Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2008 12:00 am
JOAN BARRON
CHEYENNE - During the same period a legislative committee has been laboring over potential changes in the state's workers' compensation laws, the Supreme Court has been ruling in favor of injured workers in a majority of cases.
In five out of six opinions handed down since Aug. 19, the Supreme Court has ruled all or in part in favor of the injured worker and against the state's workers' compensation division.
In one opinion issued Oct. 3, the court ordered benefits paid to a trail guide who was injured when he was bucked from his horse, which then stomped on him. The court sided with the attorney for the injured trail guide.
"We agree that many of the findings of fact are irrelevant and we are troubled to find that many are also unsupported by the record," Chief Justice Barton Voigt wrote.
The number of reversals that favored the injured worker seem unusual and significant. But Voigt says we're not looking at a pattern here.
"They're all very much fact-driven," he said Friday of the worker's compensation cases.
It's all a question of whether the evidence is sufficient to support the state's administrative decision.
"There really isn't a pattern. They're so fact-specific and so different one from another," he added.
These cases, like many, take a long time to get through the Supreme Court.
Voigt said people think the court can deal with the case as soon as the appeal is filed. That's not so. The court has to wait until the case matures. And that doesn't happen until the appellant files a brief, the appellee files a brief and then the appellant files a reply brief.
That can take six months to a year before the court can hear the case, the chief justice said.
George Santini, a Cheyenne attorney who handles many worker's compensation cases, said it appears the court is taking a "proactive role" in reviewing these records.
"The court is doing what it's supposed to do under its standard of review - to review the entire record to make sure whether or not the findings of the administrative agency are supported by substantial evidence," Santini said.
"I commend them," he added. "It's obvious they are looking carefully at the record and taking the standard of review very seriously."
One of these worker's compensation cases prompted a rare split decision by the court over whether the medical commission must comply with the public meetings law.
We in the news media are always interested in anything dealing with the public meetings law.
The appeal was filed by Daniel Decker, a sheet metal worker who suffered a work-related injury to his wrists in 2001.
In his majority opinion issued Aug. 27, Justice Michael Golden referred to Decker's "odyssey" to be awarded workers' compensation benefits.
That was an apt description for Decker, who saw nine doctors, one psychiatrist and appealed twice to the Supreme Court after the division and the medical commission denied him benefits for an ailment called thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS).
In his second appeal, Decker claimed the medical commission order was void because the decision was made in a closed, illegal meeting.
The majority decided the commission is not an "agency" and therefore is exempt from the public meetings law.
The dissenting opinion, by Justice Marilyn Kite joined by Voigt ,said the commission fit the statutory definition of agency.
Kite wrote that the commission should deal with the case again, this time in compliance with the public meetings law.
Unfortunately, that was the minority view.
Contact Joan Barron at joan.barron@trib.com or by phone at 307-632-1244.