Richard A. CHRISTIE, Petitioner, v. COORS TRANSPORTATION COMPANY and the Industrial Claim Appeals Office, Respondents, and Subsequent Injury Fund, Intervenor.
No. 96SC66.
Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.
March 31, 1997.
933 P.2d 1330
Gale A. Norton, Attorney General, Martha Phillips Allbright, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Richard A. Westfall, Solicitor General, Paul Farley, Deputy Attorney General, David M. Kaye, First Assistant Attorney General, John D. Baird, Assistant Attorney General, State Services Division, Denver, for Respondent the Industrial Claim Appeals Office.
Gale A. Norton, Attorney General, Martha Phillips Allbright, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Richard A. Westfall, Solicitor General, Garth C. Lucero, Deputy Attorney General, Michael P. Serruto, First Assistant Attorney General, Civil Litigation Section, Roxane D. Baca, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Litigation Section, Denver, for Intervenor Subsequent Injury Fund.
Jean E. Dubofsky, P.C., Jean E. Dubofsky, Boulder, for amicus curiae Workers Compensation Education Association.
Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority, Michael J. Steiner, Denver, for amicus curiae Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority.
Berry & Singer, John Berry, Denver, for amicus curiae Workers’ Compensation Coalition.
Chief Justice VOLLACK delivered the Opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to determine (a) whether the court of appeals properly refused to interpret
I.
On August 20, 1991, Richard A. Christie (Christie) injured his lumbar, thoracic, and cervical spine during the course of his employment as an over-the-road truck driver for Coors Transportation Company (Coors). Coors admitted liability for Christie‘s injury and paid medical benefits, temporary total disability benefits, and temporary partial disability benefits up to the date that Christie reached maximum medical improvement. Thereafter, Coors admitted liability for a permanent partial disability of thirty-one percent.
Following his injury, Christie returned to work at Coors on a physically restricted basis. Christie continued to work for Coors until January 20, 1992, when he was discharged for cause for fighting with a fellow employee. Christie looked for, but was unable to find, suitable employment. Christie subsequently initiated a claim against Coors for permanent total disability (PTD) benefits.
Christie underwent a functional capacity evaluation, which determined that he was capable of working eight hours a day if he worked within certain physical restrictions. Both Christie and Coors then solicited the opinions of vocational experts regarding Christie‘s ability to work. Although both experts relied upon and interpreted the functional capacity evaluation, they offered conflicting opinions. It was the opinion of Christie‘s expert that Christie would not be able to earn a wage on a regular and consistent basis and that his estimated vocational impairment was one hundred percent. Conversely, it was the opinion of Coors’ expert that Christie could earn wages as an information clerk or office clerk, in the general fields of sales and cashiering, and in the area of telephone operations.
On July 1, 1994, after multiple evidentiary hearings, an administrative law judge (ALJ) determined that Christie did not qualify for PTD benefits. The ALJ found that “although [Christie] may not be efficient in any field of employment, he does retain access to specific, identifiable and available employment opportunities and can earn wages in those fields and accordingly is not permanently and totally disabled.” The ALJ also denied Christie‘s request for medical impairment benefits based on a rating of greater than thirty-one percent.
Christie appealed to the Industrial Claim Appeals Office, which affirmed the ALJ‘s ruling. Christie then appealed to the court of appeals, which also affirmed the ALJ‘s order. The court of appeals determined that the ALJ properly denied Christie‘s claim for PTD benefits because
II.
Christie contends that, in light of
A court‘s primary task in construing a statute is to determine and give effect to the intent of the legislature. See State v. Hartsough, 790 P.2d 836, 838 (Colo. 1990). To discern legislative intent, a court must look first to the statutory language, giving words and phrases their plain and ordinary meaning. See id. If separate clauses in the same statutory scheme may be harmonized by one construction, but would be antagonis-
In addition to construing the statutory provisions before us, we must also determine whether they violate equal protection guarantees. The
Under the rational basis standard, a statutory classification is presumed constitutional and does not violate equal protection unless it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the classification does not bear a rational relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose. See Duran v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 883 P.2d 477, 482 (Colo. 1994). 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. See Romero, 912 P.2d at 66. If any conceivable set of facts would lead to the conclusion that a classification serves a legitimate purpose, a court must assume those facts exist. See id. at 67.
A.
Christie contends that the court of appeals erroneously refused to interpret
In cases where a claimant is determined to be permanently totally disabled, any such case may be reopened at any time to determine if the claimant has returned to employment. If the claimant has returned to employment and is earning in excess of four thousand dollars per year or has participated in activities which indicate that the claimant has the ability to return to employment, such claimant‘s permanent total disability award shall cease and the claimant shall not be entitled to further permanent total disability benefits as a result of the injury or occupational disease which led to the original permanent total disability award.
(Emphasis added.) This provision permits employers to reopen a case in which PTD benefits have already been awarded if the claimant has returned to employment and is earning more than $4,000 per year. Pursuant to this provision, employees may continue receiving PTD benefits as long as they are earning less than $4,000 per year.
In McKinney v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 894 P.2d 42, 45 (Colo. App. 1995), a division of the Colorado Court of Appeals addressed the precise issue before us here: whether, in light of the reopening provision,
We agree with McKinney‘s conclusion that the definition of PTD found in
B.
Christie also asserts that the court of appeals erroneously refused to interpret
As discussed above,
In a case where an employee has previously sustained permanent partial industrial disability and in a subsequent injury sustains additional permanent partial industrial disability and it is shown that the combined industrial disabilities render the employee permanently and totally incapable of steady gainful employment and incapable of rehabilitation to steady gainful employment, then the employer in whose employ the employee sustained such subsequent injury shall be liable only for that portion of the employee‘s industrial disability attributable to said subsequent injury, and the balance of compensation due such employee on account of permanent total disability shall be paid from the subsequent injury fund....
The SIF was created in 1945 and remained relatively unchanged until 1975. Compare Colo. Sess. Laws 1945, ch. 164 at 447-448 with
From 1975 until 1991, the Workers’ Compensation Act did not define PTD. Instead, PTD was defined in Byouk v. Industrial Comm‘n, 106 Colo. 430, 434, 105 P.2d 1087, 1089 (1940), where this court held that PTD benefits were warranted if the claimant did not “retain[] or would [not] regain efficiency in some substantial degree as a working unit in the fields of general employment.” In determining whether a claimant was PTD according to the Byouk standard, our courts considered the claimant‘s physical condition, age, industrial history, mentality, education, and availability of work which the claimant could perform.3 See, e.g., Professional Fire Protection, Inc. v. Long, 867 P.2d 175, 177 (Colo. App. 1993) (applying various factors to determine whether injuries sustained in 1987 rendered claimant PTD); American Metals Climax, Inc. v. Cisneros, 195 Colo. 163, 167, 576 P.2d 553, 557 (1978) (holding that factors were illustrative of the types of evidence relevant to PTD determination). Our courts, however, never utilized the SIF provision‘s “steady, gainful employment” language as a standard for determining whether to award PTD benefits.
In 1991, the legislature recognized the need to statutorily define PTD. The legislature consequently added
In contrast, the SIF provision simply sets forth a method for apportioning liability between employers and the SIF for permanent
III.
In summary, we hold that the persons affected by
MULLARKEY, J., concurs, and BENDER, J., joins in the concurrence.
Justice MULLARKEY, concurring:
I join the majority‘s opinion except as to part II A. I disagree with the majority‘s conclusion in part II A that employees seeking an initial determination of eligibility benefits are not similarly situated to employees whose cases are reopened to determine whether they should continue receiving permanent total disability benefits. In my view, employees seeking an initial determination pursuant to
I.
As noted by the majority, a statutory classification violates the equal protection provisions of the federal and state constitutions when it arbitrarily singles out a group of persons for disparate treatment while not treating other similarly situated persons in the same manner. See Industrial Claim Appeals Office v. Romero, 912 P.2d 62, 66 (Colo. 1996). In this case, the claimant ar-
A legislative classification is reasonable if it “includes all persons who are similarly situated with respect to the purpose of the law.” J. Tussman & J. tenBroek, The Equal Protection of the Laws, 37 Cal. L.Rev. 341, 346 (1949). Therefore, whether persons are similarly situated for equal protection analysis depends on the purpose of the law or laws at issue. The purpose of both
I find that the majority‘s differentiation of claimants based on the stage of their proceeding requires too exacting a focus on the procedural aspects of making a PTD determination.1 The contrasting standards in this case reflect the fact that the evidence available for an initial determination is often different from the evidence available for a reopening proceeding. As such, the classification does not concern the types of persons or groups involved, but rather the procedures that are necessary, given the evidence available at the time of the proceeding, to determine a claimant‘s ability to earn wages. Thus, I find that the situations of those persons seeking an initial determination of eligibility pursuant to
II.
When determining whether a statute violates equal protection, the applicable level of judicial scrutiny is dependent upon the type of classification involved and the nature of the right affected. See Romero, 912 P.2d at 66. Here, as noted by the majority, the parties before us agree that the rational basis standard should be applied. See Maj. op. at 1332. Under that standard, a statutory classification “does not violate equal protection unless it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the classification does not bear a rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose.” Id. The disparity between the standard for an initial determination of permanent total disability and the standard for reopening a PTD proceeding does not violate equal protection because there is a rational basis for the difference that is related to legitimate state interests.
First, as noted by the court of appeals’ decision in this case, restricting reopening proceedings to only those cases where a claimant earns more than $4000 is rationally related to the legislative purpose of providing benefits efficiently and with limited litigation. Because the legislature has intentionally made it difficult to initially qualify for PTD benefits, it seems reasonable to protect judicial resources by requiring more substantial evidence that the claimant can return to work and earn wages before allowing an employer to reopen the case.
The legislative history of the [1991] amendments demonstrates that the legislators recognized the difficulty of predicting at the time of adjudication whether someone adjudged to be permanently and totally disabled would ever regain the ability to be re-employed or earn non-wage income.... The legislators were of the view that it would be punitive and demoralizing to prohibit such endeavors entirely.
McKinney, 894 P.2d at 45. I find that protecting the ability of injured workers to develop new skills and attempt to earn a limited additional income is a rational basis for applying a different standard for reopening.
Last, the different standard is justified by the different types of evidence available at the two proceedings. At the initial proceeding, the injured employee is required to prove that he or she will be unable to earn any wages. Such proof is made generally through expert testimony which, to a reasonable degree of certainty, attempts to predict the claimant‘s future ability to secure employment and earn a wage. For example, in this case, an expert retained by the claimant, relying on his interpretation of the claimant‘s functional capacity evaluation, testified that it was his opinion that the claimant “would not be able to earn a wage on a regular and consistent basis and that his estimated vocational impairment was one hundred percent.” Maj. op. at 1332. An expert retained by Coors, utilizing the same functional capacity evaluation, testified that the claimant could earn wages as an information clerk, cashier, or telephone operator. See id. Given the subjective quality of these evaluations, an expert‘s prediction of a claimant‘s future employment and earning capacity rarely can be made with absolute certainty.
In contrast, when an employer makes a motion to reopen proceedings, objectively verifiable evidence of the injured claimant‘s earning capacity is often available. The legislature therefore provided that a PTD determination can be reopened only if the claimant actually earns more than $4000 or is involved in activities which indicate an ability to return to employment. Thus, the reopening determination must be based on historical fact which can be determined with certainty. In my view, the availability of historical fact demonstrating a claimant‘s earning capacity is sufficient justification for the application of a different standard for reopening a PTD determination.
III.
I agree with the majority that the definition of PTD found in
I am authorized to say that Justice BENDER joins in this concurrence.