Gregory v. Second Injury Fund of IowaGregory v. Second Injury Fund of Iowa
Lead Opinion
In this appeal, we must decide whether the workers’ compensation commissioner erred in concluding a claimant who sustained successive injuries in the course of her employment is not entitled to benefits from the Second Injury Fund (the Fund). The commissioner concluded the Fund owes nothing in this case under Iowa Code section 85.64 (2001) because the first injury sustained by the claimant, Lori Gregory (Gregory), resulted in surgeries and functional losses to both of her arms and shoulders and functional limitations extending into the whole body. On appeal from the district court’s judgment affirming the commissioner’s decision, we reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Gregory began working for Jeld-Wen, Inc. d/b/a Doorcraft of Iowa (Doorcraft) in 1999. In September 2000, she experienced bilateral upper extremity dysfunction. She underwent a right carpal tunnel surgery on December 15, 2000, and had the same surgery on the left side on February 19, 2001. These procedures left Gregory with a two percent functional impairment of her left hand and a six percent functional impairment of her right hand.
In the spring and summer of 2001, Gregory underwent bilateral surgical procedures intended to decompress her distal clavicles and treat pain in her shoulders. The orthopedist who performed these procedures subsequently opined Gregory sustained a ten percent impairment of her right arm and a ten percent impairment of her left arm secondary to the surgical treatment of her clavicles.
Gregory was able to continue her employment at Doorcraft after her recovery from the surgeries. However, she sustained a new injury in the course of her employment on October 8, 2002, when a door end-rail fell, fracturing her right foot. During the ensuing months, Gregory was treated for persistent pain in the injured foot and in her right leg.
Gregory filed a petition with the Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner on
Gregory sought judicial review, and the district court affirmed the commissioner’s decision.
II. Scope of Review.
An appeal of a workers’ compensation decision is reviewed under standards described in chapter 17A.
III. Discussion.
Gregory contends the commissioner erred in concluding her 2000 left-hand injury cannot qualify as a first injury under section 85.64. The Fund asserts the commissioner correctly concluded Gregory’s 2000 injury resulting in impairment to more than one member enumerated in the statute, considered for purposes of workers’ compensation together with impairment to Gregory’s shoulders in determining disability to her body as a whole, cannot qualify as a first injury under the statute. A brief review of the Fund’s legislative history will aid our resolution of this issue.
The General Assembly passed legislation establishing the Fund in 1945. The statute originally provided in relevant part:
If an employee who has previously lost, or lost the use of, one hand, one arm, one foot, one leg, or one eye, becomes permanently and totally disabled by a compensable injury which has resulted in the loss of or loss of use of another such member or organ, the employer shall be liable only for the degree of disability which would have resulted from the latter injury if there had beenno preexisting disability. In addition to such compensation, and after the expiration of the full period provided by law for the payments thereof by the employer, the employee shall be paid out of the “Second Injury Fund” created by this Act the remainder of such compensation as would be payable for permanent total disability after first deducting from such remainder the compensable value of the previously lost member or organ.
1945 Iowa Acts eh. 81, § 2. The scope of the statute was extended less than a decade later when the General Assembly amended the law and eliminated the requirement that the claimant prove total permanent disability as a result of the second injury to establish the Fund’s liability. 1951 Iowa Acts ch. 59, § 6 (expressing in its title the intent “to liberalize the provisions of the second injury fund”). Under the current version of section 85.64, the Fund is implicated in a workers’ compensation claim when an employee suffers successive qualifying injuries.
We have noted the Fund was conceived by the legislature to encourage the employment of disabled persons “by making the current employer responsible only for the disability the current employer causes.” Second Injury Fund v. Shank,
Each party believes the plain language of
When interpreting a statute, our “ultimate goal is to determine and effectuate the intent of the legislature.” Beier Glass Co. v. Brundige,
We also give careful attention to the purpose of a statute as we engage in interpretation. Am. Home Prods.,
The legislature enacted the workers’ compensation statute primarily for the benefit of the worker and the worker’s dependents. Therefore, we apply the statute broadly and liberally in keeping with the humanitarian objective of the statute. We will not defeat the statute’s beneficent purpose by reading something into it that is not there, or by a narrow and strained construction.
Holstein Elec. v. Breyfogle,
With these principles in mind, we must interpret
Although George interpreted only that part of
Our determination that Gregory’s 2000 left hand injury qualifies as a first injury under
We recognize the statute establishing the Fund has been characterized by commentators as a “narrow” second injury fund regime and that some jurisdictions have opted for statutory formulations with broader reach. See Harry W. Dahl, The Iowa Second Injury Fund — Time for Change, 39 Drake L.Rev. 101, 103 (1989-1990).
Our decision in George and our disposition of the issues in this case are faithful to the well-established principle that chapter 85 is to be liberally construed in favor of the injured employee. In both instances, the Fund has advocated an interpretation of
Gregory’s claim for Fund benefits alleged a 2000 injury to her left hand as a first qualifying injury. The uncontrovert-ed medical evidence in the record establishes that this injury resulted in a two percent functional impairment of that hand. The fact that Gregory combined in a single workers’ compensation proceeding her claim for that scheduled loss with other scheduled and unscheduled injuries did not disqualify it as a first qualifying injury under
Our interpretation of
IV. Conclusion.
We conclude the commissioner erred in interpreting
DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED AND CASE REMANDED.
Notes
. Although the fracture was situated in the right foot, Gregory's petition initially alleged an injury to the body as a whole because a treating physician had diagnosed symptoms of reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) in the right leg. The RSD symptoms resolved, however, and Gregory subsequently abandoned her claim that the 2002 injury extended permanently beyond the right foot, a scheduled member under Iowa Code section 85.34(2)(n).
. Gregory's workers’ compensation claim against Doorcraft for the 2000 bilateral hand and shoulder disabilities was resolved by a special case settlement agreement under Iowa Code section 85.35 on July 19, 2004.
. It has been suggested that this court’s decisions have mischaracterized the General Assembly's primary purpose in adopting the Fund and that the primary purpose of second injury fund statutes is mitigation of the harsh consequences of the apportionment rule for employees and the full-responsibility rule for employers in certain cases involving successive injuries to body parts enumerated in
. As we have already noted, Gregory and Doorcraft agreed upon a lump sum special case settlement of the 2000 claim under Iowa Code section 85.35. Doorcraft paid $27,500 as a full and final settlement of that claim. The medical records supporting the settlement agreement approved by the commissioner evidenced Gregory sustained a two percent permanent impairment of her left hand as a consequence of the 2000 injury.
. For example, some other jurisdictions impose liability on their second injury funds without regard to whether a claimant’s previous disabling injury was situated in an enumerated member. See, e.g., Christie v. Coors Transp. Co.,
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the district court. Gregory did not sustain a qualifying first injury.
The majority builds its decision upon the often-repeated declared purpose of the
In truth, the Second Injury Fund concept was not conceived to encourage employers to employ disabled workers. Instead, it was enacted to resolve a fundamental dilemma that surfaced early in the development of our workers’ compensation law. This dilemma can be traced to a faulty assumption upon which the early compensation scheme was predicated. This early scheme assumed a worker, prior to a compensable injury, was a “normal [person], with a body and all members” that functioned normally. Pappas v. N. Iowa Brick & Tile Co.,
For employees faced with such successive injuries, a fair compensation system would include compensation for the additional disability produced by the combined effect of the injury to an employee with the existing disability. For employers faced with successive injuries to employees, a fair system of compensation would not impose liability for disability not caused by the employment. Some courts sided with the employee by holding the employer fully responsible for the total disability from successive injuries, while other courts sided with the employer by apportioning responsibility for successive injuries by limiting the responsibility of the employer to the disability caused only by the second injury.
In recognizing the merits of both positions, the Second Injury Fund was conceived as a legislative solution to the dilemma courts were forced to grapple with by adopting one side or the other, or by fashioning some form of apportionment. One of the first cases to discuss the successive-injury dilemma was from the state of New York in 1915. In this case, a worker named Jacob Schwab had his left hand amputated in 1892 for an unknown reason and later suffered the severance of his right hand in a work-related accident. Schwab v. Emporium Forestry Co.,
As early as 1919, we confronted the successive-injury dilemma by holding the employer responsible for the resulting total disability. Jennings v. Mason City Sewer Pipe Co.,
At the time of these early cases, the idea of a Second Injury Fund in Iowa to pay for the additional disability produced by the combined effect of successive injuries was not a vision shared by our legislature. Nor did the concept become an immediate national phenomenon. By 1945, however, a different attitude had surfaced around the country. During World War II, hospital ships laden with disabled veterans returned to America, prompting lawmakers to examine the laws and programs that would aid the returning soldiers. See Dahl at 104 (“Second injury funds became popular at the end of World War II as an attempt to remove obstacles facing disabled veterans who were re-entering the job market.”).
Around the same time, data began to emerge from around the country to show handicapped workers in states that did not apportion responsibility for successive injuries were at a competitive disadvantage due to the full responsibility rule. See Larson’s Workers’ Compensation § 91.01, at 91-2 (stating “[a]s soon as it became clear that a particular state had adopted a rule requiring an employer to bear the full cost of total disability for loss of the worker’s remaining leg or arm, employers had a strong financial incentive to discharge all workers who might bring upon them this kind of aggravated liability”). The competitive disadvantage occurred because employers did not want to become liable for the combined disability of successive injuries by hiring or retaining handicapped workers. Id.
Consequently, in those states that followed the full responsibility rule for employers, the Second Injury Fund statute was viewed as a means to encourage the employment of handicapped workers by making the current employer only responsible for the disability caused by a second injury. Id. at 91-4. This observation is the source of the statutory purpose declared by the majority. Yet, in states like Iowa, that already protected employers from full responsibility for successive injuries, the Second Injury Fund statute was not needed to encourage the employment of handicapped workers by making the current employer responsible only for the disability caused by the current employment. See Lee M. Jackwig, The Second Injury Fund of Iowa: How Complex Can a Simple Concept Become?, 28 Drake L.Rev. 889, 890-91 (1978-1979) (recognizing that employers were not liable for the total disability of successive injuries at the time the Second Injury Fund was adopted,
It simply makes no sense for us to continue to proclaim a false legislative purpose behind Iowa’s Second Injury Fund statute. Moreover, it is not merely an academic debate at stake. It is important to correctly articulate the legislative purpose of all statutes because the statutory purpose guides us in the interpretation of the statute. Courts risk making an incorrect interpretation of a statute by failing to recognize the true purpose of the statute.
If there is a single element of clarity under the statute, it is that the legislature did not intend to include all handicapped workers under its umbrella. Instead, the language of the Second Injury Fund statute only includes persons who had previously lost, or lost the use of, “one hand, one arm, one foot, one leg, or one eye.”
While there may be no clear explanation why the statute would give special benefits (full compensation for combined effects of successive injuries) to some handicapped workers and not others, such line drawing is not up to courts, but is done by the legislature, who is responsible for doling out benefits based on limited resources and policy making. Nevertheless, the fundamental question is whether the legislature intended for the Second Injury Fund statute to cover handicapped workers with an existing disability that extended to both a specified and unspecified portion of the body.
In my mind, the portion of the Second Injury Fund statute that provides the greatest clarity in answering this question is the language that requires “the compen-sable value of the previously lost member or organ” to be deducted from the Second Injury Fund award.
Importantly, the phrase “previously lost member or organ” in the deduction portion of the statute refers only to the first injury or disability to “one hand, one arm, one foot, one leg, or one eye,” not the back, neck, shoulder, or hip. See id. (“If an employee who has previously lost, or lost the use of, one hand, one arm, one foot, one leg, or one eye, becomes permanently disabled by a compensable injury which
The majority obviously recognizes the absence of any language in the statute that calls for the full amount of the first injury to be deducted from the amount of compensation payable by the Fund. They, of course, avoid this flaw by simply directing the commissioner to determine the new combined disability based on the combined effect of only the first and second qualifying injuries, ignoring the portion of the prior disability, and the new combined disability, attributable to the nonqualifying portion of the first injury covering the back, neck, shoulder, or hip. Thus, the majority lowers the threshold of the statute to include workers with comprehensive disabilities (handicap due to injuries to both qualified and nonqualified parts of the body under the statute) by simply directing the commissioner to apply the statute as if workers are burdened with a different, less severe disability. While we strive to interpret workers’ compensation statutes liberally in favor of the worker, the majority’s maneuver goes well beyond any acceptable rule of construction. The majority is no longer interpreting the statute, but rewriting the statute. Such an approach has serious and broad implications.
Moreover, the approach adopted by the majority falls well short of the true goal of the statute to provide full compensation for disabled workers who suffer a new injury. If the commissioner must ignore the true nature of the first disability in applying the statute as directed by the majority, then the worker will likely not be fully compensated for the true combined disability that results when the existing disability is combined with the new injury. Of course, the majority is able to accept this result by continuing to maintain that the purpose of the statute was merely to encourage employment of disabled workers, instead of recognizing its true fundamental goal of full compensation.
I agree the Second Injury Fund is confusing, if not outdated, and even perhaps unfair as it is currently written. However, it is not up to the courts to rewrite a statute. Instead, the legislature is the governmental body that should revisit the statute and decide whether or not it should be extended to include handicapped workers with whole body injuries as the first injury.
For those reasons, I respectfully dissent.
TERNUS, C.J., and STREIT, J„ join this dissent.
. It has been suggested that Second Injury Fund statutes in those states that impose low