Cole v. Silverado Foods, Inc.

• Decision Date: 07 October 2003
• Docket Number: No. 98,150.,98,150.
• Citation: 78 P.3d 542,2003 OK 81
• Parties: Regina COLE, Petitioner, v. SILVERADO FOODS, INC., Travelers Insurance Co., and The Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

78 P.3d 542

2003 OK 81

Regina COLE, Petitioner, v. SILVERADO FOODS, INC., Travelers Insurance Co., and The Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.

No. 98,150.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

October 7, 2003.

Susan H. Jones, Wilson Jones, P.C., Tulsa, OK, for Petitioner.

H. Grady Parker, Jr., Looney, Nichols & Johnson, Oklahoma City, OK, for Respondents.¹

OPALA, V.C.J.

¶ 1 The issue on certiorari is whether the provisions of 85 O.S. Supp.1997 § 43(B), which were enacted during the claim's pendency and whose terms shorten from five to three years the period within which unadjudicated elements of a compensation claim must be pressed for resolution before they stand barred by lapse of time, govern this case. We answer in the negative.

I. ANATOMY OF THE LITIGATION

¶ 2 On 22 July 1997 Regina Cole (Cole or employee or claimant) filed two workers' compensation claims, alleging two separate job-related injuries, sustained while she was employed by Silverado Foods. Silverado and its insurance carrier, Travelers Insurance Co. (collectively Silverado or employer), timely filed their answer and tendered a pretrial stipulation on 8 September 1997. Silverado admitted that Cole had suffered an accidental injury for which medical treatment was provided but denied temporary total disability benefits because she had not lost any time at work. Cole took no other steps in the case until four years later when she filed, on 5 October 2001, a request for a hearing to determine permanent partial disability and medical maintenance.² Cole's claim was scheduled for a hearing on 14 March 2002.

¶ 3 Silverado invoked the provisions of 85 O.S. Supp.1997 § 43(B)³—the after-enacted legislation that shortens the time span for a request to adjudicate the unrecovered elements of a pending workers' compensation claim—and moved for dismissal. The motion met with denial, and Cole was awarded permanent partial disability but no medical maintenance. On Silverado's appeal, a three-judge panel ruled the claim was time-barred by the amended provisions invoked by the employer and denied Cole's claim. Cole sought review. The Court of Civil Appeals (COCA), Division IV, vacated the panel's order. It declared the after-enacted § 43(B) provisions do not apply to a proceeding filed prior to the effective date of the amendment and remanded the claim to the three-judge panel with directions to reinstate the trial judge's award. Silverado's certiorari paperwork brings to our attention a published opinion by another COCA division, Cunningham v. Oklahoma Dept. of Corrections,⁴ which holds the § 43(B) amendment governs a claim's disposition when enacted during its viable period of pendency. We granted certiorari to settle this interdivisional conflict and to provide guidance by a precedential pronouncement.

II. THE PARTIES' RESPECTIVE POSITIONS ON CERTIORARI

¶ 4 When Cole's compensation claim⁵ was filed on 22 July 1997, the statutory law then in effect, 85 O.S. Supp.1994 § 43(B),⁶ allowed a claimant five (5)years after filing a claim to request a hearing for its complete adjudication. Section 43(B) was amended, effective 1 November 1997,⁷ by a text that shortened the request-time span to three (3) years. Cole's claim was pending when the amended provision took effect. The 1997 amendment is silent with respect to its effect upon filed claims whose adjudicatory periods have not yet lapsed. Simply stated, the question before us is which request-time limit governs Cole's claim? If the pre-1997 § 43(B) statute is applicable to today's controversy, Cole's claim must be allowed to survive. Under the amended version of 1997, the unadjudicated elements of Cole's claim stand extinguished for her failure to press for adjudication of unrecovered benefits within the statutory three-year period.

¶ 5 Silverado relies upon Cunningham, the COCA, Division I, decision, which holds the amended terms of § 43(B) are applicable to a claim pending and unextinguished at the time of the amendatory enactment's effective date.⁸Cunningham teaches a workers' compensation "claimant has no vested right" in a five-year period during which a hearing may be requested so long as at the effective date at which the period is shortened the claim is not extinguished by the lapse of the shortened period.⁹ Silverado also urges the 1997 version of § 43(B) impacts solely matters of procedure and does not affect any substantive rights. Because it affects solely the employee's remedy and not her rights, it may be given retrospective application.¹⁰

¶ 6 Cole urges first that § 43(B) is not a statute of limitations but rather one of repose. It is not subject to retroactive application of amendatory enactments. She also asserts the statute affects more than mere matters of procedure. Once a claim is filed, she contends, the claimant's rights are established. Any change in the law affecting those rights must be regarded as substantive in nature and protected from legislative interference by the provisions of Art. 5 § 54, Okl. Const.¹¹ Because § 43(B) impacts a claimant's right, and not just her remedy, it is solely prospective in its application.¹² According to Cole, the amended version of § 43(B) may have no impact on this controversy.

III.

SECTION 43(B) OPERATES ON FIXED RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. THE PROVISIONS OF ART. 5 § 54, OKL.CONST., AND EXTANT JURISPRUDENCE SHIELD AN EMPLOYEE'S SUBSTANTIVE RIGHT FROM EXTINGUISHMENT BY AFTER-ENACTED LEGISLATION.

¶ 7 The right of an employee to compensation arises from the contractual relation between the employee and employer on the date of injury.¹³ The statute then in effect forms a portion of the contract of employment and determines the substantive rights and obligations of the parties.¹⁴ No subsequent amendment that has the effect of increasing or diminishing the amount of compensation recoverable can operate retrospectively to affect any accrued rights and fixed obligations.¹⁵

¶ 8 Oklahoma's fundamental law and extant jurisprudence provide a comprehensive scheme that governs the application of repealed and amended legislation to existing legal claims. To clarify legal terms of art which, over time, have become clouded, we turn first to an examination of jurisprudential teachings that deal with the impact of after-enacted changes. Absent a plain legislative intent to the contrary, statutes are generally presumed to operate prospectively only.¹⁶ Legislation that is general in its terms and impacts only matters of procedure is presumed to be applicable to all actions, even those that are pending.¹⁷ Statutes that relate solely to remedies and hence affect only modes of procedure—i.e., enactments which do not create, enlarge, diminish, or destroy accrued or contractual rights—are generally held to operate retroactively and apply to pending proceedings (unless their operation would affect substantive rights).¹⁸ ¶ 9 Statutes of limitations¹⁹ are viewed as procedural rather than of substantive-law nature. They affect the claim's remedy and not the right itself.²⁰ No rights vest in their length until a claim comes to be barred by a statute which governs it.²¹ Insofar as a statute of limitations does affect causes of action in existence when it becomes effective, in the absence of a contrary provision, the statute begins to affect rights in existence when the cause of action is first subjected to its operation.²²

¶ 10 Not every statutorily-enacted time limit constitutes a statute of limitations. Although at first blush § 43(B) appears to bear some characteristics of limitations, it does not qualify for inclusion in that rubric.²³ A salient distinction between limitations and other time-anchored restrictions is that the former operate exclusively on the time to bring an action. In contrast, today's temporal restriction operates on unrecovered elements of a pending claim. It fashions a liability-defeating defense against recovery of unadjudicated benefits. Defenses against a claim create accrued rights.²⁴

¶ 11 The dispositive question to be answered here is whether the 1997 amendment represents more than a mere procedural reform—one that intrudes upon claimant's substantive rights. If so, it must be given purely prospective application and may have no effect upon this claim. Our analysis of this query compels us to conclude that § 43(B) indeed operates to impact the rights in Cole's claim. We hence hold that the amended provisions of § 43(B) may not be invoked as a defense against this controversy.

¶ 12 Section 43(B) is much more than a remedial enactment. By the lapse of the § 43(B) time interval claimant is not merely deprived of a remedy but rather suffers the loss of right to press for unrecovered benefits. This is so because the after-enacted provisions of § 43(B) diminish an employee's right to unadjudicated elements of a claim which constitute a portion of statutorily "recoverable compensation."²⁵ The employer, on the other hand, may invoke the very same time lapse to defeat its own statutory liability for unadjudicated benefits. This distinction alone serves to demonstrate that § 43(B) is not a statute of limitations but has a substantive-law impact that makes its time limit a right-destroying device or a liability-defeating defense against the unrecovered residue of the claim. In its wake the claimant's loss is final and irretrievable. No other remedy will lie for the recapture of a claim's residue extinguished by the operation § 43(B).

¶ 13 Section 43(B) stands as an employer's liability-defeating defense against an employee's untimely quest for permanent disability's adjudication. A statutory defense constitutes an accrued right.²⁶ To modify one's defense against a claim changes its character and potency. That change decreases here the time period from five to three years during which an employer may extinguish its liability. Retroactive application of § 43(B) would make the employer's defense much more extensive than it stood at the time the...