Family Dollar v. Mamie Baytos Widow of Stephen Baytos ( 2017 )


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  • RENDERED: AUGUST 24, 2017
    TO BE PUBLISHED
    §§upreme Touri of AL
    2015- Sc 000194 Wc DAT{§ win gm (Ldm,l>c
    FAMILY DOLLAR APPELLANT
    ON REVIEW FROM COURT OF APPEALS
    V. CASE NO. 2014-CA-001053-WC
    WORKERS’ COMPENSATION BOARD NO. 06-WC-01247
    MAMIE BAYTOS, WIDOW OF STEPHEN APPELLEES
    BAYTOS, DECEASED
    HONORABLE RICHARD M. JOINER,
    ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE,
    HONORABLE THOMAS G. POLITES, ADMINISTRATIVE
    LAW JUDGE AND WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
    BOARD
    AND
    20 1 5-SC-000208-WC
    MAMIE BAYTOS, WIDOW OF STEPHEN CROSS-APPELLANT
    BAYTOS, DECEASED
    ON REVIEW FROM COURT OF APPEALS
    V. CASE NO. 2014-CA-001053-WC
    WORKERS’ COMPENSATION BOARD NO. 06-WC-01247
    FAMILY DOLLAR CROSS-APPELLEES
    HONORABLE RICHARD M. JOINER,
    ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE,
    HONORABLE THOMAS G. POLITES,
    ADMINISTRATIVE
    LAW JUDGE AND WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
    BOARD
    OPINION OF THE COURT BY CHIEF JUSTICE MINTON
    AFFIRMING
    Steven Baytos settled his workers’ compensation injury claim with his
    employer, Family Dollar Stores, for a lump sum. The settlement amount
    included separate consideration in exchange for Baytos’s waiver of all future
    claims, specifically including future medical expenses and a “full and final
    waiver of any and all rights he may have to reopen this claim under Kentucky
    Revised Statute (KRS) 342.125, for any reason, including a change in
    condition.” Baytos died a year later from his work-related injury; and, two
    years after that, his Widow, Mamie Baytos, who was not a party to the
    settlement, filed a motion to reopen Baytos’s injury claim to assert her own
    claim for a workers’ compensation death beneiit.
    The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) allowed Mamie to reopen Baytos’s
    injury claim and awarded her death benefits. The Board reversed, and the
    Court of Appeals reversed the Board. The Court of Appeals determined that,
    under Brashear v. Old Straight Creek Coal Corp.,1 claims for death benefits
    arising from a workers’ compensation injury are not derivative of the income
    benefits the injured employee recovers from the employer. And as such, the
    Board’s opinion was vacated and remanded for further proceedings
    On Family Dollar’s appeal to this Court, We agree With the Court of
    Appeals that Mamie has a separate and viable claim for death benefits under
    KRS 342.750, and while we make an exception in today’s case, We hold that it
    1 32 s.W.3d 717 (Ky. 1930).
    was improper for Mamie to assert her claim via reopening Baytos’s settled
    claim.
    I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND.
    Baytos Was employed by Family Dollar Stores when he suffered a torn
    thoracic aorta in 2006. He filed a claim for Workers’ compensation benefits that
    was settled and approved by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in 2008.
    Steven received a lump-sum payment from Family Dollar in exchange for his
    waiver of any future claims he may have against his employer. Also part of the
    settlement agreement, Steven agreed to additional sums in exchange for waiver
    of any future medical expenses and another sum in consideration for his “full
    and final Waiver of any and all rights he may have to reopen this claim under
    KRS 342.125, for any reason, including a change in condition.” His wife, Mamie
    Baytos’, Was not part of the settlement negotiations, nor did the final approved
    agreement include any references to any future benefits to which she may be
    entitled.
    Steven died in 2009 as a result of his work-related injury. In 2011,
    Mamie filed a “Motion to Reopen and Award Survivor Benefits to Widow” to
    seek death benefits. The presiding ALJ ruled that her claim was viable, but
    ordered her to prove Baytos’s death was caused by a work-related injury in
    order to recover death benefits under KRS 342.750. Shortly thereafter, her case
    Was transferred to a new ALJ, who accepted the prior ALJ’s findings of fact and
    determined that Steven’s death was a result of the injury. And so the ALJ
    awarded death benefits to Mamie.
    Family Dollar appealed the decision to the Workers’ Compensation
    Board. The employer argued that Mamie’s claims for death benefits were barred
    by the settlement agreement between Baytos and Family Dollar. In turn, Mamie
    filed a motion to dismiss the appeal, claiming that notice of the appeal was
    defective. The Board ignored Mamie’s motion to dismiss and reversed the ALJ’s
    ruling on the merits, denying her claim for benefits. Baytos appealed the
    decision to the Court of Appeals.
    The Court of Appeals reversed the Board’s decision. First, the panel
    rejected Mamie’s argument that Family Dollar’s appeal was improperly noticed.
    But on the merits, the Court of Appeals determined that under Brashear v. Old
    Straight Creek Coal Corp. claims for death benefits arising from a Workers’
    compensation injury are not derivative of the income benefits the injured
    employee recovers from his employer. And as such, the Board’s opinion was
    vacated and remanded for further proceedings Family Dollar now appeals to
    this Court.
    II. ANALYSIS.
    A. Family Dollar’s Notice of Appeal was Properly Filed.
    Mamie contends that the Board erred by not dismissing Family Dollar’s
    appeal following the ALJ’s findings of fact. During the pendency of her claim,
    the presiding ALJ retired and was replaced by a new ALJ. She argues that the
    notice of appeal was defective because it named the incorrect ALJ. The Court of
    Appeals disagreed and determined that Family Dollar’s appeal was properly
    noticed. And we concur.
    In 2012, Family Dollar appealed to the Board following ALJ Joiner’s
    opinion and order on the viability of her claim. The Board dismissed the appeal
    as interlocutory. Shortly thereafter, ALJ Joiner was replaced by ALJ Polites,
    who eventually issued a final and appealable order and opinion in favor of
    Mamie’s claims. Mamie claims that Family Dollar referenced the incorrect ALJ
    opinion when noticing its appeal to the Board.
    Family Dollar’s notice of appeal began as follows:
    [Family Dollar] requests a review by the Workers’ Compensation
    Board of the opinion and award rendered herein by Honorable
    Richard Joiner, Administrative Law Judge, on June 19, 2012. The
    order on the petition for reconsideration was entered on July 10,
    2012. This appeal was originally filed in August 2012 and was
    dismissed given the interlocutory nature of the underlying
    proceedings
    On February 4, 2014, Hon. Tom Polites, ALJ rendered a decision in
    this claim which now makes the 2012 decision by Judge Joiner
    final and appealable.
    Essentially, Mamie argues that because Family Dollar stated its desire to
    review the “opinion and award rendered herein by Honorable Richard Joiner,”
    the employer failed to notice an intention to appeal a final order from the
    presiding ALJ.
    Kentucky Administrative Rules (KAR) 803 KAR 25:010 § 21 outlines the
    required content of a notice of appeal taken from an ALJ to the Board. A
    properly filed notice must:
    1. Denote the appealing party as the petitioner;
    2. Denote all parties against whom the appeal is taken as respondents;
    3. Name the administrative law judge Who rendered the award, order, or
    decision appealed from as a respondent;
    4. If appropriate pursuant to KRS 342. 120 or 342.1242, name the
    Division of Workers’ Compensat_ion Funds as a respondent; and
    5. Include the claim number.
    On the face of the notice it is clear that Family Dollar is appealing the final
    order entered by ALJ Polites. The notice also clearly recounts the procedural
    posture leading to both ALJ Polites’s ruling and Family Dollar’s appeal to the
    Board. So we concur with the Court of Appeals that Family Dollar’s appeal Was
    properly noticed to the Board.
    B. Steven’s Settlement Does Not Prohibit Mamie from Seeking Death
    Benefits.
    The central substantive issue in this case is Family Dollar’s assertion
    that Mamie’s claim for death benefits should be dismissed. According to the
    employer, Steven completely settled his claim for all potential income benefits
    relating to his Workers’ compensation injury, and this settlement totally bars
    Mamie from asserting any additional claims for income benefits. In essence,
    Family Dollar argues that whatever benefits Mamie may be entitled to under
    the Workers’ Compensation Act are derivative of Steven’s claim and that his
    approved settlement preempts his Widow’s statutory benefits The Court of
    Appeals disagreed, relying on the holding in an obscure old case, Brashear v.
    Old Straight Creek Coal Corp. We ultimately agree With this conclusion, but a
    thorough statutory review is necessary to add context to Brashear and to
    unpack the death-benefit-recovery claims under the Act.
    KRS 342.750 provides for the recovery of income benefits for the
    surviving spouse if the injured employee dies as a result of a work-related
    injury.2 For surviving spouses, like Mamie, with no children, the statute
    provides that she is entitled to fifty percent of Steven’s average Weekly wage
    during widowhood.3 Of course, this law makes no overt reference to how to
    treat these income benefits when the injured party settles his injury claim with
    his employer before dying from the effects of the injury.
    lt is clear by the plain meaning of the text that income benefits deriving
    from KRS 342.730 belong to the injured worker. Those benefits are totally
    derivative from the workplace injury. This provision specifically relates to
    income benefits awarded to injured workers for workplace injuries And sure
    enough, KRS 342.730 contemplates a surviving spouse’s share of those
    benefits in the event the injured spouse dies for causes unrelated to the work
    injury but before the expiration of benefits still owed to the worker.4 These
    surviving-spouse benefits are totally and completely derivative of the injured
    spouse’s disability benefits; any surviving spouse’s share of remaining benefits
    is tied to Whatever the worker is awarded or obtained through settlement With
    the employer. So it is easy for us to see in that context that the spouse’s claim
    is dependent on the worker’s claim. But with respect to surviving-spouse
    2 The Court of Appeals stated that surviving spouses shall receive death
    benefits if the death occurs within four years of the injury. In this sense, the panel
    misstated the text. The portion of this provision relating to income benefits has no
    such limitation_in fact, there is no temporal limitation whatsoever within KRS
    342.750 for the recovery of death benefits The four-year limitation the panel cites only
    applies to KRS 342.750(6), a separate provision within this statute relating to an
    estate’s entitlement to a $50,000 lump-sum payment to offset costs of burial and
    transportation of the body.
    3 KRS 342.750(1)(a).
    4 KRS 342.730(3).
    benefits stemming from a workplace injury resulting in death, we are given no
    such luxury.
    KRS 342.750 declares that if the workplace injury causes death, “income
    benefits shall be payable” to the benefit of specified persons within the statute,
    dependent upon the injured workers familial status Before leaping head-first
    into some sort of legal fiction, we must first realize that of course a spouse’s
    claim is not a unique and separate claim totally divorced of any other actors
    For Mamie to be entitled to income benefits under the statute, Baytos must die
    as a result of his work-related injury. It follows, therefore, that this claim is
    created by his injury.
    This is consistent with the underlying goal and purpose of the Workers’
    Compensation Act: As a matter of quasi-contract law, the Act establishes a
    streamlined process for quickly aiding injured workers in exchange for the
    forfeiture of whatever tort claims the injured worker may have against the
    employer. Mamie, not unlike her role in Baytos’s settlement negotiations, Was
    not a party to this implicit agreement under the Act. Likewise, she is only
    entitled to any benefits at all because of Baytos’s participation in this statutory
    agreement.5 Baytos’s eligibility under the Act, and his subsequent injury and
    death, are the only reasons Mamie qualifies for any benefits under the Act
    whatsoever. So we reject the fantasy that Mamie has her own separate action
    5 True enough, this begs the question of whether third-party beneficiaries like
    Mamie forfeit whatever tort rights they may possess against their spouse’s employer.
    The Act clearly covers employer-employee relations through application of contract
    principles but how this impacts other relevant parties not capable of the benefit of the
    bargain remains clouded in doubt. Does the Act include all tort claims from any
    potential plaintiff against an employer for a singular occurrence, or could Mamie
    conceivably forego the Act and file whatever survivorship or Wrongful death claims she
    may possess against Family Dollar in courts of common law?
    8
    under the Act wholly without consequence of Baytos’s claim against his
    employer.
    With that said, there is a mountain of old precedent throughout the
    country reaching the opposite conclusion. Most notably, the Court of Appeals
    relied heavily on this Court’s predecessor in Brashear v. Old Straight Creek
    Corp. in reaching its holding. In Brashear, our predecessor court indicated that
    the right of a surviving spouse to collect income benefits is separate from
    whatever rights her worker-husband possessed as a result of his injury. In
    other words, the Court held that the “compensation due to her, if any, is quite
    a different thing from the compensation paid for her husband.”6 It would
    therefore appear that Brashear speaks directly to instances similar to the one
    presented to us today.
    But there are two legitimate critiques to Brashear that Family Dollar
    invokes to caution us against our reliance in that old case. First, the Brashear
    case was published in 1930. KRS 342.750 was first adopted in 1972. lt is
    entirely possible the Brashear court was interpreting a statutory text markedly
    different from the one in this case. Indeed, the Brashear court did not even
    make passing reference to which statutory provision it was interpreting And
    because of its terse, if not altogether lacking, legal analysis, this is a fair
    critique.
    Brashear interpreted the Kentucky Workmen’s Compensation Act as it
    existed Well before the legislative overhaul in 1972. However the provision at
    issue_Ky. Stat. § 4893, enacted in 1922_actually bears much similarity to the
    6 
    Brashear, 32 S.W.2d at 718
    .
    language in our current statutory scheme. The statute, in relevant part, reads
    as follows:
    If death results Within two years from an accident for which
    compensation is payable under this act, the employer or his
    insurer shall pay to the persons entitled to compensation, or, if
    none, then to the personal representative of the deceased
    employee, reasonable burial expenses of a person of the standard
    of living of the deceased, not to exceed the sum of seventy-five
    dollars ($75.00), and shall also pay to or for the following persons
    compensation as follows, to wit:
    (2) If there are one or more wholly dependent persons, sixty-five
    percent (65%) of the average weekly earnings of the deceased
    employee, but not to exceed twelve dollars ($12.00) nor less than
    five dollars ($5.00) per week shall be payable, all such payments
    shall be made for the period between the date of death and 335
    weeks after the date of the accident to the employee, or until the
    intervening termination of dependency, but in no case to exceed
    the maximum sum of four thousand dollars ($4,000.00).7
    The following statute, Ky. Stat. § 4894, then defines a person presumed to be
    wholly dependent upon a deceased employee as “A Wife upon a husband whom
    she had not voluntarily abandoned at the time of the accident.”8 Overall, we are
    satisfied that the statutory structure the Brashear court interpreted is quite
    similar to the one under which Mamie now seeks death benefits So we are
    confident that the Brashear holding accurately represents this Court’s
    precedent on the nature of death-benefit claims
    Second, Family Dollar highlights that in its eighty-seven-year history,
    Brashear has never been cited by another Kentucky court. However factually
    and legally similar this holding may be, Family Dollar insists that its
    7 Ky. srat. § 4893 (1922).
    8 Ky. stat § 4894(a) (1922).
    10
    precedential weight is severely diminished by its relative obscurity and that it
    has been more-or-less ignored in the body of workers’ compensation law as it
    has developed over the course of the last century. So Family Dollar in essence
    alleges that the Brashear holding is non-representative of a prevailing or
    mainstream position on forging these types of claims against employers under
    the Act. We do not discount this concern; the fact that today’s case presents
    such a novel issue is indeed evidence that Brashear, for whatever reason, failed
    to capture the death-benefit-recovery process as settled law. And because it
    has been ignored, its de minimus contribution to the predictability and
    reliability of case law_critical tenets of stare decisis_fairly calls its
    precedential value into question.
    But before we dismiss Brashear for its obsolescence, by stepping back
    and observing the larger body of workers’ compensation law across the
    country, we discover that the Brashear position is actually somewhat
    congruent with the approach taken by much of the rest of the country. As the
    Court of Appeals noted in reaching its conclusion, Professor Larson takes this
    exact position in his comprehensive Workers’ compensation handbook. The
    treatise details that “The dependent’s right to death benefits is an independent
    right derived from statute, not from the rights of the decedent. Accordingly,
    death benefits are not affected by compromises or releases executed by
    decedent....”9 So it would appear that the surrounding law accepts this basic
    premise that the surviving spouse possesses his or her own claim independent
    of the injured workers
    9 Arthur K. Larson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation, Desk Edition § 98 (2007).
    l 1
    Family Dollar discounts reliance on Larson as a distracting influence on
    the true nature of this claim. Instead, the employer wishes us to rely upon
    Tackett v. Bethenergy Minesl°, a case involving surviving spouses of former coal
    miners who filed for workers’ compensation benefits under KRS 342.750’s
    companion statute, KRS 342.730(3) (death resulting from non-work injury). In
    that case, we dismissed the claims because no benefits were due or owed to the
    workers themselves at the time of their deaths11 This was because, “any claim
    which a deceased worker’s estate might have derives from a valid claim by the
    worker.”12 So, as Family Dollar frames the issue, for Mamie to bring a valid
    claim for benefits she must first prove entitlement to those benefits And
    because Baytos had no benefits due to him at his death because of his fully
    settled claim with Family Dollar, there are no benefits to which Mamie would
    be entitled to spark her claim.
    We support our ruling in Tackett as a logically consistent application of
    KRS 342.730(3). Unfortunately for Family Dollar, however, this ruling truly
    delineates the difference between the benefits extended in that statute and
    those conferred in KRS 342.750. The Tackett benefits are indeed accurately
    considered to be derivative of the injured worker’s claim. KRS 342.730(3)
    benefits provide surviving spouses a continuation of benefits the worker was
    currently receiving from his or her employer due to an unrelated death before
    the expiration of his specified compensable period. lt is sensible then to require
    10 841 s.w.2d 177 (Ky. 1992).
    11 
    Id. 12 ld.
    at 179.
    12
    as prerequisite to any spousal recovery proof of the deceased’s spouse’s
    entitlement to benefits
    But this stands in contrast to the benefits involved in the current case.
    KRS 342.750 contemplates a wholly different scenario: death as a result of the
    workplace injury. This statutory mechanism shifts entitlement of benefits from
    the injured worker to his surviving spouse. Under the terms of the statute, if
    the death is truly caused by the work-related injury, the Tackett test is satisfied
    automatically-the spouse has a legitimate claim of entitlement to benefits At
    the time of death, the surviving spouse can point to a set of benefits designated
    for him or her by a purposive act of the legislature
    The form of recovery also underscores the distinction between the two
    forms of death benefits For non-injury-related death, as detailed in Tackett,
    surviving spouses are afforded an award based on portions of the remaining
    unpaid income benefits due to the worker at the time of death. But for Workers
    who die on the job, their surviving spouses are entitled to recover portions of
    that worker’s average weekly wage. This form of recovery is not a continuation
    of unpaid income benefits but rather mechanically recognizes the claim a
    spouse may then have against an employer for the employee’s death and then
    resolves that claim by statute, specifying precisely what he or she is due.
    Today’s case unquestionably falls into this latter class, and as such, our
    dismissal in Tackett has no bearing on Mamie’s ability to recover.
    Of course, it goes without saying that it is unlikely the legislature
    contemplated a scenario like we face today when it created these two forms of
    death benefits It must be exceedingly rare for a series of events to culminate in
    a claim like this_an employee living just long enough to settle his claim before
    13
    succumbing to the effects of his injury. The KRS 342.750 death benefits are
    almost surely envisioned to aide dependents for workers unable to live long
    enough to adjudicate their own claims under the Act. But while this result
    doubling the exposure to employers under the Act may be rare, we cannot say
    it is an absurd one. Any other path outside the statutory text belongs in the
    legislative rather than judicial province, and the burden rests solely on the
    General Assembly to reform the Act to include these undoubtedly rare cases
    should they continue to arise.
    The text of KRS 342.750 is inescapable The plain meaning is
    unmistakably clear that if a worker dies because of a workplace injury, the
    worker’s surviving spouse is entitled to income benefits in the form of 50
    percent of his average weekly wage. And this Court has previously interpreted
    this provision, in a manner academically favored and consistent with a majority
    of other jurisdictions, to create a separate cause of action for surviving spouses
    independent of the injured worker’s claim. We accordingly affirm that ruling,
    and the Court of appeals’ ruling below.
    We understand the implications this ruling may have on the settlement-
    negotiation process and the possibility that this holding may undercut the
    ability of employers and injured employees to come to an agreement With
    binding finality.13 But those problems belong to the legislature to resolve and
    13 Relevant to Family Dollar’s ability to resolve the claim with finality, Mamie
    adds that even if Baytos considered her claim in his negotiation with Family Dollar, he
    was unable to execute a waiver of death benefits as described in KRS 342.750. The
    uncontroverted facts of the case make clear that no such express contemplation
    occurred. So we need not address today the issue of whether Baytos could have
    included surviving-spouse benefits in his settlement agreement with Family Dollar. We
    also add that Baytos’s settlement agreement with Family Dollar included an indemnity
    provision that has not been raised or addressed during the course of this appeal.
    14
    are beyond our constitutional prerogative of interpreting the law as presented
    by the case before us
    Although we affirm the Court of Appeals’s ruling below, We must address
    one issue not directly raised by the parties--whether this claim was
    appropriately brought under KRS 342.125. KRS 342. 125 provides that a_p§r_ty
    may file a motion to reopen a claim; however, as we have noted and as both
    parties have agreed, Mamie was not a party to her husband’S claim.
    Furthermore, Baytos had Waived entitlement to any additional benefits and had
    no claim to reopen. Therefore, KRS 342. 125 was not the appropriate Vehicle
    for Mamie to pursue her independent entitlement to benefits The appropriate
    vehicle to do so would have been for Mamie to file a claim for benefits in her
    own right. However, Whether the parties called this a reopening or a new
    independent claim, it Would have been practiced the same way and Would have
    led to the same conclusion. Therefore, although Mamie chose the wrong
    vehicle, there is no reason to disturb the ALJ’s decision herein. However, in
    the future, should this situation reoccur, the party seeking benefits should file
    an original action.
    III. CONCLUSION.
    For the foregoing reasons we affirm the Opinion of the Court of Appeals
    Minton, C.J.; Cunningham, Hughes, Keller, Venters, and Wright, JJ., sitting.
    All concur. VanMeter, J., not sitting.
    Because that issue is not within the scope of our current review, we must pass no
    judgment on its possible effect in Mamie’s appeal or Family Dollar’s ability to settle
    with finality all claims related to Baytos’s injury.
    15
    COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT/ CROSS-APPELLEE: FAMILY DOLLAR
    Melanie Brooke Gabbard
    Allen Kopet & Associates, PLLC
    LeWis Paisley
    Stoll Keenon Ogden, PLLC
    COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE/CROSS-APPELLANT: MAMIE BAYTOS
    Carl Edward Grayson
    Blankenship Massey & Associates`, PLLC
    coUNsEL FoR AMIcUs cURIAE: KENTUCKY woRKERs AssoclA'rIoN
    (KWA):
    Jeffery Roberts
    Roberts Law Office
    16
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 2015 SC 000194

Filed Date: 9/18/2017

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 9/21/2017