Clarence Johnson v. Univ. of Good Samaritan, WC18-6171 (W.C.C.A. July 23, 2018)
The employee filed a petition to vacate the Mediation Resolution/Award, served and filed on October 18, 2004. The award incorporated the stipulation of settlement, signed by the employee, his attorney, and the attorney representing the employer and insurer.
On October 12, 2007, the employee filed a petition to vacate, which was denied. The employee filed another petition to vacate in October 2014, which was also denied.
The Court held that the employee raise a number of issues in his current petition to vacate that were outside the court’s jurisdiction, including claims that the employee was wrongfully discharged, he was wrongfully denied unemployment benefits, and issues arising connected to his union membership and dues. The Court refused to address those issues because there were outside the scope of questions arising from a workers’ compensation claim but noted that the employee also raised the same issues in previous petitions and was advised in 2015 that the issues would not be considered.
With respect to the employee’s pertinent claims, the WCCA held that the employee did not identify a basis for his petition to vacate and nothing in the petition that satisfied the requirements of the statute. The attachments to the employee’s petition deal with claims that his injury was improperly denied by the employer and insurer, that DOLI failed to adequately investigate his claims, that his attorney conspired with the employer and insurer during the settlement process, and that he was not awarded appropriate penalties.
The employee also argued that Minn. Stat. § 176.461 was unconstitutional, but the Court held that it had no authority to rule on the constitutionality of the statute but instead applied the statute to the petition itself.
Therefore, the petition was denied.