Industrial Claim Appeals Office of State of Colo. v. Romero
| Decision Date | 11 March 1996 |
| Docket Number | 95SC248,Nos. 95SC227,s. 95SC227 |
| Citation | 912 P.2d 62 |
| Parties | The INDUSTRIAL CLAIM APPEALS OFFICE OF The STATE OF COLORADO; Miller Stockman; and Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority, Petitioners, and Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Division of Workers' Compensation; and Barbara Kozelka, in her official capacity as Director, Colorado Division of Workers' Compensation, Intervenors, v. Jennie ROMERO, Respondent. INDUSTRIAL CLAIM APPEALS OFFICE; Associated Indemnity; and The Salvation Army, Petitioners, and Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Division of Workers' Compensation; and Barbara Kozelka, in her official capacity as Director, Colorado Division of Workers' Compensation, Intervenors, v. Dora C. ROMERO, Respondent. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority, Michael J. Steiner, General Counsel, Denver, Vaughan, Reeves & DeMuro, P.C., David R. DeMuro, Denver, for Petitioners Miller Stockman and Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority.
Gale A. Norton, Attorney General, Stephen K. ErkenBrack, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Timothy M. Tymkovich, Solicitor General, Paul Farley, Deputy Attorney General, David M. Kaye, First Assistant Attorney General, John D. Baird, Assistant Attorney General, State Services Section, Denver, for Intervenors in No. 95SC227.
Jean E. Dubofsky, P.C., Jean E. Dubofsky, Boulder, Pepe J. Mendez & Associates, P.C., Pepe J. Mendez, Denver, for Respondent in No. 95SC227.
Gale A. Norton, Attorney General, Stephen K. ErkenBrack, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Timothy M. Tymkovich, Solicitor General, Paul Farley, Deputy Attorney General, David M. Kaye, First Assistant Attorney General, John D. Baird, Assistant Attorney General, State Services Section, Denver, for Petitioner Industrial Claim Appeals Office.
Cook Kotel & Fitch, Richard K. Rediger, Denver, for Petitioners Associated Indemnity and The Salvation Army.
Law Firm of Mark Anderson, Mark Anderson, Pueblo, for Respondent in No. 95SC248.
We granted certiorari in Jennie Romero v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 902 P.2d 896 (Colo.App.1995), and Dora Romero v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, No. 94CE0038 (Colo.App. Mar. 2, 1995), to determine whether section 8-42-111(5), 3B C.R.S. (1994 Supp.), which provides that permanent total disability benefits paid to workers' compensation claimants terminate when the claimant reaches the age of sixty-five, violates equal protection provisions of the federal and state constitutions. In both cases, the court of appeals held that section 8-42-111(5) is unconstitutional because it denies workers' compensation benefits to persons age sixty-five and older who are permanently and totally disabled while allowing all other persons who sustain work-related injuries to retain workers' compensation benefits. We consolidate these two cases for the purposes of this opinion, and affirm the court of appeals' decision that the classification in section 8-42-111(5) is not rationally related to any legitimate governmental purpose and thus violates equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
Jennie Romero (Jennie) began working for Miller Stockman in 1989, when she was sixty-two years of age. On April 8, 1992, at age sixty-four, Jennie suffered a work-related injury. An administrative law judge (ALJ) found that Jennie, as a result of this injury, was permanently and totally disabled within the meaning of the Workers' Compensation Act. §§ 8-40-101 to -54-127, 3B C.R.S. (1991 Supp.). The ALJ concluded that Jennie would have been awarded permanent total disability benefits pursuant to section 8-42-111(1), 3B C.R.S. (1991 Supp.), but section 8-42-111(5) prevented her from receiving such benefits because she had reached the age of sixty-five on May 13, 1992.
The Industrial Claim Appeals Office (Panel) affirmed the ALJ's decision to deny permanent total disability benefits to Jennie, acknowledging that it was without authority to rule on the constitutionality of section 8-42-111(5). Jennie appealed to the court of appeals, which held that section 8-42-111(5) violates equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
Dora Romero (Dora) began working for the Salvation Army as a manager/cashier at the age of sixty-two. Dora worked for the Salvation Army for approximately two years when she suffered a work-related injury on September 2, 1991. An administrative law judge found that Dora had sustained a permanent total disability as a result of this injury. The ALJ ordered that the insurer pay to Dora permanent total disability benefits commencing on the date of maximum medical improvement and make a lump sum payment to Dora in the amount of $37,500.
The Panel affirmed the ALJ's determination that Dora was permanently and totally disabled. However, the Panel concluded that section 8-42-111(5) precluded the ALJ from awarding permanent disability benefits to Dora because she had reached age sixty-five at the time she was adjudicated as permanently and totally disabled. The Panel further determined that it lacked jurisdiction to rule on Dora's argument that section 8-42-111(5) violated her constitutional right to equal protection.
Dora sought review in the court of appeals, arguing that section 8-42-111(5) deprived her of equal protection in violation of the state and federal constitutions. The court of appeals adopted as dispositive its opinion in Jennie Romero v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 902 P.2d 896, in which it found section 8-42-111(5) to be unconstitutional on equal protection grounds.
Before July 1, 1991, the Workers' Compensation Act provided that "[i]n cases of permanent total disability, the award ... shall continue until death of such person so totally disabled." § 8-51-107, 3B C.R.S. (1986). Effective on July 1, 1991, the legislature terminated permanent total disability benefits for persons age sixty-five and older by enacting section 8-42-111(5), 3B C.R.S. (1991 Supp.), which provides:
For injuries occurring on or after July 1, 1991, compensation [for permanent total disability] shall cease when the employee reaches the age of sixty-five years.
Then, effective on July 1, 1994, the legislature amended section 8-42-111(5) and restored permanent total disability benefits to persons age sixty-five and older. § 8-42-111(1), 3B C.R.S. (1995 Supp.). Thus, the statute at issue in the cases before us only applies to claimants who became permanently and totally disabled between July 1, 1991 and July 1, 1994. According to section 8-42-111(5), such claimants may not receive workers' compensation benefits for permanent and total disability after reaching age sixty-five.
Both claimants before us assert that section 8-42-111(5) violates the state and federal constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the laws. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "[n]o state ... shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The right to equal protection also finds support in the Due Process Clause of the Colorado Constitution. Colo. Const. art. II, § 25. When a statute is subject to an equal protection challenge, the level of judicial scrutiny varies with the type of classification utilized and the nature of the right affected. Higgs v. Western Landscaping, 804 P.2d 161, 164 (Colo.1991). Where a legislative classification does not involve a suspect class or an abridgement of a fundamental right triggering strict scrutiny, or where the classification is not a special one triggering an intermediate standard of review, an equal protection challenge must be analyzed under the rational basis standard of review. Id.; Colorado Soc'y of Community & Institutional Psychologists, Inc. v. Lamm, 741 P.2d 707, 711 (Colo.1987). Classifications based on age are not suspect or special warranting strict scrutiny or intermediate review, Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 313-14, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 2566-67, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976), and the receipt of workers' compensation benefits is not a fundamental right, Duran v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 883 P.2d 477, 482 (Colo.1994). Thus, the rational basis test applies in determining whether an age-based classification for providing workers' compensation benefits violates equal protection guarantees of the federal and state constitutions.
Under the rational basis standard of review, a statutory classification will stand if it bears a rational relationship to legitimate governmental objectives and is not unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious. Higgs, 804 P.2d at 164. In order to establish that a classification violates the equal protection provisions of the federal and state constitutions, the classification must arbitrarily single out a group of persons for disparate treatment and not single out for such treatment other persons who are similarly situated. Id.
The threshold issue is whether section 8-42-111(5) results in dissimilar treatment of similarly situated individuals. Duran, 883 P.2d at 481. The claimants in the cases before us argue that section 8-42-111(5) is unconstitutional because it denies workers' compensation benefits to persons age sixty-five and older who are permanently and totally disabled from work-related injuries, while allowing all other persons who sustain work-related injuries to retain workers' compensation benefits. For purposes of comparison, the persons who retain workers' compensation benefits include: (1) claimants under age sixty-five who receive permanent total disability benefits; (2) claimants of any age, including those age sixty-five and older, who receive permanent partial disability benefits; and (3) claimants of any age who receive permanent total disability benefits paid from the subsequent injury fund. 1 The court of appeals considered only the second category of comparison,...
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