EDWARD BOWEN v. SPECIAL FUND; HONORABLE ROGER D. RIGGS, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE; and WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD
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RENDERED: November 13, 1998; 2:00 p.m.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
C ommonwealth O f K entucky
C ourt O f A ppeals
No.
1998-CA-000142-WC
EDWARD BOWEN
v.
APPELLANT
PETITION FOR REVIEW OF A DECISION OF
THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD
FILE NO. WC-93-13069
SPECIAL FUND; HONORABLE ROGER
D. RIGGS, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
JUDGE; and WORKERS'
COMPENSATION BOARD
APPELLEES
OPINION
AFFIRMING
** ** ** ** **
BEFORE:
BUCKINGHAM, DYCHE, and GARDNER, Judges.
DYCHE, JUDGE.
Edward Bowen challenges Kentucky Revised Statute
(KRS) 342.125(2)(a) as being an unconstitutional violation of his
right to equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Finding no
constitutional infirmity in the statute, we affirm the opinion of
the Workers’ Compensation Board.
Bowen is a “career coal miner.”
Following his
diagnosis with category I coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, he filed
an application for retraining incentive benefits (KRS
342.732[1][a]); that claim was settled with his employer for a
lump sum of $15,000.
He subsequently left the mining industry and filed the
within action seeking to reopen his claim, and establish his
entitlement to income benefits under other subsections of KRS
342.732.
Following the taking of proof and briefing by the
parties, the Administrative Law Judge found that appellant had
not suffered a progression of the disease, as required by the
reopening statute, and dismissed the claim.
This appeal followed
an affirmance by the Workers’ Compensation Board.
“The constitutionality of a statute will be upheld if
its classification is not arbitrary, or if it is founded upon any
substantial distinction suggesting the necessity or propriety of
such legislation.”
Kentucky Harlan Coal Company v. Holmes, Ky.,
872 S.W.2d 446, 455 (1994).
In this particular case, appellant
challenges the part of the statute which requires those who have
already received some sort of award (in this case, retraining
incentive benefits, which were apparently not sufficient
incentive for appellant to retrain with the award for that
purpose) to meet a slightly higher standard of proof to receive
an award of income benefits than those who are seeking an initial
award of income benefits.
This provision is actually a benefit to such claimants,
by relieving them of the bar of res judicata.
Without this
section, workers such as appellant might be forever barred from
relitigating any portion of the award.
-2-
This being said, we
recognize that the increased burden of proof might be viewed by
some as unfair to the claimant as well as unconstitutional.
The provisions apply to all workers.
The purpose of
the section, encouraging workers afflicted with early-stage
pneumoconiosis to leave the industry and retrain for other jobs,
is certainly a legitimate goal for the General Assembly to seek.
The goal is to prevent those workers from continuing in the
mining industry until they develop more severe manifestations of
the disease, and require more substantial awards for disability,
some of which comes from the state treasury.
We find the purposes of the statute to be legitimate
ends for the legislature to seek.
The means are not
discriminatory, and are rationally related to the ends sought.
The statute passes constitutional muster.
The opinion of the
Workers’ Compensation Board is affirmed.
ALL CONCUR.
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT:
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE
SPECIAL FUND:
Jeffery Hinkle
Inez, Kentucky
David W. Barr
Louisville, Kentucky
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