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Paradiso v. Tipps Equipment11/20/2003
The WCJ noted that " hat happened here was simply that the Conservator had second thoughts about the wisdom of the settlement," and that Insurer was "understandably concerned about the withdrawal from a settlement agreement." However, the WCJ could not overlook the fact that the statutory requirements for a lump sum settlement approval were not met prior to Conservator's withdrawal of his agreement to the settlement.
In March 2002, the WCJ turned to Children's pending motion asking the WCJ to take judicial notice of the district court's findings. The WCJ determined that the parties did not disagree on the content of the district court's findings and conclusions, or on its order, they only disagreed about the effect in the WCA forum of the court's findings, conclusions, and order. The WCJ entered an order on April 1, 2002, taking judicial notice of the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law, but the WCJ stated that "at this time no determination is made with respect to the effect of [the court's] findings, conclusions and order in this forum."
Children proceeded to file a motion for summary judgment, contending that the doctrine of collateral estoppel barred any further litigation of facts and issues relating to Children's entitlement to further benefits and Insurer's reimbursement because those issues were litigated and decided in the district court proceeding. Insurer opposed summary judgment asserting, as it had in the prior hearing on Children's judicial notice motion, that the district court's findings were on the sole issue of reimbursement under Section 52-5-17. In specific response to Children's contention that the court's findings as to future benefits arose from an adjudication of the issue, Insurer reiterated that the court not only verbally stated on the record that the future benefits issue was not litigated, the court entered an order expressly limiting the effect of its findings. In addition, Insurer argued that under the presumption in Montoya, Children were "made whole" by the third party wrongful death settlement and what Children received in that settlement constituted the entire remedy available to them.
In September 2002, the WCJ granted Children's motion for summary judgment, holding that Insurer was precluded based on collateral estoppel from challenging the district court's findings of fact. The WCJ stated that "only one conclusion is possible with respect to the survivors' right to future workers' compensation benefits," namely, that because the " ort damages were $2,312,372.60 and the fair and reasonable recovery was only $630,000[,] survivors were therefore not made whole and are entitled to continuing workers' compensation indemnity benefits."
Further, the WCJ determined that Insurer was precluded from obtaining relief from future payments to the survivors due to "the manner in which the District Court calculated the reimbursement right." The WCJ's analysis of the district court's calculation was that, although the court should have based its reimbursement determination solely on paid benefits, the court instead "factored the future entitlement to survivors' benefits into the reimbursement right." Specifically, the WCJ determined that a district court finding "calculated the full undiscounted 700-week entitlement at $254,520.00," and that this "figure was used as the numerator and the tort damage figure for wage loss, $740,021.00, was used as the denominator," making " he portion of the actual tort recovery allocated to wage loss [to be] $201,600.00." It was from this $201,600 amount that Insurer's gross reimbursement amount was determined. The WCJ determined that, because no appeal was taken from these calculation
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