Court orders lump sum award for deceased teacher

The Superior Court has ordered the Worker’s Compensation Commission to release a long-overdue lump sum award of $40,000 plus interests to the family of a deceased teacher.

Associate judge David A. Wiseman, in a Sept. 23, 2004 decision, reversed WCC’s award denial for claimant Antonio A. Santos, on behalf of his deceased wife, Public School System teacher Susana A. Santos, who died in February 1992 while on assignment on Tinian.

“WCC shall pay the $40,000 claim without any amount withheld. Furthermore, appellant shall be paid interest on the $40,000 claim… WCC shall remit payment plus interest within 20 days of the date of this order,” Wiseman said.

The judge also ruled that Santos is entitled to attorney’s fee for all proceedings within WCC following the formal hearing wherein WCC hearing officer Edward H. Manglona had reversed himself.

Manglona, in an August 1993 hearing, recommended the awarding of compensation to Santos, but he later reversed it in a “formal hearing” after then WCC administrator Tomas Aldan appealed the first hearing.

The case was brought to the court, resulting in the Superior Court affirming the WCC decision.

The Supreme Court, however, later reversed the WCC and the Superior Court’s decisions, finding that compensation was due and remanded the case to WCC for payment.

On remand, the administrator said that payments were only obligatory from the date of the Supreme Court’s remand, and offered to pay the amount, less 4 percent deduction.

The administrator also said that Santos was not entitled to pre- or post-judgment interest on the total amount, nor attorney’s fees.

Santos appealed Aldan’s decision in court. In response, WCC filed a counter claim, accusing Santos of improperly raising new issues on appeal.

In his ruling, Wiseman dismissed WCC’s contention that Santos is not allowed to cite statutes and case law not previously used to support arguments made at the administrative level.

“There is nothing that prohibits citing additional legal authority. In fact, it is prudent for an attorney to continue to research statutes and case law to support arguments.”

On the 4-percent deduction, Wiseman said that WCC ignored the fact that 4 CMC 9323, which provides for a 4-percent discount, applies to future payments that a claimant may wish to take early.

In Santos’s case, he said the $40,000 payment should have started being paid on a weekly basis beginning Feb. 19, 1992. Paying on a weekly basis, the entire amount would have been paid out by Aug. 16, 1997, or more than five years ago.

“With payment long overdue, WCC determined the $40,000 amount that WCC was required to deposit in a holding account was subject to a 4-percent withholding. The court disagrees,” said Wiseman.

Further, the judge said that Santos, who is still attempting to collect money due after more than 10 years, is entitled to attorney’s fees.

Throughout the process, he said that the administrator and the WCC failed to procure an independent hearing officer to review the claim despite conflicts of interest. Aldan, the administrator examining the case, was also the hearing officer’s supervisor and headed the WCC, he said.

After the High Court overturned the WCC decision, the same agency official, Aldan, continued to attempt to avoid paying Santos, forcing Santos to engage in yet another round of appeals and more attorney’s fees, he said.

As of April 2004, Wiseman said that Santos has spent nearly $24,000 in legal fees to exhaust administrative remedies, despite the appeals continually returning to the same decision maker.

The court, he said, finds that “attorney’s fees in excess of 15 percent are reasonable in light of circumstances and injustice that would result if Santos were expected to surrender the majority of his award to legal fees after fighting an adverse party that caused several hearings and appeals, all of which were decided by the same agency, and for the most part, by the same person.”