Weiss v. Ferro Corp.

542 N.E.2d 340, 44 Ohio St. 3d 178, 1989 Ohio LEXIS 182
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 2, 1989
DocketNo. 88-1069
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 542 N.E.2d 340 (Weiss v. Ferro Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Weiss v. Ferro Corp., 542 N.E.2d 340, 44 Ohio St. 3d 178, 1989 Ohio LEXIS 182 (Ohio 1989).

Opinion

Whiteside, J.

R.C. 4123.519 grants a claimant or an employer the right to appeal certain decisions of the commission to the appropriate common pleas court and sets forth the following procedure:

“* * * Notice of such appeal shall be filed by the appellant with the court of common pleas within sixty days after the date of the receipt of the decision appealed from or the date of receipt of the order of the commission refusing to permit an appeal from a regional board of review. Such filings shall be the only act required to perfect the appeal and vest jurisdiction in the court.” (Emphasis added.)

R.C. 4123.522 provides a “savings” procedure which applies in circumstances where notice of the decision to be appealed is not received and provides in part as follows:

“The employee, employer and their respective representatives shall be entitled to written notice of any hearing, determination, order, award or decision under the provisions of Chapter U123. of the Revised Code.
“If any person to whom a notice is mailed shall fail to receive such notice and the industrial commission, upon hearing, shall determine that such failure was due to cause beyond the control and without the fault or neglect of such person or his representative and that such person or his representative did not have actual knowledge of the import of the information contained in such notice, such person may take the auction afforded to such person within twenty days after the receipt of [180]*180such notice of such determination of the industrial commission. Delivery of such notice to the address of such person or his representative shall be prima facie evidence of receipt of such notice by such person.” (Emphasis added.)

There is a rebuttable presumption, sometimes called the “mailbox rule,” that, once a notice is mailed, it is presumed to be received in due course. See Young v. Bd. of Review (1967), 9 Ohio App. 2d 25, 38 O.O. 2d 36, 222 N.E. 2d 789; and Kimberly v. Arms (1889), 129 U.S. 512, 529. R.C. 4123.522 provides that such presumption may, upon application to the commission, be rebutted by evidence which shows that the addressee did not receive the mailed notice, and “* * * that such failure was due to cause beyond the control * * *” of that person.

The commission in ruling on Ferro’s motion for relief determined:

“* * * that the employer’s attorney did not receive notice of the findings from the order of the Industrial Commission dated December 9, 1985. The Commission further finds that such failure was beyond the control and without the fault or neglect of the employer’s attorney and that the employer’s attorney did not have actual knowledge of the information contained in such order.” In other words, the commission found that the employer’s attorney rebutted any presumption that he received notice of the commission’s order refusing appeal, thus entitling Ferro to relief under R.C. 4123.522.

However, Weiss contends that R.C. 4123.522 is inapplicable to these facts because that section is limited to intra-agency appeals, relying upon this court’s per curiam opinion in Skiba v. Connor (1983), 5 Ohio St. 3d 147, 5 OBR 313, 449 N.E. 2d 775. Accordingly, Weiss contends that, since R.C. 4123.519 controls and Ferro failed to file a notice of appeal within sixty days after April 16, 1986 (the day Ferro’s counsel became aware of the commission’s December 9, 1985 decision), the time for appeal had expired making Ferro’s September 17,1986 appeal untimely.

In Skiba, the claimant sought to invoke R.C. 4123.522 to extend her time for appeal under R.C. 4123.519 because she had not received notice of the order of the commission which rejected her appeal. Skiba held that R.C. 4123.522 is strictly an intra-agency remedy which does not affect an appeal to a common pleas court under R.C. 4123.519. Skiba further held that the time for appeal under R.C. 4123.519 did not commence until the claimant received notice of the commission’s R.C. 4123.522 order reinstating her right to appeal. In other words, as we held in Skiba at 149, 5 OBR at 315, 449 N.E. 2d at 778, “* * * appellant received notice of the commission’s decision denying her appeal at the time the commission granted her motion under R.C. 4123.522.”

A closer examination of the plain language of R.C. 4123.522 and the language of R.C. 4123.516 governing intra-agency appeals gives support to the view of Justice Holmes, who, although concurring in the judgment of Skiba, dissented from the majority’s characterization of R.C. 4123.522 as strictly an intra-agency provision.

The first paragraph of R.C. 4123.522 provides:

“The employee, employer and their respective representatives shall be entitled to written notice of any hearing, determination, order, award or decision under the provisions of Chapter 4123. of the Revised Code.”

It is only upon receipt of this writ[181]*181ten notice from the commission that the time for appeal to a common pleas court under R.C. 4123.519 begins to run.

Skiba specifically holds at 149, 5 OBR at 314-315, 449 N.E. 2d at 777-778:

“Appellant contends that R.C. 4123.522 is strictly an intra-agency remedy which does not affect an appeal under R.C. 4123.519. We agree with that proposition. Our conclusion is necessitated by the fact that the time within which an appeal must be taken to the court of common pleas under R.C. 4123.519 does not begin to run until the order of the commission is received. Consequently, until the appealing party receives notice of an adverse decision of the commission, no rights of appeal may be lost under R.C. f 123.519. Contrary to the position of the commission, the language of R.C. U123.522 is only meant to apply to situations where a party has lost a right to pursue a remedy by not receiving some notification. Since a party cannot lose the right to appeal to the court of common pleas until notice of the decision of the commission is received, R.C. h123.522 has no application to the case at bar. * * *” (Emphasis added.)

Nothing in R.C. 4123.522 expressly limits its applicability to intraagency appeals. Furthermore, if the foregoing analysis in Skiba is carried to its logical conclusion, R.C. 4123.522 would have no applicability to intraagency appeals.

Characterization of R.C. 4123.522 as strictly an intra-agency appeal is faulty. If “los[ing] a right to pursue a remedy by not receiving some notification” is the basis of determining the R.C. 4123.522 applicability, it cannot apply to intra-agency appeals. R.C. 4123.516 governs intra-agency appeals and provides in pertinent part:

“A claimant, an employer, or the administrator of the bureau of workers’ compensation who is dissatisfied with a decision of the district hearing officer may appeal therefrom by filing a notice of appeal with the bureau, with a regional board of review, or with the industrial commission, unthin twenty days after the date of receipt of notice of the decision of the district hearing officer. * *

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
542 N.E.2d 340, 44 Ohio St. 3d 178, 1989 Ohio LEXIS 182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/weiss-v-ferro-corp-ohio-1989.