Ex Parte Morris

• Decision Date: 20 June 2008
• Docket Number: 1070384.
• Citation: 999 So.2d 932
• Parties: Ex parte David MORRIS. (In re Robert Burton & Associates, LTD v. David Morris).
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

999 So.2d 932

Ex parte David MORRIS.

(In re Robert Burton & Associates, LTD v. David Morris).

1070384.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

June 20, 2008.

Stevan K. Goozée, Birmingham, for petitioner.

Joseph H. Driver of Carr, Allison, Pugh, Howard, Oliver & Sisson, P.C., Birmingham, for respondent.

LYONS, Justice.

David Morris ("the employee") petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari seeking review of the Court of Civil Appeals' decision reversing the judgment of the Calhoun Circuit Court awarding the employee worker's compensation benefits for an injury he sustained while working for Robert Burton & Associates, LTD ("the employer"). See Robert Burton & Assocs., LTD v. Morris, 999 So.2d 927, 932 (Ala.Civ.App.2007). We granted the employee's petition to determine, as a question of first impression, whether payment of workers' compensation benefits under the Georgia Workers' Compensation Act, Ga.Code Ann. § 34-9-1 et seq. (2000) ("the Georgia Act"), tolls the statute of limitations for filing a claim under the Alabama Workers' Compensation Act, Ala.Code 1975, § 25-5-1 et seq. ("the Alabama Act"). For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals.

I. Facts and Procedural History

The opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals outlines the material facts as follows:

"The employee worked for the employer as a regional sales manager; the employee resided in Georgia and worked out of his home. As part of his job duties, the employee routinely traveled throughout Georgia, Alabama, and parts of Tennessee. On June 13, 2003, while in Alabama, the employee injured his back changing a flat tire on the company van he was driving to deliver the employer's products. Two weeks later, the employee filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits. The employer acknowledged that the employee's back injury arose out of and in the course of his employment, and it commenced making payments of benefits to the employee under the Georgia Workers' Compensation Act, § 34-9-1 et seq., Ga.Code Ann. (2000) ('the Georgia Act'). The employer has been paying the employee Georgia workers' compensation and medical benefits since 2003.

"The employee testified in his deposition that he understood that he had been receiving workers' compensation benefits under the Georgia Act since 2003. The employee further testified that he had retained an attorney in Georgia to assist him in expediting his claim for those benefits.

"On November 17, 2006, the employee filed an action in the Calhoun Circuit Court ('the trial court') seeking workers' compensation benefits under the Alabama Act. The employee testified that the primary reason he had filed a claim for Alabama workers' compensation benefits was because of the delays he had experienced in obtaining medical benefits under the Georgia Act. The employer denied the claim, asserting that the employee had failed to timely file his claim for Alabama workers' compensation benefits. The employee claimed that the employer's payment of Georgia workers' compensation benefits to the employee had tolled the applicable statute of limitations in the Alabama Act. See § 25-5-80, Ala.Code 1975. The parties submitted the controversy to the trial court based on joint stipulations and the deposition of the employee.

"On May 14, 2007, the trial court entered a judgment in favor of the employee, concluding, as a matter of law, that the payment of Georgia workers' compensation benefits had tolled the Alabama statute of limitations. The trial court awarded the employee temporary-total-disability benefits relating back to the date of the original injury and ordered the employer to continue those payments until the employee reaches maximum medical improvement. The trial court also ordered the employer to pay all other workers' compensation benefits owed to the employee under the Alabama Act. The trial court certified its judgment as final, pursuant to Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P."

Morris, 999 So.2d at 929.

The employer appealed the judgment to the Court of Civil Appeals, arguing that only payments of compensation made under the Alabama Act toll the statute of limitations for filing a claim for workers' compensation benefits in Alabama. The employer argued that although § 25-5-80, Ala.Code 1975, provides that "payments of compensation" toll the statute of limitations, "compensation" is unambiguously defined within the Alabama Act as payments made under Articles 3 and 4 of the Alabama Act. See § 25-5-1(1), Ala.Code 1975. Thus, the employer contended, payments made under the workers' compensation act of a state other than Alabama do not toll the statute of limitations for filing a claim under the Alabama Act.

Section 25-5-35(e), Ala.Code 1975, in pertinent part, provides:

"The payment or award of benefits under the workers' compensation law of another state, territory, province or foreign nation to an employee or his dependents otherwise entitled on account of such injury or death to the benefits of this article and Article 3 of this chapter shall not be a bar to a claim for benefits under this article and Article 3 of this chapter; provided that claim under this article is filed within the time limits set forth in Section 25-5-80."

Section 25-5-80 provides a two-year statute of limitations for claims for compensation arising from work-related personal injuries. See Sagely v. ABC Rail Prods. Corp., 775 So.2d 230, 234 (Ala.Civ.App. 2000). However, § 25-5-80 also includes a tolling provision that states: "Where, however, payments of compensation, as distinguished from medical or vocational payments, have been made in any case, the period of limitation shall not begin to run until the time of making the last payment." (Emphasis added.) Section 25-5-1(1) provides that within the Alabama Act "compensation" shall be considered to mean "[t]he money benefits to be paid on account of injury or death, as provided in Articles 3 and 4."

The Court of Civil Appeals found that when more than one state has jurisdiction over a claim for workers' compensation benefits, the issue whether "`payments of compensation made to the injured worker under the laws of one of the states toll the statute of limitations as to a claim later filed in the other state'" presents a question of first impression in this state. Morris, 999 So.2d at 929 (quoting Houston Contracting Co. v. Young, 267 Ark. 322, 322, 590 S.W.2d 653, 653 (1979)). The Court of Civil Appeals first considered the definition of "compensation" found in § 25-5-1(1) and concluded that "the language employed by the legislature is not totally free from ambiguity." Morris, 999 So.2d at 930. "Compensation" is defined at § 25-5-1(1) as follows:

"(1) Compensation. The money benefits to be paid on account of injury or death, as provided in Articles 3 and 4. The recovery which an employee may receive by action at law under Article 2 of this chapter is termed `recovery of civil damages,' as provided for in Sections 25-5-31 and 25-5-34. `Compensation' does not include medical and surgical treatment and attention, medicine, medical and surgical supplies, and crutches and apparatus furnished an employee on account of an injury."

(Emphasis added.) The Court of Civil Appeals concluded that the phrase "as provided in Articles 3 and 4" in § 25-5-1(1) could be read as providing either (1) that only benefits paid under the schedules in Articles 3 and 4 of the Alabama Act constitute "compensation" for purposes of the Alabama Act or (2) that benefits paid under the schedules in Articles 3 and 4 are merely examples of "compensation." See Morris, 999 So.2d at 929.

The Court of Civil Appeals then noted that this Court has consistently held that when a workers' compensation statute is ambiguous it must be "liberally construed to effect [its] beneficent purposes." Ex parte Beaver Valley Corp., 477 So.2d 408, 411 (Ala.1985). The court then discussed the law of other jurisdictions and ultimately adopted the reasoning of Auslander v. Textile Workers Union of America, 59 A.D.2d 90, 397 N.Y.S.2d 232 (1977):

"[W]e reject the employer's contention that the language of § 25-5-80 absolutely precludes the receipt of out-of-state benefits from ever tolling the Alabama statute of limitations. We hold that in cases in which the employer improperly or in bad faith channels the claim into one state without the knowledge of the employee, or in cases in which the employee is otherwise unaware of and has no reason to know the source of his or her payments of compensation, thereby lulling the employee into forgoing the filing of a timely Alabama claim, the payment of compensation under the foreign statute will toll the Alabama statute of limitations.

"Once an employer sustains its burden of proving that the claim was filed more than two years after the date of the accident, the employee has the burden of proving that the employer made payments of compensation that toll the statute of limitations."

Morris, 999 So.2d at 932.

Finding no such circumstances in this case, the Court of Civil Appeals declined to hold that the out-of-state payments tolled the statute of limitations for the employee's claim, and it reversed the trial court's award of compensation benefits under the Alabama Act. The court affirmed the judgment of the trial court as to its award of medical benefits under the Alabama Act, citing Ex parte Tuscaloosa County, 522 So.2d 782, 784 (Ala.1988), which held that "a claim [for medical benefits under the Alabama Act] is not time-barred merely because the injured employee has not complied with the statutorily prescribed period of limitations for a compensation claim."

II. Standard of Review

The issue before us is entirely a question of law. The legal conclusions of the trial court in a workers' compensation case are reviewed de novo on appeal. Ex parte Cash, 624 So.2d 576, 577 (Ala.1993); see also Mid-South Elec. Co. v. Jones, 848 So.2d 998, 999 (Ala.Civ.App.2002). "On certiorari...