WILHEMINA C. ADIKA, Employee/Respondent, v. ABM JANITORIAL SERVS. and ACE USA/ESIS, Employer-Insurer/Appellants.

The compensation judge denied the employer and insurer’s request for formal hearing for lack of jurisdiction because the request was not timely filed at the Office of Administrative Hearings pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, subd. 3.  We affirm.

On April 17, 2009, the employee, Wilhemina C. Adika, injured her right wrist and shoulder while working as a janitor for the employer, ABM Janitorial Services.  The employer and its insurer admitted primary liability for the injury, but alleged it was only a temporary aggravation of a preexisting degenerative osteoarthritic condition.  The parties litigated the nature and extent of the injury in 2010.  In an unappealed decision, a compensation judge found that the employee had sustained an ongoing right shoulder injury with continuing symptoms.

The employee continued to treat for right upper extremity symptoms from 2011 to 2013 and from 2018 to 2020.  Her symptoms increased and trigger point injections were recommended.  The employee and insurer denied payment for the recommended injections.  The employee filed a medical request seeking approval of payment for the injections on April 22, 2020.  The employer and insurer filed a medical response dated June 5, 2020, asserting that the injections were not reasonable and necessary medical treatment and were not causally related to the employee’s work injury.

On June 10, 2020, an administrative conference was held on the medical request at the Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 176.106.  The employer and insurer asserted that the employee’s work injury was a temporary aggravation of a preexisting condition which had resolved.  In a Decision and Order served and filed June 12, 2020, the medical request was approved based on administrative findings that the employee’s work injury remained a substantial contributing cause of her need for medical treatment and that the trigger point injections were reasonable and necessary medical treatment.

On June 30, 2020, the employer and insurer filed a request for formal hearing by United States mail addressed to DOLI.  In response to an email from the office of the employer and insurer’s attorney, DOLI staff acknowledged on October 13, 2020, that this document had been received and placed in DOLI's file.  In a letter dated November 12, 2020, responding to an inquiry from the employer and insurer’s attorney, a compensation judge at the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) advised that no action would be taken at OAH on the employer and insurer's request because it had not been filed at OAH pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 176.2611.

The employer and insurer then filed a request for formal hearing at OAH on November 23, 2020.^[1]  In an Order Denying Request for Formal Hearing, served and filed on November 25, 2020, the compensation judge concluded that jurisdiction was absent and denied the request for formal hearing.

The employer and insurer appeal from the November 25, 2020, order, seeking a reversal of the denial of their request and a remand to OAH for a formal hearing on the medical dispute.

A decision which rests upon the application of a statute or rule to essentially undisputed facts generally involves a question of law which the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals may consider de novo.  Krovchuk v. Koch Oil Refinery, 48 W.C.D. 607, 608 (W.C.C.A. 1993), summarily aff’d (Minn. June 3, 1993).

Section 106 of Minnesota Statutes chapter 176, initially enacted in 1987, and as amended thereafter, provides that certain disputes may be submitted to the commissioner of DOLI for an informal determination via an administrative conference, rather than a formal hearing.  This provision applies to medical disputes where primary liability is not contested and the amount involved is less than $7,500.00.  Parties may initiate such a conference by filing a medical request.  Subdivision 7(a) of the statute provides that any party dissatisfied with the informal conference decision may request a formal, de novo hearing of the same issues by a compensation judge at OAH by filing a request “with the commissioner” and serving all parties “no later than 30 days after the decision.”  Minn. Stat. § 176.106, subd.  7(a).  Pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 176.106, subd. 5, the decision itself “must include a statement indicating the right to request a de novo hearing before a compensation judge and how to initiate the request.” 

It has long been held that the 30-day window for filing a request for formal hearing following an administrative conference decision is a jurisdictional requirement and failure to properly file the request within that period precludes de novo review^[2] and renders the administrative decision binding as to matters properly within its scope.

In 2018, a new statutory provision, Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, was enacted governing filing requirements for, and access to, all documents “filed with or issued by the office [OAH] or department [DOLI] related to a claim-specific dispute resolution proceeding.”  Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, subd. 1.  The statute also explicitly states that “[t]his section prevails over any conflicting provision in this chapter, Laws 1998, chapter 366, or corresponding rules.”  Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, subd. 2.

Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, subd. 3, sets out which documents must be filed at OAH:

The administrative conference decision itself also provided instructions for filing a request for formal hearing, as it was required to do pursuant to section 176.106, subdivision 5.  Those instructions stated, consistent with the new provisions in section 176.2611, although that statute was not specifically cited, that a “party aggrieved by this decision may file a Request for Formal Hearing with the Office of Administrative Hearings.”

Notwithstanding the enactment of section 176.2611, no amendments were made to section 176.106, subdivision 7(a), to change its language requiring that a request for formal hearing following an administrative conference decision under that subdivision be filed “with the commissioner.”  In apparent reliance on that statutory provision, and contrary to the express filing instructions contained in the administrative conference decision, the employer and insurer initially filed their request for formal hearing solely at DOLI.  Although they later filed a request at OAH, they did not do so until about five months after the administrative decision was issued by DOLI.

In the order appealed from, the compensation judge denied the request for formal hearing because that request was not filed at OAH within 30 days following the issuance of the decision.  Accordingly, the question before this court on appeal is whether the request for formal hearing filed by the appellants at DOLI conferred the necessary jurisdiction on OAH for a de novo hearing on the medical request.

The appellants have offered several arguments to support their contention that the compensation judge erred in concluding that such jurisdiction was not conferred by the request they filed at DOLI.

We first consider the appellants' argument that the language of section 176.2611 itself authorizes filing the request at DOLI.  The appellants point out that the requirements for filing certain documents at OAH under subdivision 3 are subject to exceptions for documents which are required to be filed instead at DOLI.  Those exceptions are listed in subdivision 4.  The appellants rely on Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, subd. 4(a)(3), which provides that “any other document related to an administrative conference that is pending at the department” must be filed at DOLI.  We are not persuaded by this argument.

A timely and properly filed request for formal hearing sets aside an administrative decision that has already been rendered after the completion of an administrative conference under section 176.106 and triggers an entirely new proceeding at OAH.  Thus, such a request is not a document related to an administrative conference that is still “pending” at DOLI.

In the alternative, the appellants argue that if the language of section 176.2611 is construed to require the filing of the request for formal hearing at OAH, then that statute's requirements irreconcilably conflict with those of section 176.106, subdivision 7(a), such that statutory construction principles set forth in Minn. Stat § 645.26, subd. 1,^[3] must be applied favoring a special provision over a general one.  The appellants point out that section 176.106, subdivision 7(a), solely and specifically addresses the filing of a request for formal hearing following an administrative decision under that subdivision, while section 176.2611, subdivision 3, is a general provision that addresses as a class such filings which initiate a proceeding at OAH.  Accordingly, they argue that this court must give precedence to section 176.106 over section 176.2611 and hold that requests for formal hearings continue to confer jurisdiction when filed at DOLI and not at OAH.

Again, we are not persuaded.  The statute setting out the interpretation principle relied on by the appellants, Minn. Stat § 645.26, subd. 1, expressly states that it is inapplicable where the general provision was enacted at a later session and there is a manifest intention by the legislature that the general provision prevail.  Section 176.2611 was enacted at a later session than section 176.106 and contains clear language explicitly stating that its provisions prevail over any conflicting provisions in chapter 176 or corresponding rules.  Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, subd. 2; see also Minn. Stat. § 645.39.^[4]  Accordingly, we hold that the provisions of section 176.106, subdivision 7(a), were superseded by the enactment of section 176.2611.^[5]

We thus conclude that the compensation judge did not err by applying Minn. Stat. § 176.2611, subd. 3, to require that the request for formal hearing be filed at OAH or by dismissing the untimely request for formal hearing for want of jurisdiction, and therefore affirm the compensation judge’s order denying the request.