Arrow Trucking Co. v. Lewis
Arrow Trucking Co. v. Lewis
Opinion of the Court
ORDER
Respondent’s motion to dismiss this review proceeding is denied with prejudice. The petitioner’s appeal to the three-judge panel was timely pursuant to the time computation set forth in 12 O.S.2001 § 2006(A). This section applies to time computations in the Workers’ Compensation Court. K.J. Construction v. Puente, 2000 OK CIV APP 138, 16 P.3d 481, Smith v. Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma, 2002 OK 57, 50 P.3d 1132, fn. 5, Johnson v. Tony’s Town Mister Quik, 1996 OK 138, 915 P.2d 355.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
¶ 1 I cannot accede to today’s order. It is infirm in three critical respects. Firstly, a point of internal procedure, which is here in contest, is governed exclusively by the Workers’ Compensation Law. Secondly, the ten-day limit for filing an intra-court quest for review before a three-judge panel may not be enlarged by any provision in § 2006(A)
I
INTERNAL PROCEDURE IN THE TRIAL TRIBUNAL IS GOVERNED EXCLUSIVELY BY THE WORKERS’ COMPENSATION LAW
¶ 2 The distinction between an intra-court appeal and a proceeding for review is well established.
THE TEXT OF § 2006(A) IS INAPPLICABLE TO AN INTRA-COURT APPEAL IN A COMPENSATION PROCEEDING
¶3 The provisions of § 2006(A) govern solely district court proceedings.
¶4 What makes § 2006(A) uninvocable here is abundantly clear from the unambiguous text of Rule 31
¶ 5 This court has the ultimate power over the content of the Workers’ Compensation Court’s practice rules.
¶ 6 The Court of Civil Appeals’ opinion in K.J. Constr. v. Puente
Ill
TODAY’S ORDER MAY NOT BE APPLIED RETROSPECTIVELY
¶ 7 Finally, extant jurisprudence does not permit today’s order to govern this case.
SUMMARY
¶ 8 I recede from today’s order that denies the respondent’s dismissal motion and from the court’s assigned reasons for enlarging the § 3.6(A)’s ten-day limit by superimposing upon its text the § 2006(A) chronome-trie method impermissibly transplanted from the Pleading Code.
. The terms of 12 O.S. Supp.2003 § 2006(A) provide: "In computing any period of time prescribed or allowed by this title, by the rules of any court of this state, or by order of a court of this state, the day of the act, event, or default from which the designated period of time begins to run shall not be included. The last day of the period so computed shall be included, unless it is a legal holiday ... or any other day when the office of the court clerk does not remain open for public business until the regularly scheduled closing time ...."
. The distinction between an intra-court appeal and a review proceeding is also explained in Parks v. Norman Mun. Hosp., 1984 OK 53, 684 P.2d 548, 551, where it is stated, "[t]he trial tribunal's intra-court review scheme ... was intended not to afford two layers of appellate process with varying standards of review but rather to implement a two-tier decisional system within the trial tribunal with but a single appellate remedy in this court.”
. See the terms of 85 O.S. Supp.2003 § 26(B) which provide: "The decision of the [Workers' Compensation] Court shall be final as to all questions of fact, and except as provided in Section 3.6 of this title, as to all questions of law.” See also Paries, supra note 2 at 552 ("the text of [§ 26] unequivocally and unmistakenly limits appellate reviewing power to questions of law”).
. The authorities identified below are inapplicable to the problem at hand. This is so because they do not deal with internal procedures of the compensation court. See Rockwell Intern. v. Hampton, 1994 OK 137, 886 P.2d 992, 993 (no additional time is given to commence cross-proceedings or counter-proceedings for appellate review of workers' compensation proceedings); Johnson v. Tony’s Town Mister Quik, 1996 OK
. See Camps v. Taylor, 1995 OK 23, 892 P.2d 633, 636-637 (Opala, J., concurring), citing 12.-O.S.1991 § 2001 et seq. ("the provisions [of the Pleading Code] explicitly confine the force of Oklahoma’s Pleading Code to district court suits of a civil nature. The time-computation [in] ... § 2006(A) applies to 'any period of time prescribed or allowed by this title.’ ”). See also Dudley v. Major Constr. Co., 345 P.2d 881, 884 (Okla. 1959); Bendelari v. Kinslow, 192 Okla. 390, 136 P.2d 918, 922 (1943); McCollum & Forber v. Owens, 184 Okla. 66, 85 P.2d 411 (1938); Pure Oil Co. v. State Indus. Comm'n, 181 Okla. 176, 72 P.2d 779 (1937). The cited cases afford a rich source of authority for the principle that rules of pleading and practice in the district courts have no place in intra-court stages of a compensation proceeding.
. The terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 2001 provide: "The Oklahoma Pleading Code governs the procedure in the district courts of Oklahoma in all suits of a civil nature ...” The Committee Comment to § 2001 restricts "the Oklahoma Pleading Code ... to all civil actions that are litigated in the district courts of Oklahoma, other than special proceedings in which a different procedure is prescribed by statute."
. The time computation of § 2006(A) applies to "any period of time prescribed or allowed by this title [12] ... or by any applicable statute."
. This view was expressed clearly in Camps, supra at note 5, which states, "the permissible range of "any applicable statute" ... must be deemed circumscribed by the subject statute's pertinence to a district court process in the context of which the time computation is to be made.”
. Section 2006(A) is a rule of district court practice. Rules of district court pleading and practice are inapplicable to proceedings upon a compensation claim. Bass v. Lee Way Motor Freight, Inc., 1991 OK 2, 804 P.2d 1138, 1139. Brown & Root v. Dunkelberger, 1945 OK 280, 161 P.2d 1018.
. Rule 31, Workers’ Compensation Court Rules, 85 O.S. Supp.2003 Ch. 4, App., states that "[alp-peals to the three-judge panel may be taken by filing an original and two copies of a Request for Review within ten (10) days from the date the order appealed from was filed with the Court as reflected by the date of the file stamp thereon."
(emphasis supplied)
. 85 O.S. Supp.2003 §§ 3.6 et seq.
. § 3.6(A) and Rule 31 both prescribe a ten-day period to bring an intra-court appeal. Their provisions differ from those in § 3.6(C). The latter establishes a twenty-day period to perfect a court-review proceeding. Subsection (C) provides: "Any party litigant desiring ... to appeal to the Supreme Court, shall, within twenty (20) days after a copy of the order, decision or award has been sent by the Administrator to the parties affected, commence an action in the Supreme Court of the state to review such order, decision or award.”
. The only reference in the text of § 3.6 to another Oklahoma statute that appears in Sub
. The terms of 85 O.S. Supp.2003 § 1.2(E) provide: "All rules, upon adoption, shall be submitted to the Supreme Court, which shall approve or disapprove of them within thirty (30) days. All rules, upon approval by the Supreme Court, shall be published and be made available to the public and, if not inconsistent with the law, shall be binding in the administration of the Workers' Compensation Act.” (emphasis added)
. Rule 2, Workers' Compensation Court Rules, supra at note 10, states that "[a]ny matter of ... procedure not specifically dealt with either by the Workers' Compensation Act or by these Rules will be guided by ... procedure followed in the district courts of this state.”
. See Snyder v. Smith Welding & Fabrication, 1986 OK 35, 746 P.2d 168, 170, where it is unequivocally held that "... a motion for new trial appl[ies] only to suits in the district courts. The legislature has not authorized a similar procedural device to secure judicial reconsideration of an order or award made in the Workers’ Compensation Court.”
. See Camps, supra at note 5, where it is stated that "[a]ny intrusion [of the Pleading Code], however slight, must be resisted as at least potentially injurious to the conceptual purity in our multifaceted system of procedure and to its delicate symmetry".
. K.J. Constr. v. Puente, 2000 OK CIV APP 138, 16 P.3d 481, 482.
. The methods to compute time for filing an intra-court appeal from a trial judge's ruling in a compensation proceeding and that for review of a decision by a three-judge panel are different. They are explicitly fixed by statute. Compare 85 O.S. Supp.2003 § 3.6(A) and Rule 31 of the Workers’ Compensation Court Rules, supra at note 10 (the review before a three-judge panel must be commenced within 10 days of the compensation trial judge's order or decision being filed, as reflected by the date of the file stamp) with the terms of 85 O.S. Supp.2003 § 3.6(C) (review proceeding before the Oklahoma Supreme Court must be commenced within 20 days of the date that a copy of the order of the Workers’ Compensation Court is mailed to the parties).
. Under Poafpybitty v. Shelly Oil Co., 1964 OK 162, 394 P.2d 515, 520, and its progeny, a court’s settlement of an obscure procedural statute’s meaning must operate only prospectively. See also Sisk v. J.B. Hunt Transp., Inc., 2003 OK 69, 81 P.3d 55, 61 (a statute or rule whose impact is obscure is given purely prospective effect); McDaneld v. Lynn Hickey Dodge, Inc., 1999 OK 30, 979 P.2d 252, 257 (prospective effect is given to a point of Oklahoma procedural law that stood unresolved at the time of controversy); Clapsaddle v. Blevins, 1998 OK 5, 66 P.3d 352, 358 (novel points of ambiguously crafted statutory procedure is given prospective effect); Bushert v. Hughes, 1996 OK 21, 912 P.2d 334, 335 (prospective effect is given to new statutory process found in an obscurely written statute); Manning v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 1994 OK 62, 876 P.2d 667, 673 (the court’s announcement will be given prospective effect where appellate procedure was found to be less than crystal-clear).
. A similar pronouncement was given prospective effect in Isbell v. Ret. and Pension Bd. of the Dep't of Pub. Safety, 1979 OK 156, 603 P.2d 758, 760-61 (Opala, J., concurring) (when called upon to settle the meaning of not-so-readily intelligible or not-so-clearly settled legal norms that are a veritable trap for the unwary, the court will give its pronouncement purely prospective effect in order to save the parties from an unforeseen impact of obscurely worded regime of norms).
. Clapsaddle, supra at note 20, states that "[o]b-scure legislative enactments should be kept from becoming a veritable trap for the unwary”.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- ARROW TRUCKING COMPANY v. Perry LEWIS and The Workers' Compensation Court
- Cited By
- 3 cases
- Status
- Published