Wilsey, Bennett Co. v. Grant

1981 OK 68, 632 P.2d 382, 1981 Okla. LEXIS 252

• Court: Supreme Court of Oklahoma
• Decided: June 9, 1981
• Docket: 53808, 55115
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPALA, Justice:

The dispositive issue before us is whether the one-year statute of limitations prescribed by 85 O.S.1971 § 43 ¹ is arrested, as against a secondarily liable principal (statutory) employer, by the timely filing of a claim against an uninsured immediate employer who is primarily responsible for payment of compensation. We grant certiorari and hold that a timely-filed claim will not operate to commence a compensation proceeding against a party-respondent so defi-ciently named on the claim form as to prevent the trial tribunal’s staff from sending notice of its filing to the right entity.

A truck driver was killed and her co-driver injured in a highway accident. Two separate claim forms were timely filed ² in the proper forum naming as parties-respondent both the immediate employer and some incorporated Oklahoma entity mistakenly believed to be the principal employer. The Oklahoma entity’s answer revealed that neither it nor its insurance carrier was the correctly named party-respondent in the cases. Amended claim forms — filed after the limitations period had run — named as the principal employer a California corporation and listed its insurer — an entity different from the carrier of the originally misnamed Oklahoma respondent.³ It is undisputed that the two successively named principal employers and their two different insurers were all distinct and separate bodies corporate.⁴ Neither employer entity was a' subsidiary or alter-ego of the other. Nor was either of the two different insurers for these corporations a subsidiary or alter-ego of the other. The trial judge held the claims were barred as against the principal employer. The en banc panel reversed this decision. It ruled that because the immediate employer had no insurance the principal employer was secondarily liable. Each claimant was awarded compensation. On appeal by the principal employer the two cases were consolidated for disposition. The Court of Appeals affirmed the en banc panel’s decision, holding that the timely filing of a claim against the uninsured immediate employer operated to arrest the limitation period both as to the immediate and the statutory (principal) employer.

The Court of Appeals’ decision under review here is clearly predicated on the authority of Lane Construction & Plumbing Co. v. Green.5 That case appears to rest on the notion that parties-respondent in a compensation proceeding stand identified by operation of law. Implicit in it is an assumption that the choice of adversaries is accomplished automatically as a result of one’s employer status vis-a-vis the injured worker at the time of injury rather than by a conscious act of the claimant timely identifying on the face of his claim form those who are legally responsible to protect him. We must reject the notion that the parties liable for compensation — no matter how de-ficiently identified on the timely filed claim form — are amenable to some automatically imposable joinder as litigants in a compensation claim. So far as Lane may be in conflict with this pronouncement, it is to be treated as withdrawn.⁶

The clear language of § 43 prescribes but a single one-year time limit for filing a claim against any person liable for compensation. The statute makes no distinction between those who bear primary liability and those who may he held secondarily liable. Lane alters that legislative norm by postponing the point at which a claim against the principal employer accrues to the “discovery” of the immediate employer’s uninsured status. The result of this rule is that the § 43 limitations period may be tolled vis-a-vis the principal employer over a span that is clearly open-ended. This is so because Lane sets no outer limit for a claimant’s freedom to make the discovery that triggers the § 43 one-year period.

The fundamental purpose of the applicable time limits in § 43 is the same as in any other limitations statute. It is to protect a litigant from the unexpected enforcement of stale claims too old to be successfully investigated and defended.⁷ In civil actions, a party, who is sought to be brought into the case by amendment filed after the limitations period had run, may plead the statute in bar of his liability.⁸ There is no warrant in statutory or case law for a different rule to be applied to compensation cases under § 43. The statutory time bar afforded an employer in compensation cases is no less substantial than that which is available to a defendant in ordinary actions at law or in equity suits. The purpose of compensation laws is to provide not only a remedy for injured workers that is both expeditious and independent of fault concept but also to afford employers a limited and determinate⁹ liability.

Since there is nothing in the compensation laws which alters the incidence of statutory limitations vis-a-vis the liability imposable on a principal employer, the § 43 time bar must be viewed as being co-extensive with that which runs against the immediate employer. Courts are powerless to prescribe exceptions to limitations for which a clear or explicit provision is made by the legislature.¹⁰

In some compensation proceedings more than one employer may be held liable for the same injuries sustained by a worker. This is true in cases in which there is both a general and special “master” and in those, like this one, where the law recognizes two employers, immediate and principal. The immediate employer bears primary responsibility, and the principal employer’s liability is secondary.¹¹ While we frequently make mention of primary and secondary liability for joinder purposes, we treat the two classes of statutorily liable obligors as substantially in the same category as are defendants in a tort case at common law.¹² A claimant is free to pursue his compensation remedy against all, or any one of, the multiple entities statutorily responsible for payment of his compensation.¹³ It is he to whom the court looks to choose the combatants against whom the demands will be pressed. Neither in tort nor in compensation claims is an adversary thrust upon the claimant by operation of law.¹⁴ In short, the act of naming the immediate employer as party-respondent on the claim form — be that person insured or not — will not by itself hale the statutory employer into court.¹⁵ The liability of an independent contractor qua uninsured immediate employer is not automatically imputable to his hirer, the principal employer. The right to invoke that liability for vindication of a claim must originate with the injured worker in whose favor it runs.

As we can no longer follow Lane, we now pronounce that a timely-filed compensation claim will operate to commence a proceeding against any party-respondent shown on the claim form by a name or designation that sufficiently identifies that entity for delivery of notice either to it or to its insurance carrier.

Applying this test to the case at bar, we conclude that the principal employer’s designation on the tribunal-prescribed form failed to identify that employer sufficiently to effect delivery of notice to the right party or to its insurance carrier.¹⁶ No claim was hence commenced against that party-respondent until after the limitations period had run.¹⁷

The claimants in these cases rely on the open-ended rule of Lane. That rule was effective at the time of the accident when the rights of the parties attached. It must be allowed to govern these proceedings. We therefore sustain the awards made by the en banc panel. Our departure from the rule in Lane — pronounced in this opinion — shall operate prospectively¹⁸ and apply only to those claims which may arise from accidental injuries occurring after the effective date of this opinion.¹⁹

Certiorari is granted, the trial tribunal’s awards are sustained and the Court of Appeals’ opinion is withdrawn from publication.

IRWIN, C. J., BARNES, V. C. J., and HODGES and LAVENDER, JJ., concur. WILLIAMS, SIMMS, DOOLIN and HARGRAVE, JJ., dissent.

1 . Unless indicated otherwise, all citations are to sections which were in effect at the time of the accident and all section references are to Title 85.

2 . The accident occurred August 14, 1973. The claim forms were filed August 12, 1974.

3 . The Oklahoma and California entities had similar names and were at one time wholly owned subsidiaries of another corporation. That legal relationship was not in existence at the time of the accident in suit.

4 . Both claimants stipulated that the misnamed Oklahoma corporation was not the principal employer.

5 . Okl., 451 P.2d 947 [1969],

6 . In Lane we held that the § 43 limitation period does not begin to run against the principal employer — the statutory employer under 85 O.S.1971 § 11 — until the claimant has discovered that the immediate employer is uninsured. The principal employer’s liability was said not to be established until that discovery is made.

7 . Special Indemnity Fund v. Barnes, Okl., 434 P.2d 218, 220-221 [1967],

8 . Seitz v. Jones, Okl., 370 P.2d 300, 302 [1962]; Lake v. Lietch, Okl., 550 P.2d 935, 937 [1976]; Cummings v. Board of Education of Oklahoma City, 190 Okl. 533, 125 P.2d 989, 993 [1942],

9 . Bradford Electric Light Co. v. Clapper, 286 U.S. 145, 160-161, 52 S.Ct. 571, 576, 76 L.Ed. 1026, 1035-1036 [1931]; McLean v. Mundy, 81 So.2d 501, 503 [Fla.1955]; Martensen v. Schutte Lumber Co., 236 Mo.App. 1084, 162 S.W.2d 312, 316-317 [1942],

10 . Cummings v. Board of Education of Oklahoma City, supra note 8.

11 . 85 O.S.1971 § 11.

12 . Ellis & Lewis v. Hohimer, 151 Okl. 114, 2 P.2d 943, 944 [1931].

13 . Similarly, under the loaned-servant doctrine, either the general (lending) master or the special (borrowing) master, or both, could be looked to by the worker for payment of compensation. O’Baugh v. Drilling Well Control, Inc., Okl., 609 P.2d 355, 359 [1980]; Ishmael v. Henderson, Okl., 286 P.2d 265, 267-268 [1955]. The choice, again, is that of the injured worker.

14 . Implicit in recent case law, Pryse Monument Co. v. District Court of Kay County, Okl., 595 P.2d 435 [1979], is the principle that vis-a-vis an uninsured employer the same limitations govern, both under the Workers’ Compensation Law and in common law negligence, as they do with respect to an insured employer. Lane, supra note 5, is hence no longer in harmony with later decisional law. This is so because under Lane the immediate employer’s uninsured status alone affords a basis for extending the time bar.

15 . We are not dealing here with a pure form of joint liability. There, service on a co-obligor will arrest the limitations period as against defendants who have not been served. See 12 O.S.1971 § 97; Kerns v. Renshaw, 162 Okl. 272, 20 P.2d 177, 178 [1933],

16 . Had this been a case where the wrong defendant was named but the right one was given notice, the situation would be similar to that in Cartwright v. Atlas Chemical Industries, Inc., Okl., 623 P.2d 606 [1981]. That situation is not before us and we need not reach it here.

17 . 85 O.S.Supp. 1978 §§ 3.4 and 43; Rule 13, Workers’ Compensation Court, State of Oklahoma, 85 O.S.Supp. 1978, Ch. 4 App.

18 . Bomford v. Socony Mobil Oil Co., Okl., 440 P.2d 713, 720-721 [1968]; American First Title & Trust Company v. Ewing, Okl., 403 P.2d 488, 496 [1965]; Poafpybitty v. Skelly Oil Company, Okl., 394 P.2d 515, 520 [1964],

19 . The effective date of this opinion is the date of its promulgation but if rehearing should be sought, then the date rehearing is denied.