Lester v. State Workmen's Compensation Com'r

• Decision Date: 07 March 1978
• Docket Number: No. 13960,13960
• Citation: 161 W.Va. 299,242 S.E.2d 443
• Parties: Hensley LESTER v. STATE WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION COMMISSIONER and Island Creek Coal Co., and Hawley Coal Mining Company.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

Page 443

242 S.E.2d 443

161 W.Va. 299

Hensley LESTER v. STATE WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION COMMISSIONER and Island Creek Coal Co., and Hawley Coal Mining Company.

No. 13960.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

March 7, 1978.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Where a new statute deals with procedure only, prima facie, it applies to all actions those which have accrued or are pending, and future actions.

2. The time limitations governing the filing of applications for workmen's compensation benefits contained in W.Va.Code § 23-4-15 are basically procedural and remedial in nature.

3. The rights and duties under the Workmen's Compensation system of this state rest upon the idea of status, not upon that of an express or implied contract; they are imposed by law on the employer-employee relationship based on the police powers of state government.

4. There is no vested right in the running of the limitation provisions of W.Va.Code § 23-4-15 before such claim period has run and expired.

5. An amendment to W.Va.Code § 23-4-15 which eliminates all time limitation requirements with respect to filing accrued but not expired claims for occupational pneumoconiosis, except that such claims must be filed within three years from and after the employee's occupational pneumoconiosis was made known to him by a physician or which he should reasonably have known, whichever shall last occur, is not retroactive legislation impairing vested rights.

6. "The law is not retroactive merely because part of the factual situation to which it is applied occurred prior to its enactment; only when it operates upon transactions which have been completed or upon rights which have been acquired or upon obligations which have existed prior to its passage can it be considered to be retroactive in application." Syllabus pt. 3, Sizemore v. State Workmen's Compensation Commissioner, W.Va., 219 S.E.2d 912 (1975).

Robert Edward Blair, Welch, for appellant.

Edward I. Eiland, Logan, for appellee Island Creek Coal Co.

Tutwiler, Crockett & LaCaria, McGinnis E. Hatfield, Jr., Welch, for appellee Hawley Coal Mining Co.

McGRAW, Justice:

This is an appeal from a final order of the Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board which affirmed a decision by the Workmen's Compensation Commissioner denying claimant's application for occupational pneumoconiosis benefits. In denying the application, both the Commissioner and the Appeal Board held that claimant's application for occupational pneumoconiosis benefits was not timely filed as required by the statute in effect at the time claimant was last exposed to the hazards of occupational pneumoconiosis.

Counsel for the respective parties agree that claimant was last exposed to the hazards of occupational pneumoconiosis on March 13, 1970, when he ceased employment with the Island Creek Coal Company. It was also agreed that the claimant first learned from a physician that he suffered from occupational pneumoconiosis on April 15, 1971, and that claimant filed his application for occupational pneumoconiosis benefits on March 22, 1973.

When claimant was last exposed to the hazards of occupational pneumoconiosis, the Workmen's Compensation Act required claims for occupational pneumoconiosis benefits to be filed within three years from the date of the last exposure to the hazards of occupational pneumoconiosis. ¹ Before this three year limitation period had expired, the legislature twice amended the statute eliminating all time limitations on filing with the exception that a claim must be filed within three years from and after the employee's occupational pneumoconiosis was made known to him by a physician or which he should reasonably have known, whichever shall last occur. ²

I.

If the amendments are applicable to claimant's accrued but unexpired claim, then his claim was timely filed because it was filed within three years from and after the employee's occupational pneumoconiosis was made known to him by a physician.

The first question we are called upon to determine is whether the amendatory enactments were intended by the legislature to apply not only to claims accruing after their passage but also to claims which accrued prior to their passage but which were not yet barred by the previously existing time limitation.

The employer relies on Loveless v. State Compensation Commissioner, 155 W.Va. 264, 184 S.E.2d 127 (1971), which involved an amendment to the time limitations on petitioning for reopening a claim for permanent partial disability. In syllabus points 1 and 2, the Court held:

1. The presumption is that a statute is intended to operate prospectively, and not retrospectively, unless it appears, by clear, strong and imperative words or by necessary implication, that the Legislature intended to give the statute retrospective force and effect. Pt. 4, syllabus, Taylor v. State Compensation Commissioner, 140 W.Va. 572, 86 S.E.2d 114.

2. Statutes of limitations are not exceptions to the rule that statutes are prima facie to be given only prospective operation. Pt. 6, syllabus, State v. Mines, 38 W.Va. 125, 18 S.E. 470.

In resolving this question, we must look not only to the language of the statutory provisions but also to their purpose. Considering the amendments together, the legislature has expressly abandoned any fixed and rigid time restrictions within which a claim for occupational pneumoconiosis benefits must be filed and has opted instead for a limitation period based on the claimant's discovery of the occupational disease.

The legislature's actions signify an awareness that occupational pneumoconiosis may go undetected for a long time, for this disease often does not become manifest until years after the victim was last exposed to the causes of the disease. ³ The amendments also manifest legislative recognition of the fact that a fixed and rigid time restriction on the filing of a claim would occasionally result in a harsh and unjust result. It would serve as a trap for the unwary worker whose claim would be barred for an injury which was unknown to him at the time filing was required. A set time limitation could conceivably lapse before the symptoms of this insidious disease became evident or before the disease results in disability. It was just this kind of result the legislature expressly sought to prevent.

Keeping in mind the beneficent purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Act and the liberality rules as to its construction, and being aware of the mischief sought to be remedied by the legislative amendments, we perceive no reason why the legislature would not have intended such amendments to be applicable to claims which were alive and well and not barred by the previously existing time limitations. The necessary implication arising from the history and purpose of the liberalizing amendments is a legislative intent to ensure that workers who have contracted occupational pneumoconiosis shall have a reasonable opportunity, after learning of its presence, to present a claim for benefits. Fairness, justice, and common sense indicate the legislature desired as many injured workers as possible to have the benefit of its liberalizing enactments not just those who were last exposed to the hazards of occupational pneumoconiosis subsequent to the effective date of each amendment.

It has long been recognized in this jurisdiction that where a new statute deals with procedure only, prima facie, it applies to all actions those which have accrued or are pending, and future actions. Consentina v. State Compensation Commissioner, 127 W.Va. 67, 31 S.E.2d 499 (1944); Proffitt v. State Compensation Commissioner, 108 W.Va. 438, 151 S.E. 307 (1930); Tackett v. Ott, 108 W.Va. 402, 151 S.E. 310 (1930); McShan v. Heaberlin, 105 W.Va. 447, 143 S.E. 109 (1928).

A substantial majority of those jurisdictions which have considered the precise question presented here hold that statutes enlarging the limitation period are merely procedural and remedial in nature and are applicable to claims not barred under the original limitation period at the effective date of the statute enlarging the limitation period. Davis v. Industrial Accident Commission, 198 Cal. 631, 246 P. 1046 (1926); Garris v. Weller Construction Co., 132 So.2d 553 (Fla.1960); Wilson v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 185 Kan. 725, 347 P.2d 235 (1959); Kiser v. Bartley Mining Co., 397 S.W.2d 56 (Ky.1965); Baltimore v. Perticone, 171 Md. 268, 188 A. 797 (1937); Donovan v. Duluth Street Railway, 150 Minn. 364, 185 N.W. 388 (1921); McCann v. Walsh Construction Co., 306 N.Y. 904, 119 N.E.2d 596 (1954); Seneca v. Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co., 142 Pa.Super. 470, 16 A.2d 754 (1940); Britto v. Fram Corp., 93 R.I. 426, 176 A.2d 81 (1961); Lane v. Department of Labor and Industries, 21 Wash.2d 420, 151 P.2d 440 (1944); Annot., 79 A.L.R.2d 1080 (1961). We believe the majority view is sound and we adopt it.

Some decisions of this Court defining the nature and character of the limitation periods governing the filing of claims are theoretically inconsistent, overly rigid, and needlessly technical; they sometimes defeat, rather than advance, the beneficent purposes of the statute.

Although ordinary statutes of limitations are considered remedial or such as only to control the exercise of a substantive right, the time limitations in our act have been held to enter into and become a part of right of action itself and are a limitation not only on the remedy but on the right as well. In syllabus point 1 of Sudraski v. State Compensation Commissioner, 116 W.Va. 441, 181 S.E. 545 (1935) the Court held:

A limitation qualifying a special statutory right is generally held to be unaffected by the disabilities and excuses which allay ordinary statute of limitation, and to be such an inherent part of the statute which operates the right, that the right itself does not survive the limitation.

The literal application of this rule would preclude fraud, or the equitable...