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Banegas v. State Industrial Insurance System3/16/2001
he deceased employee are provided for in NRS 616C.505(3)-(5) regardless of who has custody of the children, and NRS 616C.505(12) provides death benefits for adult children of the deceased employee. Additionally, NRS 616C.505(9) gives SIIS discretion to apportion benefits between surviving spouses and minor children. Finally, NRS 616C.070 defines those who are conclusively presumed to be totally dependent on the deceased employee and includes natural and adopted minor children, adult children physically or mentally incapacitated from wage earning, and stepchildren and stepparents when factual dependency is shown. Thus, the instances described by SIIS are covered by other sections or subsections within the industrial insurance statutes, and reading NRS 616C.505(8) as urged by SIIS would nullify the limits on death benefits imposed by the other sections and subsections within the chapter. Such an interpretation would be contrary to established rules of statutory construction. See Paramount Ins. v. Rayson & Smitley, 86 Nev. 644, 649, 472 P.2d 530, 533 (1970) (no part of a statute should be rendered nugatory, nor any language turned to mere surplusage, if such consequences can properly be avoided).
Finally, REECO contends that NRS 616C.505(8) narrowly provides death benefits to partially dependent parents or siblings when there is no surviving spouse or dependent children and no wholly dependent parents or siblings. REECO suggests that the Legislature intended subsection 8 to qualify subsection 6 by providing death benefits for partially dependent parents or siblings and that the phrase "in all other cases" means all cases involving partial dependents. Based on our review of the entire statutory scheme regarding survivor benefits, we agree that the Legislature intended NRS 616C.505(8) to relate only to partial dependency rather than to create an unspecified class of beneficiaries consisting of factual dependents.
The intent of the Legislature may be discerned by reviewing the statute or the chapter as a whole. See Thomas v. State, 88 Nev. 382, 384, 498 P.2d 1314, 1315 (1972). NRS 616C.505 enumerates as dependents various classes of persons, standing in certain relationships to the deceased employee, in descending order of entitlement to death benefits. Specifically, NRS 616C.505(2)-(5) and (12)-(13) provide death benefits to a surviving spouse and/or surviving minor children. When these subsections are considered together with NRS 616C.070, it is evident that the dependency of these designated beneficiaries is to be conclusively presumed. In addition, NRS 616C.505(6) provides death benefits to wholly dependent parents or siblings of the deceased worker , with dependency for these designated beneficiaries a question of fact in each instance. Provisions are made in these subsections for payment to the designated beneficiaries of varying specified percentages of the deceased employee's average monthly wage for varying specified periods. See NRS 616C.505(2)-(6). The chapter also provides that stepparents and stepchildren may be regarded as parents and children if factual dependency is shown. See NRS 616C.070(1).
Thus, all of the dependent persons described in the subsections of NRS 616C.505 and NRS 616C.070 have legally recognized relationships to the deceased employee. These subsections, when considered together with NRS 616C.035, which requires proof on an application for death benefits of a relationship entitling a person to compensation , suggest that the Legislature only contemplated providing death benefits to persons in a legally recognized relationship with the deceased employee.
Additionally, words within a statute must not be read in isolation, and statutes must be con
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