For Limitations Purposes, a NC Death Claim Cannot Piggy-Back Onto Deceased Employee’s Original Filing
A divided panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals recently affirmed a decision by the state’s Industrial Commission that had found it lacked jurisdiction to hear a widow’s death benefits claim because it had not been filed within two years of her husband’s death [McAuley v. North Carolina A&T Univ., 2021 N.C. App. LEXIS 668 (Dec. 7, 2021). Stressing that an employee’s death is a condition precedent for the filing of a dependent’s claim for death benefits, the majority held that a deceased employee’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits cannot serve as the dependent’s “filing of a claim” for purposes of meeting the two-year statute of limitations prescribed by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24. The widow’s claim was separate and distinct from her husband’s injury claim. Her claim could not be said to relate back to her husband’s original filing.
Background
On January 30, 2015, Decedent suffered an injury to his back while employed by the employer. On February 11, 2015, he filed a Form 18, Notice of Accident to Employer and Claim of Employee. Ten days later, Decedent died, leaving behind a dependent widow. On March 16, 2015, the employer filed a Form 63 and thereafter paid TTD compensation and medical compensation to Decedent. “Within a couple of weeks” of Decedent’s death, Plaintiff attended a meeting with representatives from the employer’s HR department to sign papers related to insurance policies and an accidental death insurance policy. Plaintiff later testified that at the time, she believed she was signing all the paperwork related to Decedent’s death and the benefits to which she was entitled.
On January 18, 2018, almost three years after her husband’s death, the widow filed a Form 33, requesting that her death benefits claim be assigned for hearing. Four months later, the employer filed a response, alleging in pertinent part that the Industrial Commission lacked jurisdiction to hear any death benefits claim as the same was not timely filed under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24, which generally provides a two-year deadline for filing claims. Subsequently, a deputy commissioner filed an Opinion and Award denying the widow’s claim for death benefits with prejudice, concluding as a matter of law that the claim had not been timely filed. A divided full Commission affirmed and the widow appealed.
Issue: Was Decedent’s Filing of Claim Sufficient to Toll Statute of Limitations?
The widow contended that the Industrial Commission initially obtained jurisdiction of the matter when Decedent filed his Form 18 on February 11, 2015, with-in the two-year deadline prescribed by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24. The appellate court—with one judge dissenting—held, however, that the widow did not assert a claim for compensation until her filing of a Form 33 on January 18, 2018, more than two years after her cause of action arose; Decedent’s filing of a Form 18 within the deadline could not qualify as a filing for purposes of the widow’s separate cause of action.
Claim for Death Benefits Separate from Original Injury Claim
Speaking for the majority, Judge Carpenter stressed that the widow’s claim for death and funeral benefits arose only upon Decedent’s death; they were not concurrent with Decedent’s own, separate filing of a Form 18 for workers’ compensation benefits. Judge Carpenter noted that death and funeral benefits were not at issue at the time of the filing of the Form 18 and could not have been raised during Decedent’s lifetime. The widow’s pursuit of benefits was a separate claim from that filed originally by Decedent prior to his death.
Judge Carpenter disagreed with the dissenting judge, who argued that the death claim was analogous to an amended pleading in a civil wrongful death action. The majority said that Rule 15(c) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure did not allow for the relation back of a different cause of action, carried by a separate plaintiff, when the cause of action was still time-barred. The majority concluded:
Because an employee’s death is a condition precedent for the filing of a dependent’s claim for death benefits under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24, a deceased employee’s claim filed for workers’ compensation benefits cannot serve as the dependent’s “filing of a claim” for purposes of meeting the condition precedent prescribed by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24 to obtain death benefits. Plaintiff did not file her own claim for compensation under the Workers’ Compensation Act until 18 January 2018, more than two years after Plaintiff’s cause of action arose. Plaintiff’s claim is therefore time-barred, and the North Carolina Industrial Commission lacks jurisdiction to hear it.
Judge Griffin concurred. Judge Arrowood dissented in a separate opinion.