85 Sanchez v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office

Citations

• 2017 COA 71
• 411 P.3d 245

Syllabus

Claimant sustained a back injury at work lifting a hydraulic unit from his truck. Within two months he was back to work and placed at maximum medical improvement. Soon thereafter he complained of excruciating lower back pain, but both his original doctor and a specialist concluded that this new lumbar strain was not work-related but related to normal age-related degenerative changes. Claimant sought temporary partial disability (TPD) benefits from the date of his injury and temporary total disability (TTD) benefits from when his low back pain flared up. An administrative law judge (ALJ) rejected the request for benefits, finding that (1) his lower back pain was unrelated to his work injury, and (2) because he had continued working, claimant had not suffered a wage loss and was not entitled to either TPD or TTD benefits. The ALJ dismissed his requests. The Industrial Claim Appeals Office (Panel) affirmed but remanded the case to the ALJ to determine whether claimant was entitled to change his physician. On appeal, claimant argued the separation of powers doctrine is violated by having workers' compensation cases heard in the executive branch. In rejecting this argument, the Court of Appeals followed Dee Enterprises v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, which held that the statutory scheme for deciding workers' compensation cases does not violate the separation of powers doctrine. Claimant then argued his equal protection claims should be analyzed under the strict scrutiny standard. The Court held that the rational basis test applies to equal protection challenges in the workers' compensation context. Under that test, \a statutory classification is presumed constitutional and does not violate equal protection unless it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the classification does not bear a rational relationship to a legitimate legislative purpose.\ Claimant argued that his and other workers' compensation litigants' rights to equal protection were violated because wo