Oklahoma: Commission May Rule on Specific Constitutional Issues

Oklahoma’s Workers’ Compensation Commission is appropriately empowered to determine whether a provision of the state’s workers’ compensation law [Title 85A] is being constitutionally applied to a particular party in a proceeding before the Commission, held the state’s Supreme Court in a per curiam decision. The Court’s decision came after it had asked the state Attorney General’s office to brief the issues. In its brief, the AG’s office argued that the Commission indeed had the authority to address the constitutionality of a statute, at least when it directly affected a proceeding before the Commission. The decision has huge implications for the state’s opt out law. Earlier this year, the Commission held that two core provisions of the opt out law were unconstitutional. A number of opt out proponents argued that the decision was beyond the Commission’s authority. That now appears to be not the case. For a more detailed discussion of the case, see (http://www.workcompwriter.com/oklahoma-supreme-court-lands-yet-another-body-blow-to-states-controversial-opt-out-law/)

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Robinson v. Fairview Fellowship Home for Senior Citizens, Inc., 2016 OK 42 (Apr. 19, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 102.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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