] ... amounts paid by the employer for insurance, pension, hospitalization, and other benefits.'" Cockle, 96 Wash.App. at 86 & n. 47, 977 P.2d 668 (emphasis omitted) (quoting WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 2568 (1969)).

Words are not to be given their ordinary meaning when a contrary intent is manifest. Dennis v. Dep't of Labor & Indus., 109 Wash.2d 467, 479-80, 745 P.2d 1295 (1987). Thus, even if the Department is correct in its attribution of the "ordinary" dictionary meaning of "wages," RCW 51.08.178 expressly expands that definition to include the "reasonable value" of in-kind work benefits such as "board, housing [and] fuel." That definitional expansion clearly removes the term from its arguably more common usage and makes it manifest that the Legislature intended to include in "wages" the value of at least some in-kind work "benefits."

The Legislature's definition of "wages" includes the critical phrase "other consideration of like nature." When statutory language is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation, it is considered ambiguous. Harmon v. Dep't of Soc. & Health Servs., 134 Wash.2d 523, 530, 951 P.2d 770 (1998). The parties proposed several reasonable interpretations of the phrase "other consideration of like nature" in RCW 51.08.178(1). We therefore find the phrase ambiguous and resort to principles of statutory construction, legislative history, and relevant case law to assist us in discerning legislative intent. Id.; see also State v. Bash, 130 Wash.2d 594, 601-02, 925 P.2d 978 (1996)

.

"Ejusdem generis" is a well-established rule of statutory construction:

In the construction of laws, wills, and other instruments, the `ejusdem generis rule' is, that where general words follow an enumeration of persons or things, by words of a particular and specific meaning, such general words are not to be construed in their widest extent, but are to be held as applying only to persons or things of the same general kind or class as those specifically mentioned.

BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 517 (6th ed.1990); see generally City of Seattle v. State, 136 Wash.2d 693, 699, 965 P.2d 619 (1998). The parties dispute which attribute shared by "board, housing [and] fuel" is of such significance that it should determine the boundaries of the larger category of "other consideration of like nature." The Department proposes the following criteria: "(1) tangibility, (2) regularity and certainty of realization, (3) manner and case of valuation, (4) reasons why and manner in which employers provide and account for them, and (5) general manner in which they are treated for tax purposes." Suppl. Br. of Pet. at 3. Cockle emphasizes the in-kind "nature" of "board, housing [and] fuel" as the unifying characteristic. In Cockle's view, these early twentieth century3 examples of in-kind forms of "consideration... received from the employer as part of the contract of hire" are expressly included "to ensure that compensation not be excluded from `wages' simply because it is paid in a form other than money." See Br. of Resp't at 20, 25-26.

It is well settled that statutes must not be construed in a manner that renders any portion thereof meaningless or superfluous. Stone v. Chelan County Sheriff's Dep't, 110 Wash.2d 806, 810, 756 P.2d 736 (1988). The Legislature here decided against restricting qualifying benefits to a closed list of enumerated items.4 It also chose the word "consideration," a term understood broadly in the law5 and used in the definition of "wages" in the workers' compensation acts of few, if any, other jurisdictions. On the other hand, it did not mandate inclusion in "wages" of "any other consideration," but rather of "other consideration of like nature," suggesting that a more limited ejusdem generis construction was intended. The Legislature's specific choice of words thus rules out both exceedingly narrow and exceedingly broad readings of the phrase "other consideration of like nature received from the employer as part of the contract of hire."

We next turn to the legislative history of RCW 51.08.178. Washington enacted its "Compensation of Injured Workmen" act in 1911. Laws of 1911, ch. 74, at 345. For the next 60 years, all compensation rates were uniformly fixed by the Legislature. Id. at ch. 74 § 5, at 356. In 1971, though, "the first major revision of this State's 60-year-old workmen's compensation law" was passed. "Suggested Material for Governor's Veto Message," Bill File, Evans Leg. Box 2S-3-49, EHB 735 (Wash...

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