BRUCE HOLDSWORTH, APPELLEE, V. GREENWOOD FARMERS COOPERATIVE AND COOPERATIVE MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, INC., APPELLANTS.
No. S-12-403
Nebraska Supreme Court
June 14, 2013
286 Neb. 49
intеrlock revocation. The sentence and sanctions imposed were not an abuse of discretion. Therefore, we affirm.
AFFIRMED.
BRUCE HOLDSWORTH, APPELLEE, V. GREENWOOD FARMERS COOPERATIVE AND COOPERATIVE MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, INC., APPELLANTS.
N.W.2d ___
Filed June 14, 2013. No. S-12-403.
- Workers’ Compensation: Appeal and Error. An appellate court is obligated in workers’ compensation cases to make its own determinations as to questions of law.
- Jurisdiction. A jurisdictional question which does not involve a factual dispute is determined by an appellate court as a matter of law.
- Appeal and Error. The meaning of a statute is a question of law.
- Jurisdiction. Jurisdiction does not relate to the right of the parties as between each other, but to the power of the court.
- ____. Parties cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction upon a judicial tribunal by either acquiescence or consent, nor may subject matter jurisdiction be created by waiver, estoppel, consent, or сonduct of the parties.
- ____. The jurisdiction of courts is a public matter that cannot be affected by a private agreement, and the jurisdiction of a court can neither be acquired nor lost as a result of an agreement of the parties.
- Statutes: Appeal and Error. An appellate court will not resort to interpretation to ascertain the meaning of statutory words which are plain, direct, and unambiguous.
- Workers’ Compensation: Penalties and Forfeitures: Attorney Fees. The waiting-time penalty and attorney fees for waiting-time proceedings provided under
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-125 (Cum. Supp. 2012) are rights under the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act. - Workers’ Compensation: Penalties and Forfeitures: Waiver. The settlement procedures in
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-139(3) (Reissue 2010) require a worker to waive all rights under the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act, including both the right to penalties underNeb. Rev. Stat. § 48-125 (Cum. Supp. 2012) and the right to ask a judge of the compensation court to decide the parties’ rights and obligations. - Statutes: Appeal and Error. An appellate court will not read into a statute a meaning that is not there.
- Statutes. A court must attempt to give effect to all parts of a statute, and if it can be avoided, no word, clause, or sentence will be rejected as superfluous or meaningless.
- Appeal and Error. An appellate court is not obligated to engage in an analysis that is not necessary to adjudicate the case and controversy before it.
Appeal from the Workers’ Compensation Court: THOMAS E. STINE, Judge. Reversed and remanded with direction.
Rolf Edward Shasteen, of Shasteen, Miner, Scholz & Morris, P.C., L.L.C., for appellee.
HEAVICAN, C.J., WRIGHT, CONNOLLY, STEPHAN, McCORMACK, and CASSEL, JJ.
CASSEL, J.
INTRODUCTION
In this workers’ compensation appeal, the parties implemented a lump-sum settlement in compliance with
BACKGROUND
In November 2011, Bruce Holdsworth filed a petition for workers’ compensation benefits alleging that he had been injured during his employment at Greenwood Farmers Cooperative. Holdsworth entered into a lump-sum settlement with Greenwood Farmers Cooperative and its workers’ compensation insurance carrier (collectively appellants). Pursuant to this settlement, appellants agreed to make a one-time payment of $20,000 “to cover any future claims for indemnity benefits and future medical treatment and to close any and all liability for the accident of March 19, 2004.” At the time of settlement, appellants had already paid for all of Holdsworth‘s medical expenses, temporary total disability benefits, and permanent partial disability benefits for a 27-percent loss of earning capacity. Holdsworth agreed that he was not entitled to any further temporary total disability benefits or permanent partial disability benefits.
The parties opted to use the settlement procedures adopted by the Legislature in 2009 and outlined in
Although not required by
Holdsworth received the settlement payment from appellants in the form of a check dated February 21, 2012. The letter mailing the check was postmarked on February 22, which was 42 days after the release had been filed. Because payment was made more than 30 days after the filing of the release, Holdsworth filed a motion with the Workers’ Compensation Court to obtain a waiting-time penalty and attorney fees pursuant to
Appellants objected to Holdsworth‘s motion, arguing that
On April 16, 2012, after an evidentiary hearing, the Workers’ Compensation Court entered an order granting Holdsworth‘s motion for a waiting-time penalty and attorney fees. In its order, the Workers’ Compensation Court considered whether the January 12 order of dismissal was a final order for purposes of
Having determined that the order of dismissal was a final order, the Workers’ Compensation Court ruled that appellants were bound by the penalty provisions of
Appellants subsequently filed a motion to modify the court‘s April 16, 2012, order on the ground that there was a “reasonable controversy” over Holdsworth‘s right to penalties that precluded the imposition of such penalties. They cited to McBee v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.,1 in which this court construed
Appellants timely appealed both the order imposing penalties and the order denying the motion to modify. We granted appellants’ petition to bypass in order to address these questions brought about by the enactment of
ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
Appellants allege, reordered and restated, that the Workers’ Compensation Court erred in (1) determining that it had jurisdiction to hear the motion for penalties after Holdsworth filed a release of liability pursuant to
STANDARD OF REVIEW
[1] An аppellate court is obligated in workers’ compensation cases to make its own determinations as to questions of law.2
[2,3] A jurisdictional question which does not involve a factual dispute is determined by an appellate court as a matter of law.3 The meaning of a statute is also a question of law.4
ANALYSIS
JURISDICTION
Appellants question the jurisdiction of the Workers’ Compensation Court to consider Holdsworth‘s motion for penalties following the parties’ settlement under
Appellants base their argument that the Workers’ Compensation Court lacked jurisdiction solely on the fact that Holdsworth had signed a “[r]elease of [l]iability specifically waiving his right to have a judge of the compensation court decide the rights and liabilities of the parties.”6 This release was in accordance with the settlement procedures outlined in
[4-6] As this court has previously stated, “[i]t is generally elementary that: ‘Jurisdiction does not relate tо the right of the parties as between each other, but to the power of the court.‘”8 Because jurisdiction does not relate to the rights of the parties, “[p]arties cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction upon a judicial tribunal by either acquiescence or consent, nor may subject matter jurisdiction be created by waiver, estoppel, consent, or conduct of the parties.”9 Similarly, “the jurisdiction of courts is a public matter that cannot be affected by a private agreement, and the jurisdiction of a court can neither be acquired nor lost as a result of an agreement of the parties.”10
Given these basic principles of jurisdiction, the parties in the instant case could not deprivе the Workers’ Compensation Court of jurisdiction by private agreement. It necessarily follows that Holdsworth‘s waiver of rights—filed pursuant to a private settlement agreement—did not deprive the court of jurisdiction to hear further issues in the case. Whether Holdsworth was entitled to bring further issues before the court is a separate matter relating to his rights under the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act—a matter that we will discuss shortly. But whatever Holdsworth‘s rights, our case law recognizes that the Workers’ Compensation Court had continuing jurisdiction to enforce the award of workers’ compensation benefits.11 This assignment of error has no merit.
WHETHER PENALTY PROVISIONS OF § 48-125 APPLY TO SETTLEMENTS REACHED UNDER § 48-139(3)
Next, we must consider whether the penalty provisions of
Section
Compensation Act, including, but not limited to: . . . [t]he right to ask a judge of the compensation court to decide the parties’ rights and obligations.”13
[7]
[8] Without doubt, the waiting-time penalty and attorney fees for waiting-time proceedings provided under
Moreover, a worker cannot receive penalties under
controversy, the worker‘s right to a waiting-time penalty must be decided by the Workers’ Compensation Court.19 And, an attorney fee may not be awarded pursuant to
[9] In summary, the settlement procedures in
But this interpretation reads words into
Compensation Act “on account of the injury.” But it did not. The statement of release provided by
Additionally, the dissent‘s interpretation ignores the plain meaning of the word “all” in the various release statements. Under its interpretation, the word “all” is meaningless, because not all rights are waived, but only the rights and obligations “on account of the injury.” Moreover, the Legislature not only said “all,” it added the phrase “including, but not limited to.”20 This language cannot be reconciled with the approach urged by the dissent.
[10,11] When interpreting statutes, an appellate court will not “read into a statute a meaning that is not there.”21 Additionally, “[a] court must attempt to give effect to all parts of a statute, and if it can be avoided, no word, clause, or sentence will be rejected as superfluous or meaningless.”22 The dissent‘s interpretation effectively adds language to the release statements required by
Furthermore, the dissent claims that our interpretation will lead to the absurd result that a worker who has reached a settlement agreement with his employer would have no means of enforcing the settlement once the release has been filed, thereby allowing an employer “to indefinitely delay payment.” Such an argument, however, ignores the reality that under
of not delivering the release or stipulating to the dismissal of the case until the lump-sum payment is received. This happens every day in tort settlements, and we are not persuaded that a worker would be without a remedy where a release is fraudulently obtained.
In authorizing settlements without the protections inherent in the process of court approval, the Legislature struck a balance. Section
REMAINING ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
[12] Because we have concluded that Holdsworth waived his right to penalties by filing the release required by
CONCLUSION
Because jurisdiction is a matter of the power of a court and not of the rights of the parties, the Workers’ Compensation Court retains jurisdiction to consider additional matters following the filing of a release pursuant to the settlement procedures in
REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH DIRECTION.
MILLER-LERMAN, J., participating on briefs.
McCORMACK, J., concurring in part, and in part dissenting.
I disagree with the majority‘s determination that a non-court-approved settlement, pursuant to
The majority opinion errs in holding that all rights and obligations under the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act) are unambiguously waived under a
(3) If such lump-sum settlement is not required to be submitted for approval by the compensation court, a release shall be filed with the compensation court in accordance with this subsection that is signed and verified by the employee and the employee‘s attorney. Such release shall be a full and complete discharge from further liability for the employer on account of the injury, including future medical, surgical, or hospital expenses, unless such expenses are specifically excluded from the release. The release shall be made on a form approved
by the compensation court and shall contain a statement signed and verified by the employee that: (a) The employee understands and waives all rights under the . . . Act, including, but not limited to:
(i) The right to receive weekly disability benefits, both temporary and permanent;
(ii) The right to receive vocational rehabilitation services;
(iii) The right to receive future medical, surgical, and hospital services as provided in section 48-120, unless such services are specifically excluded from the release; and
(iv) The right to ask a judge of the compensation court to decide the parties’ rights and obligations;
(b) The employee is not eligible for medicare, is not a current medicare beneficiary, and does not have a reasonable expectation of becoming eligible for medicare within thirty months after the date the settlement is executed;
(c) There are no medical, surgical, or hospital expenses incurred for treatment of the injury which have been paid by medicaid and not reimbursed to medicаid by the employer as part of the settlement; and
(d) There are no medical, surgical, or hospital expenses incurred for treatment of the injury that will remain unpaid after the settlement.1
Read properly as a whole statute, consisting of a main paragraph, subsections, and sub-subsections, the main paragraph clearly limits the waiver to only those liabilities that can be considered to be “on account of the injury.” This qualification is crucial as it indicates a clear intent by the Legislature to limit the liabilities that an employee waives in a non-court-approved settlement. In contrast, the majority opinion does not give due consideration to “on account of” and myopically focuses on subsections (3)(a) through (d) as an extensive release for the employer.
The majority opinion‘s decision to ignore the main paragraph is in error, because the inclusion of “on account of” by the Legislature was not by happenstance. When one reads the entirety of
The majority‘s argument is that “on account of” is not used in subsections (3)(a) through (d) and therefore is irrelevant to interpreting those subsections. Such an argument ignores our rule that when reading a statute, we must not look merely to a particular clause but must read it in connection with the whole statute.3 The majority‘s focus on only the subsections ignores the grammatical structure of
The grammatical structure indicates that the subsections are dependent on the sentences and clauses found in the main
Second, if the subsections are read in a vacuum without the main paragraph, the release language found in subsection (3)(a), for instance, would forever waive the employee‘s rights under the Act. Likewise, reading subsections (3)(a) and (a)(iv), in a vacuum and without adding implied language, an employee would be prevented from seeking redress with the compensation court even if the employee is injured again in an unrelated accident. It is illogical to assume that the Legislature intended to waive every right of an employee under the Act in
a sub-subsection, where the Legislature appears to have copied and pasted “standard form” release language. For that reason, it is necessary to understand that the grammatical structure of
When read in the proper context, I find that “on account of the injury” qualifies the rights, obligations, and liabilities waived by the employee throughout
Having established that “on account of” qualifies the rights, obligations, and liabilities discussed in
As in O‘Gilvie v. United States,7 where the U.S. Supreme Court also defined “on account of” to mean “because of,” the waiting-period penalty, like punitive damages, is not awarded “on account of the injury,” but, rather, is awarded because of the employer‘s bad acts. In O‘Gilvie, punitive
The Court used the dictionary definition “because of” and held that punitive damages were not received on account of the personal injuries, but, rather, were awarded on account of, or because of, the defendant‘s conduct and the jury‘s need to punish and deter such conduct.9 The Court found that punitive damages “‘are not compensation for injury [but] [i]nstead are private fines levied by civil juries to punish reprehensible conduct and to deter its future occurrence.‘”10 In coming to this holding, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the petitioners’ argument that but for the personal injury, there would be no lawsuit, and but for the lawsuit, there would be no damages.
Here, as in O‘Gilvie, the waiting-period penalty under
Therefore, I believe the plain meaning of
injury. Thus, the statute does not waive the employee‘s right to ask the compensation court to enforce the payment of the settlement agreement through the use of a
I believe my plain reading of the statute is correct. However, our rules of statutory interpretation state that a statute is ambiguous if it is susceptible of more than one reasonable interpretation.11 I will entertain the majority opinion as reasonable for purposes of examining the legislative history in this dissent.
When construing an ambiguous statute, a court must look at the statutory objective to be accomplished, the problem to be remedied, or the purpose to be served, and then place on the statute a reasonable construction which best achieves the purpose of the statute, rather than a construction defeating the statutory purpose.12
The Legislature enacted the Act to relieve injured workers from the adverse economic effects caused by a work-related injury or occupational disease.13 In light of this beneficent purpose of the Act, we have consistently given it a broad construction to carry out justly the spirit of the Act.14
To carry out the spirit of the Act, this court has liberally construed the waiting-period
been finally established.15 The only legitimate excuse for delay in the payment of compensation benefits is the existence of a genuine dispute from a medical or legal standpoint that any liability exists.16
To further encourage prompt payment, in Hollandsworth v. Nebraska Partners,17 we held that the payment of a court-approved lump-sum settlement in a workers’ compensation case is subject to a waiting-period penalty under
In addition, the legislative history of
[T]he general purpose behind this legislation, it is really about efficiency. When an injured person is fully represented by competent counsel [and] both parties have
been able to reach agreement on what would be an appropriate settlement and that injured worker is waiting, many times in dire circumstances without income coming in and their [sic] receiving, for example, notifications that maybe their [sic] utilities might be turned off and they [sic] have no resources available to them [sic] until the settlement is granted. So by erasing the undue burden that this additional administrative step could impose, it just seeks to improve efficiency within the system.22
The legislative history demonstrates that the statute was not intended, and should not be interpreted, to waive every employee right under the Act. Rather, the statute‘s intention is to expedite payment.
To be consistent with the legislative history, we should reject the majority opinion, because its interpretation allows an employer
An interpretation that allows for an indefinite delay of payment is an absurd result. In Soto v. State,24 we held that we should never interpret a provision of the Act in a manner that creates a circumstance whereby an employer could indefinitely delay payment of a portion of a workers’ compensation judgment without penalty. The majority opinion does just that.
In response, the majority opinion argues that the “supposedly absurd result is easily avoided by the simple expedient of not delivering the release or stipulating to the dismissal of the case until the lump-sum рayment is received.” This ignores the realities of this case and the realities discussed by both of the parties’ attorneys during oral argument. In this instance, Holdsworth‘s experienced workers’ compensation attorney did not demand that the insurance company pay before having his client sign the release agreement. During oral argument, the employer‘s attorney acknowledged that it was common practice for the release to be filed prior to payment. He attributed this to the practice of receiving court approval of a signed settlement agreement reached under
My interpretation of
Because a waiting-period penalty can be awarded to non-court-approved settlements, we must determine whether the facts of this case meet the requirements for awarding the penalty under
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion‘s conclusion that an employee waives his or her right to a waiting-period penalty when reaching a non-court-approved settlement pursuant to