Kinney v. Kaiser-Aluminum & Chemical Corp.

• Decision Date: 12 February 1975
• Docket Number: No. 73-921,73-921
• Citation: 41 Ohio St.2d 120,322 N.E.2d 880
• Parties: , 70 O.O.2d 206 KINNEY, Appellee, v. KAISER ALUMINUM & CHEMICAL CORP., Appellant, et al.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 120

41 Ohio St.2d 120

322 N.E.2d 880, 70 O.O.2d 206

KINNEY, Appellee, v. KAISER ALUMINUM & CHEMICAL CORP., Appellant, et al.

No. 73-921.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Feb. 12, 1975.

Syllabus by the Court

That portion of R.C. 4123.59 which sets forth three separate and independently sufficient jurisdictional prerequisites to the maintenance of a claim for death benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Act is unconstitutional. (Paragraph one of the syllabus of Emmons v. Keller, 21 Ohio St.2d 48, 254 N.E.2d 687, overruled.)

In July of 1959, Daniel Bradley was employed by appellant Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation. This company was an employer amenable to and in compliance with Ohio's Workmen's Compensation Act. On July 7, 1959, Bradley sustained an industrial injury; he subsequently filed a workmen's compensation claim and received compensation.

On November 20, 1968, Bradley died. His widow, appellee herein, filed a claim for death benefits with the Bureau of Workmen's Compensation, alleging that the death was directly and proximately caused by the industrial injury. The Administrator of the bureau dismissed the claim, ruling that none of the jurisdictional prerequisites of R.C. 4123.59 was satisfied. ¹ Subsequent to an affirmation of this order by the regional board of review, appellee instituted an appeal in the Court of Common Pleas of Licking County. That court granted appellant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint. The Court of Appeals, in a split decision, reversed the trial court's judgment by holding the jurisdictional prerequisites of R.C. 4123.59 unconstitutional.

The cause is now before this court both as an appeal as a matter of right involving a constitutional question arising under the Constitutions of the United States and of this state, and pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.

Clayman & Jaffy and Stewart R. Jaffy, Columbus, for appellee.

Jack L. Johnson, Columbus, for appellant.

C. WILLIAM O'NEILL, Chief Justice.

Under Ohio's workmen's compensation law, an allegation in a claim for death benefits that a workman died as the direct result of an industrial injury is insufficient to vest the Administrator of the Bureau of Workmen's Compensation with jurisdiction to determine the claim. R.C. 4123.59 establishes three separate and alternative jurisdictional prerequisites to the consideration of such a claim: (1) The death must have occurred within three years of the injury; or (2) the workman must have received total or partial disability compensation for the injury during any portion of the year preceding death; or (3) the Administrator must find that the workman applied for total or partial disability compensation, was examined by a licensed physician and would have been entitled to compensation had he not died.

In this case, the Administrator expressly found that none of those jurisdictional prerequisites was met. Additionlly, the record clearly discloses that Daniel Bradley's death occurred more than three years after he sustained the allegedly fatal industrial injury and that he did not receive compensation for either total or partial disability in any portion of the year preceding death. Since appellee is unable to meet any of the jurisdictional prerequisites set forth in R.C. 4123.59, her claim can be considered only if those prerequisites are struck down as being unconstitutional. The Court of Appeals so held, and this court affirms that judgment on the basis that the jurisdictional prerequisites violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Ohio and United States constitutions. ²

The limitations placed upon governmental action by the Equal Protection Clauses of the Ohio and United States constitutions are essentially identical. See Porter v. Oberlin (1965), 1 Ohio St.2d 143, 205 N.E.2d 363; State, ex rel. Struble, v. Davis (1937), 132 Ohio St. 555, 9 N.E.2d 684. Although equal protection of the laws does not totally prevent legislative classification, it does require the existence of reasonable grounds for making a distinction between those within and those outside a designated class. State v. Buckley (1968), 16 Ohio St.2d 128, 243 N.E.2d 66; Porter v. Oberlin, supra. The 'reasonableness' of a statutory classification is depondent upon the purpose of the Act. Carrington v. Rash (1964), 380 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 775, 13 L.Ed.2d 675; McLaughlin v. Florida (1965), 379 U.S. 184, 85 S.Ct. 283, 13 L.Ed.2d 222. It is within those parameters that the jurisdictional prerequisites of R.C. 4123.59 must be analyzed.

Ohio's system of workmen's compensation is predicated upon Section 35, Article II of the Ohio Constitution. That constitutional provision states that one objective of such a system is to compensate dependents of workmen 'for death * * * occasioned in the course of such workmen's employment.' Clearly, the major purpose of R.C. 4123.59 is to fulfill this objective. However, the jurisdictional prerequisites contained in that statute classify dependents of deceased workmen into two groups, those who can meet one or more of the prerequisites and those who can not, and automatically preclude the consideration of a claim for death benefits filed by a member of the latter group. If given an opportunity to present evidence, it is certain that some members of the excluded group could prove a causal connection between an industrial injury and the subsequent death of the workman. ³ Therefore, one effect of the classifications established by the jurisdictional prerequisites of R.C. 4123.59 is, in some cases, to obstruct the fulfillment of one objective of Section 35, Article II and the major objective of R.C. 4123.59.

Despite this obstruction, the jurisdictional prerequisites could be upheld if it were shown that they were rationally related to the accomplishment of some state objective at least as important as the objective of compensating dependents of workmen whose deaths are occasioned in the course of serving their employers.

Appellant has failed to advance any purpose served by the jurisdictional prerequisites. However, it is apparent to this court that their sole function is to prevent approval of claims filed by dependents of workmen whose deaths were not causally connected to any industrial accident or occupational disease. This function is more aptly ease.' The effect of the jurisdictional ease.' The effect of the jurisdictional prerequisites in question is to establish a conclusive presumption that there is no causal connection between a work injury or occupational disease and death if the dependents of the deceased workman can not satisfy one or more of the statutory preconditions. The conclusive presumption relieves the Bureau of Workmen's Compensation from the duty of conducting an evidentiary hearing and formulating a decision on the issue of causality.

However, recent United States Supreme Court decisions have struck down, as violative of due process, state statutes creating conclusive presumptions erected for 'administrative ease.' In Vlandis v. Kline (1973), 412 U.S. 441, 451, 93 S.Ct. 2230, 2236, 37 L.Ed.2d 63, the court observed '* * * (t)he State's interest in administrative ease and certainty cannot, in and of itself, save the conclusive presumption from invalidity under the Due Process Clause where there are other reasonable and practicable means of establishing the pertinent facts on which the state's objective is premised. * * *' See, also, Stanley v. Illinois (1972), 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551; Carrington v. Rash, supra. Attainment of the objective underlying the jurisdictional prerequisites of R.C. 4123.59-compensation of only those dependents who can prove the necessary causal connection between the death of a workman and an industrial injury or occupational disease-can be approached by a method which is 'reasonable and practicable' and does not automatically eliminate a whole class of claims without considering the merits of each. This method is, of course, the utilization of the evidentiary hearing for every disputed claim for death benefits. Difficulty in separating meritorious claims from...