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In re McDonough's Case12/22/2003
Suffolk.
October 8, 2003
Workers' Compensation Act, Right to compensation, Dependency compensation, Coverage, Decision of Industrial Accident Reviewing Board.
Joseph V. McDonough (employee) worked for the Boston Edison Company from 1961 until his voluntary retirement in 1991. He was diagnosed with a metastatic adenocarcinoma and asbestosis four and one-half years after he retired from the company, and died soon afterward. His widow, the claimant, made a claim for benefits under § 31 of the Workers' Compensation Act, G. L. c. 152, which provides for compensation to certain survivors of workers who die because of an injury suffered in the course of their employment. An administrative judge of the Department of Industrial Accidents (department) determined that the employee was exposed to asbestos fibers at work prior to December, 1978, and that his employer was liable under the workers' compensation system, but denied § 31 benefits because the employee voluntarily had retired and had no earnings in the year preceding his death. The reviewing board of the department reversed the administrative judge's denial of § 31 benefits, ordering payment "at rates mandated by § 35C and 452 Code Mass. Regs. § 3.02." The employer's insurer appealed from the board's decision, and we transferred the case from the Appeals Court on our own motion. We vacate the board's decision, concluding that the plain language of G. L. c. 152, § 35C, does not support the payment of compensation to the claimant, and that, to the extent that 452 Code Mass. Regs. § 3.02 (1) (1999) would provide otherwise, the regulation is invalid.
Discussion.
In Res. 1910, c. 120, the Legislature established the Massachusetts commission on compensation for industrial accidents to "determine upon a plan of compensating employees for injuries received in the course of their employment." This was "the logical outcome of a long-continued and increasing demand for the modification or abandonment of the common-law remedies as applied to the relationship of employers and injured employees." Report of the Commission on Compensation for Industrial Accidents 14 (July 1, 1912). Since enacted in St. 1911, c. 751, the Massachusetts workers' compensation scheme has been conceived as a mechanism by which workers can recover a portion of that income that they are kept from earning because of an injury suffered while working. See generally L. Locke, Workers' Compensation 1-11 & 18-22 (L.Y. Nason, C.W. Koziol, & R. Wall Supp. 2002); L. Locke, Workmen's Compensation 1-15, 22-26 (2d ed. 1981). Since 1911, we have been consistent in our efforts to give effect to this purpose. See, e.g., Letteney's Case, 429 Mass. 280, 282 (1999) ("our workers' compensation law was conceived as a system of insurance to replace in part the wages lost by workers or their dependents as a result of injuries suffered in connection with their work"); Tobin's Case, 424 Mass. 250, 253 (1997) ("workers' compensation law was designed to provide wage-loss protection to employees who are injured on the job and incur a loss of earning capacity from the injury"); Ahmed's Case, 278 Mass. 180, 183 (1932) ("[workers'] compensation . . . is by way of relief from inability to earn, or for deprivation of support flowing from, wages theretofore received by the employee"). While we are careful not to "read into [the workers' compensation statute] by implication or enlargement provisions not fairly within its terms," Moran's Case, 234 Mass. 152, 155 (1919), and note that "its express provisions cannot be extended beyond their reasonable import," id., we recognize that it "is to be construed broadly . . . in the light of its purpose and . . . to promote the acc
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