State ex rel. Nyitray v. Industrial Com'n of Ohio

• Decision Date: 05 January 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-247,82-247
• Citation: 2 OBR 715,443 N.E.2d 962,2 Ohio St.3d 173
• Parties: , 2 O.B.R. 715 The STATE ex rel. NYITRAY, Appellant, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF OHIO et al., Appellees.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 173

2 Ohio St.3d 173

443 N.E.2d 962, 2 O.B.R. 715

The STATE ex rel. NYITRAY, Appellant, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF OHIO et al., Appellees.

No. 82-247.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Jan. 5, 1983.

Syllabus by the Court

That portion of R.C. 4123.60 which in effect denies accrued but unpaid workers' compensation to dependents of workers who died from work-related causes, while compensating dependents of workers who died from causes other than a compensable injury or occupational disease, violates the Equal Protection Clauses of the Ohio and the United States Constitutions. (State, ex rel. Spiker, v. Indus. Comm., 141 Ohio St. 174, 47 N.E.2d 217 , overruled.)

On April 24, 1974, Paul J. Nyitray was exposed to carbon dioxide while in the course and scope of his employment with Liquid Carbonic Corporation, an appellee herein, and as a result sustained a myocardial infarction. Subsequently, he filed a claim with the Bureau of Workers' Compensation. He was awarded temporary total disability benefits for the period from April 25, 1974 to February 8, 1976.

On August 15, 1977, Nyitray filed a motion requesting reimbursement for medical bills previously paid and also that the temporary total disability benefits continue from February 1976 to August 1977, and thereafter be contingent upon medical proof. Hearings were held on the motion and on September 8, 1977 and January 17, 1978, the district hearing officer granted the requests. Pursuant to the January 1978 order, a warrant in the amount of $9,104 for temporary total disability compensation was issued and mailed to Nyitray.

As a result of the industrial injury, Nyitray died on January 29, 1978, prior to receiving the compensation awarded. Subsequently, the Bureau of Workers' Compensation cancelled the previously issued warrant.

On February 13, 1978, Angela Nyitray, the widow-appellant, filed an application for payment of compensation accrued at the time of her husband's death. At a hearing on April 17, 1978, the application was granted for fifteen percent permanent partial disability which had been awarded on November 22, 1977 pursuant to a separate claim for an injury to the lumbosacral region of the back.

On November 7, 1978, appellant filed a motion requesting payment of the temporary total disability compensation and medical bills previously awarded, additional payment of temporary total disability compensation to date of death and also death benefits. Thereafter, the district hearing officer granted the request for death benefits. On May 29, 1979, the hearing officer granted reimbursement of medical bills, but, denied the temporary total disability compensation. Upon appeal, the Toledo Regional Board of Review affirmed the order of May 1979. The Industrial Commission, appellee herein, refused further appeal.

Thereafter, appellant initiated this action in the Court of Appeals for Franklin County seeking a writ of mandamus to compel the Industrial Commission to make the award. The court of appeals denied the writ.

The cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.

Gallon, Kalniz & Iorio Co., L.P.A., Dorothy B. McCrory, William E. Takacs and Michael A. Vanderhorst, Toledo, for appellant.

William J. Brown, Atty. Gen., and Bradley J. Finn, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellees Industrial Com'n.

FRANK D. CELEBREZZE, Chief Justice.

This cause presents the issue of whether a writ of mandamus was properly denied in which the widow-appellant seeks an order that the Industrial Commission pay her the temporary total disability compensation that her husband was entitled to receive, had applied for and had been granted, but had not received at the time of his death. We conclude that the writ was improperly denied for the following reasons.

Under Ohio's workers' compensation law, there are two separate and distinct types of compensation available to dependents of deceased workers. Dependents may be awarded the compensation the worker was entitled to receive prior to death pursuant to R.C. 4123.60. The second type of compensation available to dependents is death benefits under R.C. 4123.59.

In this case, death benefits, as well as permanent partial disability compensation, were awarded appellant. However, the temporary total disability compensation that Nyitray was entitled to receive prior to his death was denied appellant and is the subject of this appeal.

R.C. 4123.60 is cited by the appellee Industrial Commission as the basis for denying appellant's application for the disability benefits her husband was entitled to receive prior to his death. The relevant language in R.C. 4123.60 provides that:

"In all cases of death from causes other than the injury or occupational disease for which award had theretofore been made on account of temporary, or permanent partial, or total disability, in which there remains an unpaid balance, representing payments accrued and due to the decedent at the time of his death, the commission may, after satisfactory proof has been made warranting such action, award or pay any unpaid balance of such award to such of the dependents of the decedent, or for services rendered on account of the last illness or death of such decedent, as the commission determines in accordance with the circumstances in each such case. If the decedent would have been lawfully entitled to have made application for an award at the time of his death the commission may, after satisfactory proof to warrant an award and payment, award and pay an amount, not exceeding the compensation which the decedent might have received, but for his death, for the period prior to the date of his death, to such of the dependents of the decedent, or for services rendered on account of the last illness or death of such decedent, as the commission determines in accordance with the circumstances in each such case, but such payments may be made only in cases in which application for compensation was made in the manner required by sections 4123.01 to 4123.94 of the Revised Code, during the lifetime of such injured or disabled person, or within one year after the death of such injured or disabled person."

The record discloses that Nyitray's death was caused by an industrial injury. In State, ex rel. Spiker, v. Indus. Comm. (1943), 141 Ohio St. 174, 47 N.E.2d 217 , the court interpreted the predecessor ¹ of R.C. 4123.60 and concluded that nothing may be paid to dependents unless the worker died from a cause other than the compensable injury.

Following the Spiker rationale, dependents of workers who died from work-related causes are denied compensation, while dependents of those workers who died from causes other than a compensable injury or occupational disease are entitled to compensation under R.C. 4123.60. Thus, the question posed by appellant is whether the statutory classification violates the Equal Protection Clauses of the Ohio and United States Constitutions.

The limitations placed upon governmental action by the Equal Protection Clauses are essentially the same. 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 . Equal protection of the laws requires 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 , paragraph three of the syllabus; Porter v. Oberlin, supra, paragraph two of the syllabus. The "reasonableness" of a statutory classification is dependent upon the purpose of the Act. Carrington v. Rash (1965), 380 U.S. 89, 93, 85 S.Ct. 775, 778, 13 L.Ed.2d 675; McLaughlin v. Florida (1964), 379 U.S. 184, 191, 85 S.Ct. 283, 287, 13 L.Ed.2d 222.

Ohio's workers' compensation system is predicated upon Section 35, Article II of the Ohio Constitution, which states that the purpose of workers' compensation is to compensate "workmen and their dependents, for death, injuries or occupational disease, occasioned in the course of such workmen's employment * * *." (Emphasis added.) Clearly, the purpose of R.C. 4123.60 is to fulfill this objective of compensating dependents. However, the statutory classification which exists in R.C. 4123.60 as interpreted by Spiker precludes the class represented by appellant, dependents of workers who died from work-related causes, from obtaining the compensation accrued and due, or for which application had not been made. Nyitray was injured on the job, and the commission granted him compensation to cover a period of over one and a half years; however, he had not received such compensation prior to his death. We view this classification which denies dependents of workers who died from work-related causes from obtaining compensation due, while paying the dependents of workers who died from other causes, as inherently unfair and contrary to the purpose of compensating dependents stated in the Constitution.

In Kinney v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. (1975), 41 Ohio St.2d, 120, 124, 322 N.E.2d 880 , we said that the legislation could be upheld if it was shown that the statutory prerequisites were rationally related to the accomplishment of some state objective at least as important as the purpose contained in the Constitution and reflected in the statute. The constitutional purpose at issue was to compensate dependents of workers who died from work-related causes. Applying this test, we concluded that the statutory prerequisites in R.C. 4123.59, designed for administrative ease, violated the Equal Protection Clauses. ²

Following Kinney, it is necessary to ascertain the purpose served by the classification contained in R.C. 4123.60. The court of appeals suggested that the legislative scheme construed in Spiker provides dependents of a deceased with either the compensation the deceased worker was entitled to, but did not receive, prior to his death pursuant to R.C. 4123.60 or the enhanced survivor benefits pursuant to R.C. 4123.59. ³...