Nelson v. City of Pocatello
| Decision Date | 29 April 2022 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 49171 |
| Citation | 508 P.3d 1234 |
| Parties | Richard NELSON, Claimant-Respondent, v. City of POCATELLO, Self-Insured Employer, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Bowen & Bailey, LLP, Boise, for Appellant. Michael McPeek argued.
Racine Olson, PLLP, Pocatello, for Respondent. Rachel Miller argued.
Following a 21-year career as a firefighter with the City of Pocatello ("the City"), Richard Nelson was diagnosed with leukemia. Nelson brought a workers’ compensation claim against the City. The Industrial Commission determined that the City failed to rebut a statutory presumption of causation with substantial and competent evidence. The City appeals the Industrial Commission's factual findings and conclusions of law. It argues there was substantial evidence to rebut the presumption that Nelson's cancer was caused by his employment. The City also argues that Idaho Code section 72-438(14)(b), which is the source of the presumption the Industrial Commission applied, unconstitutionally discriminates between the employers of firefighters who have cancer and the employers of other employees who claim to have contracted an occupational disease. For the following reasons, we affirm the Industrial Commission.
Richard Nelson was a firefighter for 21 years, working for the City from 1993 to 2014. In his career as a firefighter, Nelson was promoted through a series of positions, becoming a First Class Firefighter in 1995, a Driver/Operator in 2005, and Captain in the Fire Prevention and Public Education Division in 2011. He was actively involved in fire prevention and investigation for 18 years, from 1993 to 2011, and retired as a firefighter in 2014.
In November 2018, Nelson was diagnosed with early-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia ("CLL"). He notified his employer the same month and timely submitted a workers’ compensation claim for his medical benefits. The CLL was not revealed during any initial employment medical screening examinations with the City of Pocatello, nor was the diagnosis made more than ten years following Nelson's promotion to Captain or his retirement as a firefighter. Additionally, Nelson and his family have not habitually used tobacco products for ten or more years prior to Nelson's CLL diagnosis. Altogether, these stipulated facts led the Industrial Commission and parties to agree that Nelson's CLL diagnosis qualifies for the presumption in Idaho Code section 72-438(14)(b) that "[the] disease shall be presumed to be proximately caused by [his] ... employment as a firefighter." I.C. § 72-438(14)(b).
The City sought to rebut this statutory presumption with the report and testimony of Robert E. Burdick, M.D. Dr. Burdick's report discussed studies and statistics concerning the association between CLL and firefighting. He explained:
As these 6 summary studies show, time after time, no matter how the medical literature is massaged, the data just does not support a premise that firefighting significantly increases the risk of CLL on a more probable than not basis. It is also my opinion that in those few studies in the older literature where an increase was seen, the increase was an aberration usually observed when too few patients are included in the analysis.
Based on this analysis, Dr. Burdick concluded that "the absence in the medical literature of a medically probable link between firefighting and CLL," meant "a physician cannot conclude with medical probability that Mr. Nelson's CLL is causally related, on a more probable than not basis, to toxins he may have been exposed to during his employment for the city of Pocatello as a firefighter."
While there was no evidentiary hearing in this case, the parties deposed Dr. Burdick on March 8, 2021. In his deposition, Dr. Burdick explained that CLL is an overgrowth of lymphocytes within the bone marrow. Nelson's CLL diagnosis was discovered early enough to place it in the lowest "Rai classification";1 thus, it did not require immediate treatment. On cross-examination, Dr. Burdick conceded that no one could truly say what caused Nelson's CLL:
Dr. Burdick also testified concerning his report, medical study statistics connecting cancer to potential causes, and medical research indicating radon as a general cause of CLL.
The Industrial Commission concluded that the City "failed to produce substantial affirmative evidence" to rebut the statutory presumption of causation because it "failed to produce affirmative medical evidence that [Nelson's] cancer was caused by something other than his employment." The Industrial Commission also concluded that Idaho's firefighter presumption law, enacted in 2016, was unambiguous; it plainly requires the Commission "to presume, unless there is ‘substantial evidence to the contrary’, [sic] that a claimant's disease was proximately caused by his employment as a firefighter." This, the Commission concluded, the City failed to do.
Following the Industrial Commission's decision, the City filed a motion to make the Commission's findings and conclusions immediately appealable to the Idaho Supreme Court. Nelson did not object to the motion, and the Commission granted it. The City then timely appealed to this Court.
The standard of review for appeals from the Industrial Commission is two-fold: (1) while this Court freely reviews the Commission's legal conclusions, (2) we "will not disturb the Commission's factual findings so long as they are supported by substantial and competent evidence." Page v. McCain Foods, Inc. , 155 Idaho 755, 760, 316 P.3d 671, 676 (2014).
"Constitutional issues and the construction and application of legislative acts are pure questions of law over which this Court exercises free review." Struhs v. Prot. Techs., Inc. , 133 Idaho 715, 718, 992 P.2d 164, 167 (1999). See also Politte v. Dep't of Transp. , 126 Idaho 270, 272, 882 P.2d 437, 439 (1994). "It is generally presumed that legislative acts are constitutional, that the state legislature has acted within its constitutional powers, and any doubt concerning interpretation of a statute is to be resolved in favor of that which will render the statute constitutional." Olsen v. J.A. Freeman Co. , 117 Idaho 706, 709, 791 P.2d 1285, 1288 (1990). The party asserting a statute's unconstitutionality "bears the burden of showing [the statute's] invalidity and must overcome a strong presumption of validity." Id. This Court exercises its judicial power "to declare legislative action invalid upon constitutional grounds ... only in clear cases." Gomersall v. St. Luke's Reg'l Med. Ctr., Ltd. , 168 Idaho 308, 314, 483 P.3d 365, 371 (2021).
The key issue before the Industrial Commission was whether the City produced substantial evidence to rebut the presumption that Nelson's cancer was caused by his employment as a firefighter. The Industrial Commission determined that the City failed to rebut that presumption pursuant to Idaho Code sections 72-438(b) and (c). On appeal, the City raises questions concerning the statute's constitutionality for the first time, maintaining, "the Idaho Supreme Court is the proper forum for contesting the constitutionality of a statutory provision of the Idaho Workers’ Compensation law." (citing Tupper v. State Farm Ins. , 131 Idaho 724, 729, 963 P.2d 1161, 1166 (1998) ). Generally, this Court does not address constitutional claims made for the first time on appeal. Gordon v. Hedrick , 159 Idaho 604, 612, 364 P.3d 951, 959 (2015) ; Tupper v. State Farm Ins. , 131 Idaho 724, 729, 963 P.2d 1161, 1166 (1998). However, " ‘because the [Industrial] Commission does not have jurisdiction to address [ ] constitutional challenges,’ " a party may properly raise such issues before this Court on appeal. See Tupper , 131 Idaho at 729, 963 P.2d at 1166. Accordingly, we will consider the City's argument on the statute's constitutionality.
The City first argues on appeal that "the presumption of causation under 72-438(l4)(b) in firefighter cancer cases, and the standard in Idaho Code § 72-438(14)(c) for overcoming the presumption, both deny [it] equal protection of the law under art. l § 2 of the Idaho Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." The City contends that these statutory provisions carve out a classification for the employers of firefighters with cancers enumerated in the workers’ compensation laws, which is distinct from the employers of employees contracting other occupational diseases under Idaho law. While the City concedes this classification does not qualify for strict-scrutiny analysis under either state or federal equal protection analysis, it argues the statutory classification qualifies for the Idaho Supreme Court's "means-focus test." Nelson counters that the means-focus test is inapplicable here because the statutory classification created by Idaho Code sections 72-438(l4)(b) and (c) can only qualify for rational basis review, and it does not violate either the U.S. or Idaho Constitutions. We agree with Nelson's analysis.
When addressing equal protection claims, we apply a three-step analysis: "(1) identifying the classification under attack; (2) identifying the level of scrutiny under which the classification will be examined; and (3)...
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