failure of state workers' compensation fund to cover workers under tribal jurisdiction does not violate equal protection
How later courts described this case
- failure of state workers' compensation fund to cover workers under tribal jurisdiction does not violate equal protection
- plaintiff was excluded from state Uninsured Employer's Fund coverage by controlling principles of federal law regarding state jurisdiction over Indian reservations, rather than by the statutory definition itself
- “[O]nly injured employees of employers meeting the definition of uninsured employer . . . are entitled to the ‘substitute’ workers’ compensation benefits the UEF was created to provide to injured employees of employers who have failed to ‘properly comply’ with the Act. . . . As a result, the UEF has no funding mechanism to provide ‘substitute’ workers’ compensation benefits to injured employees of employers not subject to the Act.”
- “[Ojnly injured employees of employers meeting the definition of uninsured employer ... are entitled to the ‘substitute’ workers’ compensation benefits the UEF was created to provide to injured employees of employers who have failed to ‘properly comply’ with the Act.... As a result, the UEF has no funding mechanism to provide ‘substitute’ workers’ compensation benefits to injured employees of employers not subject to the Act.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JUSTICE TRIEWEILER
specially concurring.
I concur with the result of the majority opinion. However, consistent with my dissenting opinion in Stratemeyer v. MACO Workers’ Compensation Trust (1993), 259 Mont. 147, 155 , 855 P.2d 506, 511 , I would apply middle-tier scrutiny to any legislative classification which denies workers’ compensation benefits to distinct classes of injured employees.
Nevertheless, applying middle-tier scrutiny to the distinction alleged in this case, I would arrive at the same conclusion that the majority has reached pursuant to the rational basis test.
For these reasons, I specially concur with the majority opinion.