Judges: JAMES K. PHARRIS, Senior Assistant Attorney General
Filed Date: 3/29/2005
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/6/2016
David Threedy, Executive Secretary Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals P. O. Box 42401 Olympia, Washington 98504-2401
Dear Mr. Threedy:
By letter previously acknowledged, you have requested an opinion from this office on the following questions, which we have slightly paraphrased for clarity:
1. May the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals use money in the accident fund and/or the medical aid fund to process and adjudicate appeals arising under Laws of 1996, ch. 226 and Laws of 2003, ch. 402?
2. To what extent may the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals continue receiving, processing, and adjudicating appeals arising under Laws of 1996, ch. 226 or Laws of 2003, ch. 402 in the absence of sufficient funds to pay the cost of such processing?
Under these laws, the Department is required to determine eligibility for the benefit "consistent with Title 51 RCW." RCW Title 51 is the Industrial Insurance Act. With respect to public employees enrolled in a state retirement system, the Department is to notify the Department of Retirement Systems of the eligibility determination by order under RCW
In that your questions relate to the role of the Board in hearing appeals from these orders, we examine the law governing the Board's responsibilities. The Board is created by RCW
Your question then is whether the Board is authorized to recover the expense of administering such appeals from the accident fund and the medical aid fund. These funds are the ordinary source of payment for Board expenses. In this regard, RCW
[original page 3] 1. May the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals use money in the accident fund and/or the medical aid fund to process and adjudicate appeals arising under Laws of 1996, ch. 226 and Laws of 2003, ch. 402?
Your first question concerns whether the Board may use its ordinary funding sources (the accident fund and the medical aid fund) to pay the expenses associated with hearing appeals not arising directly out of the operation of RCW Title 51, but arising from death benefit determinations by the Department under Laws of 1996, ch. 226 and Laws of 2003, ch. 402.
Your inquiry refers to an earlier opinion on a related subject, AGLO 1980 No. 15 (copy attached).2 In that opinion, this office considered the authority of the Board to use accident fund or medical aid fund monies to process and adjudicate appeals under the Crime Victims' Compensation Act. The opinion concluded that the accident fund and the medical aid fund were not available for this purpose and that the Board could not process crime victims' compensation appeals unless the Legislature provided funds for that purpose.3 The conclusion in AGLO 1980 No. 15 was based, in large part, on two provisions of the crime victims' compensation act. The first, RCW
The statutes which are the subject of the present opinion request are quite different from the crime victims' compensation act discussed in AGLO 1980 No. 15. Most notably, with respect to the Crime Victims' Compensation Act, the Legislature adopted a clear policy of fiscally separating the crime victims' compensation program from other programs operated by the Department through the above-quoted provisions, requiring separate funding and accounting for the crime victims program. By contrast, neither of the employment death benefit acts which are the subject of your question contains any language requiring separate funding or accounting for activities connected with administering those laws. To the contrary, each calls for the death benefit determinations to be made by the Department "consistent with Title 51", and Title 51 includes RCW
[original page 4] AGLO 1980 No. 15 also noted the case of Trenholm v. Yelle,
We note, however, that the Legislature is free to fund the expense of adjudicating appeals arising under the 1996 or 2003 public employee death benefit acts from a different source. Funding these appeals from other sources and leaving the accident fund and the medical aid fund to cover only the costs associated with traditional "core" workers compensation claims is a policy choice for the Legislature. This opinion merely concludes that the current law reflects a legislative policy choice to fund this expense from the accident and medical aid funds.
2. To what extent may the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals continue receiving, processing, and adjudicating appeals arising under Laws of 1996, ch. 226 or Laws of 2003, ch. 402 in the absence of sufficient funds to pay the cost of such processing?
Your second question appears to be based largely on the assumption that Question 1 would be answered in the negative and that the Board could process appeals arising under the special death benefit statutes only with funds appropriated by the Legislature, or otherwise provided, for that specific purpose. However, in light of our conclusion that the accident fund and the medical aid fund may lawfully be used to cover the expenses of these adjudications, the Board would only lack sufficient funds to process adjudications when the accident fund and the medical aid fund were themselves insufficient to cover the Board's expenses. In light of the fact that the two funds are also used to pay the great majority of the workers compensation claims [original page 5] arising under Title 51, we will not indulge in speculation here as to the consequences that would follow if the funds were so depleted.
We trust the foregoing will prove useful to you.
Sincerely,
JAMES K. PHARRIS Senior Assistant Attorney General