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Banegas v. State Industrial Insurance System3/16/2001
e General Motors v. Jackson, 111 Nev. 1026, 1029, 900 P.2d 345, 348 (1995) (statutory interpretation should avoid absurd or unreasonable results). Specifically, if subsection 8(a) is interpreted as a catchall category providing benefits for factual dependents regardless of any legally recognized relationship to the deceased employee, the subsection constitutes an incomplete expression of the Legislature's intent in that it fails to express either the amount of or the period during which benefits will be paid to subsection 8(a) dependents.
One of the settled maxims in constitutional law is that the power conferred upon the Legislature to make laws cannot be delegated to any other body or authority. See Nev. Const. Art. 3, ยง 1. However, the Legislature may authorize administrative agencies to make rules and regulations supplementing legislation if the power given is prescribed in terms sufficiently definite to serve as a guide in exercising that power. See Sheriff v. Luqman, 101 Nev. 149, 153-54, 697 P.2d 107, 110-11 (1985).
Within the industrial insurance statutes, guidelines setting forth the amount of and duration of death benefits appear only in NRS 616C.505 and relate exclusively to specified dependents. Provisions for the allowed amount and duration of payments for surviving spouses, dependent children, and wholly dependent parents and children of the deceased employee are specified in subsections 2-6 of NRS 616C.505. Subsections 8(b)-(c), however, express the amount of and the period during which benefits will be paid to partial dependents. See NRS 616C.505(b),(c). As a result, under Annabelle's construction of NRS 616C.505(8), SIIS would have sole discretion to determine the amount and duration of death benefits payable to the catchall category of beneficiaries.
To read NRS 616C.505(8)(a) to broaden the class of dependents to include any individual who is factually dependent upon the deceased employee, in the absence of any legislative guidelines to aid SIIS in administering payments to such unspecified dependents, would constitute an invalid delegation of legislative power which would compromise the constitutionality of the statute. Luqman, 101 Nev. at 153-54, 697 P.2d at 110-11; see also City of Las Vegas v. Mack, 87 Nevada 105, 481 P.2d 396 (1971) (statute's delegation to county commissioners not unconstitutional because sufficient guidelines are in place). We decline to assume the Legislature intended a construction of the statute that would compromise its constitutionality. See Sun City Summerlin v. State, Dep't Tax., 113 Nev. 835, 944 P.2d 234 (1997); Sheriff v. Smith, 91 Nev. 729, 733, 542 P.2d 440, 443 (1975).
Next, SIIS contends that NRS 616C.505(8) provides a category for dependents legally entitled to support by the deceased employee. SIIS suggests that the Legislature intended to limit the definition of dependents under NRS 616C.505 to persons related to the deceased employee by blood or marriage, i.e., surviving spouses, dependent children, and dependent parents or siblings of the deceased employee. SIIS contends that subsection 8 provides it with discretion to determine total and/or partial dependency within the class of dependents related by blood or marriage and to apportion death benefits among former spouses, minor children in the custody of someone other than a surviving spouse, and adult children who are incapable of self-support due to a mental or physical handicap.
We are not persuaded by SIIS's construction of NRS 616C.505(8) because the instances that SIIS suggests the Legislature intended subsection 8 to address are covered elsewhere within the industrial insurance statutes. Specifically, death benefits for minor children of t
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