TINA CHARLES v. APPALACHIAN REGIONAL HEALTHCARE; JOHN B. COLEMAN, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE; AND THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
RENDERED:
October 19, 2001; 2:00 p.m.
TO BE PUBLISHED
C ommonwealth O f K entucky
C ourt O f A ppeals
NO.
2000-CA-001787-WC
TINA CHARLES
APPELLANT
PETITION FOR REVIEW OF A DECISION
OF THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD
ACTION NO. 99-94558
v.
APPALACHIAN REGIONAL HEALTHCARE;
JOHN B. COLEMAN, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
JUDGE; AND THE WORKERS'
COMPENSATION BOARD
APPELLEES
OPINION
REVERSING AND REMANDING
** ** ** ** **
BEFORE:
JOHNSON, KNOPF, AND MILLER, JUDGES.
KNOPF, JUDGE:
Tina Charles appeals from an opinion and order of
the Workers’ Compensation Board, entered June 30, 2000, affirming
the dismissal of her request for a de novo benefit-review
hearing.
The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to whom Charles
submitted her request ruled that she had filed the request too
late.
Charles contends that this ruling was erroneous because it
did not adequately take into account the fact that the arbitrator
who first reviewed her claim never properly rendered a decision.
We agree with Charles and therefore reverse and remand.
Alleging that she had suffered a workplace injury in
January 1999, Charles filed her claim for medical and disability
benefits the following August.
Pursuant to the statutes and
regulations then in effect, the claim was initially assigned to
an arbitrator.
On December 13, 1999, counsel for Charles
received in the mail, apparently from the Department for Workers’
Claims, a purported benefit review determination awarding Charles
medical benefits but denying her claim for income benefits.
The
document recited that it was both rendered and served December 1,
1999.
The spaces intended for the arbitrator’s signature,
however, both the one concluding the order and the one concluding
the certificate of service, were blank.
On January 5, 2000,
counsel asked the Department about the status of Charles’s claim.
He was told that the unsigned order had been entered on December
6, 1999.1
That same day, January 5, 2000, counsel hastily
prepared and mailed a motion for de novo review.
received the motion on January 7, 2000.
The Department
Since the motion was
filed more than thirty days after entry of the order under
challenge, the ALJ dismissed the motion as untimely.2
Affirming
the ALJ’s decision, the Board commented that, by failing to raise
the issue until the appeal period had expired, Charles had waived
any objection to the order’s lack of signature.
It is from this
decision that Charles has appealed.
1
There is no dispute that the order actually submitted to the Commissioner, as well as the
copy forwarded to Charles, was not signed.
2
See KRS 342.275 (1996) and 803 KAR 25:010 § 12 (1999).
-2-
We do not quarrel with the Board’s observations that
the time limits for bringing workers’ compensation appeals are to
be strictly applied and that Charles’s counsel would have been
well advised to make prompter inquiry into the effect of the
unsigned order.
We are persuaded, however, that the arbitrator’s
failure to sign his order cannot be as lightly disregarded as it
was by the Board.
It is true, as the Board noted, that neither
KRS Chapter 342, the Workers’ Compensation Act, nor the
regulations promulgated thereunder includes an express
counterpart to CR 58, which provides that “[b]efore a judgment or
order may be entered . . . it shall be signed by the judge.”
Nevertheless, in its role as arbiter of workers’ claims, the
Department is a tribunal of record.3
Implicit in that notion, we
believe, are the requirements made explicit in CR 58 and
discussed in Staton v. Poly Weave Bag Company, Inc.4
As our
Supreme Court there observed, “in legal parlance, the terms
‘rendition’ and ‘entry’ are not synonymous, the first being a
judicial act and the second a clerical act.”5
Both acts are
necessary to the creation of an appealable order.6
Confusing
them, as the Staton court further noted,
plays havoc with the principles that a
judgment becomes effective only when it is
entered in the docket and that the time for
3
KRS 342.245.
4
Ky., 930 S.W.2d 397 (1996).
5
Id. at 398.
6
Commonwealth of Kentucky, Transportation Cabinet v. City of Campbellsville, Ky.
App., 740 S.W.2d 162 (1987).
-3-
taking an appeal runs from the date of the
docket notation which indicates the parties
were served with notice that the judgment was
entered in the docket. CR 58(1).7
It is manifest, we believe, that “entry,” the clerical
act, cannot precede or supply “rendition,” the judicial act.
We
also believe that rendition requires a clear indication on the
face of the record that the duly authorized decision maker adopts
as his or her own the decision purportedly entered on his or her
behalf.8
It may be that something other than a signature could
supply that clear indication.
A signature stamp sometimes
suffices, for example, and as we come increasingly to rely upon
electronic documents as opposed to paper ones, we will certainly
need to adopt some new method of authentication.
In the
meantime, however, as the Board noted, a signature is the
standard method.
It was clearly the method contemplated here.
The arbitrator’s having failed to sign his order, therefore,
means that it was not rendered.
Not having been rendered, the
order could not be entered; and not having been entered, it did
not set running the period for Charles’s appeal.
conclusion to the contrary was erroneous.
The Board’s
Accordingly, we
reverse the June 30, 2000, order of the Workers’ Compensation
Board and remand for entry of a properly rendered benefit-review
decision and due consideration of Charles’s petition for de novo
review.
7
Staton, supra, 930 S.W.2d at 398-99.
8
Allen v. Walter, Ky., 534 S.W.2d 453 (1976); Yocum v. Hamilton, Ky., 494 S.W.2d
731 (1973).
-4-
ALL CONCUR.
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT:
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE APPALACHIAN
REGIONAL HEALTHCARE:
James P. Pruitt, Jr.
Pruitt & de Bourbon Law Firm
Pikeville, Kentucky
Sherri P. Brown
Ferreri & Fogle
Lexington, Kentucky
-5-
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
