NO. 94-067
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA
1994
JACK MURER, JAY HARBRIGE,
KEITH MORDJA, SUSAN VERNON,
BRUCE NELSON, STEVE PRICKETT,
and JAMES BROWN,
Claimants/Co-Appellants,
-v-
STATE COMPENSATION MUTUAL
INSURANCE FUND,
Defendant/Co-Respondent,
LAP.RY MACK and WILLIAM LOGAN,
Claimants/Co-Appellants,
-v-
ASARCO, INCORPORATED,
Defendant/Co-Respondent.
APPEAL FROM: Workers' Compensation Court
The Honorable Gordon Bennett, Judge presiding.
COUNSEL OF RECORD:
For Appellant:
Allan M. McGarvey, McGarvey, Heberling, Sullivan &
McGarvey, Kalispell, Montana
For Respondent:
Bradley L. Luck, Garlington, Lohn & Robinson,
Missoula, Montana
Submitted on Briefs: August 11, 1994
Decided: November 21, 1994
Justice James C. Nelson delivered the Opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from a Workers' Compensation Court order
granting the defendants/respondents summary judgment and its order
denying plaintiffs/appellants partial summary judgment. We reverse
and remand for a calculation of benefits consistent with this
opinion.
The issue on appeal is whether the District Court erred in
granting summary judgment to the defendants/respondents and denying
the partial summary judgment motion of the plaintiffs/appellants.
The underlying issue is whether the statutes at issue which set the
maximum rate for workers' compensation benefits at $299 for the
periods from July 1, 1987 through June 30, 1991, were temporary or
were permanent caps on benefit rates.
F'ACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Appellants are Montana workers who were injured in accidents
occurring within the scope and course of their employment between
July 1, 1987, and June 30, 1991, and who were paid disability
benefits at a maximum benefit rate of $299 per week. Appellants'
maximum benefit rate of $299 per week was computed pursuant to §
39-71-701, MCA (1987) and (1989) which provided, in pertinent part:
(3) Weekly compensation benefits for injury producing
temporary total disability shall be 66 213% of the wages
received at the time of the injury. The maximum weekly
compensation benefits shall not exceed the state's
average week.ly wage at the time of injury.
. . .
(5) Notwithstanding subsection (3), beginning July 1,
1987, through June 30, !I.989 [1991], weekly compensation
benefits for [permanent or temporary] total disability
may not exceed the state's average weekly wage of $299
2
established July 1, 1986.
Section 39-71-701(3) and (5), MCA (1987).
Subsection (5) of § 39-71-701, MCA, was initially added to the
statute in 1987. In 1989, subsection (5) was again amended to
extend the $299 cap on benefits to June 30, 1991. In both 1987 and
1989, substantially the same language was added to §§ 39-71-702(6),
39-71-703(3), 39-71-721(g), and 39-71-1024(3), and our decision
here applies to those statutes as well. Under the statutory scheme
as amended, payments for partial disability were not to exceed
$149.50, which was one-half the state's average weekly wage
established July 1, 1986. See § 39-71-703(3).
Section 39-71-701(5), MCA (1987), placed an arbitrary V'capVV or
limit on the benefits payable to injured workers, as an exception
to the regular benefit rate provided for at § 39-71-701(3), MCA
(1987)--i.e. 66 213% of the workers' wages at the time of injury,
not to exceed the state's average weekly wage. The cap provided
for at subsection (5) pertained to benefits awarded to workers
injured between July 1, 1987 and June 30, 1991. During that same
period--July 1, 1987 through June 30, 1991--the state's average
weekly wage established by the Department of Labor ranged from $302
to $349, or, in other words, from $3 to $50 higher than the capped
maximum benefit rate of $299.
The question presented is whether the cap terminated after
June 30, 1991, as to benefits awarded during the time that the cap
was in effect or whether such benefits continued to be limited to
a maximum of $299 following after that date. Appellants contend
3
that the cap was only temporary and that, under the terms of the
statute, the cap terminated after June 30, 1991, with the result
that, after that date, the maximum rate for workers' compensation
benefits returned to the higher time of injury state's average
weekly wage under 5 39-71-701(3), MCA. The insurers, on the other
hand, maintain that, once benefits were awarded under the capped
rate, those benefits, as limited, continued on past 1991 as the
injured workers' permanent time of injury maximum rate.
Appellants filed their petition on June 25, 1992, seeking to
have their action filed as a class action suit but the Workers'
Compensation Court denied class certification. That denial was
affirmed by this Court in Murer v. State Comp. Mut. Ins. Fund
(1993) I 257 Mont. 434, 849 P.2d 1036.
Appellants then brought their motion for partial summary
judgment, filed on June 1, 1993, and on July 12, 1993, the
respondents filed their motion for summary judgment. The Workers'
Compensation Court filed its order and memorandum on January 11,
1994, denying appellants' motion for partial summary judgment and
granting respondents' motion for summary judgment. This appeal
followed.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
The standard of review for an appeal from a Workers'
Compensation Court's grant or denial of a motion for summary
judgment is the came as that used by a district court. Lund v.
State Compensation Mut. Ins. Fund ('1994), 263 Mont. 346, 348, 868
P.2d 611, 612. "We determine whether there is an absence of
4
genuine issues of material fact and whether the moving party is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Lund
-, 868 P.2d at 612.
The material facts in the instant case are not at issue; the
resolution of the question presented in this case hinges upon the
proper legal interpretation of the §§ 39-71-701(5), MCA, 1987 and
1989. Our review of the conclusions of law of the Workers'
Compensation Court is plenary; we simply determine whether its
legal conclusions are correct. Lund
-.-.---I 868 P.2d at 612.
DISCUSSION
While we have considered the various arguments raised by the
parties to this appeal, we need go no further than to apply the
well established rules of construction set forth in our statutes
and case law. In construing a statute, this Court must "ascertain
and declare what is in terms or in substance contained therein, not
to insert what has been omitted or to omit what has been inserted.
Where there are several provisions or particulars, such a
construction is, if possible, to be adopted as will give effect to
all." Section l-,2-101, MCA. Moreover, "[a] cardinal principle of
statutory construction is that the intent of the legislature must
first be determined from the plain meaning of the words used, and
if interpretation of the statute can be so determined, the courts
may not go further and apply any other means of interpretation.
Mont. Ass'n of Underwriters v. State, Etc. (1977), 172 Mont. 211,
215, 563 P.2d 577, 579-80. (Citations omitted.) We conclude that
the statute at issue here, $ 39-71-701(5), MCA (1987) and (1989),
is clear and unambiguous and that, from the plain meaning of the
5
language used by the legislature, the limitation on benefit
payments of $299 (or $149.50 for partial benefits) per week was
intended to be a temporary cap and not a permanent one.
While we decline to speculate on the language that the
legislature could have used to make the $299 cap permanent, one
thing is clear. Had the legislature intended to impose a permanent
cap on benefits awarded to injured workers during the period July
1, 1987 through June 30, 1989, and again during the period July 1,
1989 through June 30, 1991, it could have easily included language
in subsection (5) to accomplish that. Instead, the language chosen
merely sets forth a time-specific limitation on benefits--i.e. that
notwithstanding the higher benefit rate to which the injured worker
would normally be entitled under subsection (3) of S 39-71-701,
MCA, beginning July 1, 1987 through June 30, 1991, those benefits
were capped at an amount not to exceed $299. There is simply no
language in the statute that would lead to the conclusion that the
benefit cap was to apply to any time period after June 30, 1991,
and it is improper to interpret the statute to insert such a
provision where the legislature failed to do so.
The language used by the legislature, "beginning July 1 1987,
through June 30, 1991 . . . benefits . . . may not exceed . . .
$299,“ clearly limits the amount and timing of benefit payments.
The statutory language does not, contrary to the insurers'
arguments, delineate the dates of injury or dates of the workers'
claims to which a "time of injury" compensation rate is permanently
fixed at $299. Moreover, as pointed out above, had it been the
6
legislature's intention to establish a permanent time of injury
benefit at the capped amount, the statute could have been written
to accomplish that result. It was not, and we decline to interpret
the statute in that fashion.
While the Workers' Compensation Court attempted to divine
"what the legislature was trying to do," in capping the benefit
rate at $299 during the time periods in question, it is improper
and violative of the rules of statutory construction set forth
above to go beyond the plain language of the statute when the
legislature's intent can be derived from the objective meaning of
the words used. Montana Underwriters, 563 P.2d at 579-580.
If the cap of $299 was intended to be a permanent cap, the
legislature would have so stated, and would not have provided for
a time limitation for the cap to remain in effect. To interpret
the statute as providing for a permanent cap on benefits of $299
would necessitate inserting thatwhichthe legislature omitted from
the statute in its enactment of the amendment. Section 1-2-101,
MCA. As asserted by the appellants, "[slimply stated, the statute
provides that benefits may not exceed $299.00 per week from July 1,
1987 through June 30, 1991."
At the expiration of the time limitation provided for in § 39-
71-701(5), MCA (1989), the statutory provision that the maximum
benefit rate for workers is set at the state's average weekly wage
at the time of the injury governs. Section 39-71-701(3), MCA.
Respondents argue that the rate in effect at the time of
injury controls throughout the life of a claim and that the
7
appropriate rate in the instant case for workers injured from July
1, 1987 through June 30, 1991 is $299.00 for the duration of their
claims. They contend that if the appellants' argument is accepted,
a maximum benefit: rate claim would increase whenever the state's
average weekly wage would increase. The weekly compensation
benefit rate is fixed at the time of injury; and the time of injury
benefit rate during the time period in question is $299.
We agree that an injured worker's weekly compensation benefit
rate is fixed at the time of injury. Stuber v. Moodie Implement
(1989), 236 Mont. 189, 192, 769 P.2d 1205, 1207. It is also well
established that a claimant's worker's compensation benefits are
determined by the statutes in effect at the time of injury.
Buckman v. Montana Deaconess Hosp. (1986), 224 Mont. 318, 322, 730
P.2d 380, 382.
However, the appellants* argument is also in accord with those
legal precepts. Appellants argue, and we agree, that subsection
(5) of § 39-71-701, MCA, for the years 1987 and 1989, was a
temporary, time-specific limitation and that when the limitation
expired, the claimants should then have been paid maximum benefit
rates not to exceed the state's average weekly wage rate at the
time of the iniurv under § 39-71-701(3), MCA. In actuality,
appellants ask for no more than they are granted by statute--that
they receive benefits at 66 213% of their wages received at the
time of injury with the maximum weekly compensation benefits not to
exceed the state's average weekly wage at the time of injury.
Section 39-71-701(3), MCA.
8
From our reading of the plain, objective language of the
statute, we conclude that this is precisely what the appellants
should receive. We hold that the "cap" on benefits, of $299.00,
set by the 1987 and 1989 legislatures in § 39-71-701(5), MCA, was
a temporary cap on benefits which terminated on June 30, 1991, and
that on that date the appellants should have begun receiving
benefits under § 39-71-701(3), MCA, at the statutory rate
determined as of the date of injury--i.e. "[wleekly compensation
benefits. . . [of] . . . 66 213% of the wages received at the time
of the injury . . . not [to] exceed the state's average weekly wage
at the time of injury.*@ Section 39-71-701(3), MCA. We hold that
the Workers' Compensation Court erred in granting summary judgment
to the defendants/respondents and denying partial summary judgment
to the plaintiffs/appellants, and, accordingly, we reverse and
remand for a calculation of benefits consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR
THIS OPINION.
We Concur:
November 21. 1994
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that the following certified order was sent by United States mail, prepaid, to the
following named:
Allan M. McGarvey
McGARVEY, HEBERLING, SULLIVAN & McGARVEY
745 So. Main Street
Kalispell, MT 59901
Bradley L. Luck
GARLINGTON, LOHN & ROBINSON
P. 0. Box 7909
Missoula, MT 59807-7909
ED SMITH
CLERK OF THE SUPREME COURT
STATE OF MONTANA