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An ex-oilfield worker and his wife have lost an appeal seeking unspecified monetary damages and injunctive relief to bar Wyoming's Workers' Safety and Compensation Division from considering a spouse's income in determining eligibility for extended benefits.

Doing so is against state law, which the division was forced to recognize in previous court battles. But Richard A. Johnson said his attempt to hold the division and its employees responsible for what he considers intimidation and stall tactics has fallen on deaf ears in both state and federal courts.

"Where is the accountability? All they did was put me in a place of limbo until they did whatever the hell it was they were going to do. This happens about every four or five years," said Johnson, who suffered a debilitating back injury while working as a roughneck in Wyoming in 1981.

An attorney for the state said Johnson has already won judicial relief in that the division was ordered re-evaluate his eligibility without consideration of his wife's income. Subsequently, the division restored Johnson's permanent total disability benefits, but not until three years after his benefits were cut when the Wyoming Supreme Court sided with Johnson.

That nearly cost him his marriage, Johnson said.

Johnson and his wife Ida Johnson filed suit in U.S. federal court against former Wyoming Department of Employment director Cynthia A. Pomeroy, former Wyoming Workers' Safety and Compensation division administrator Gary W. Child and three other state employees, according to court records.

The couple filed the suit on behalf of injured workers and their spouses, alleging the division's employees violated the fundamental constitutional right to marriage when they considered Ida's income in determining Richard Johnson's eligibility for continued benefits.

That suit was dismissed. The Johnsons appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court, which dismissed the suit on Sept. 23.

Torey Racines, Wyoming senior assistant attorney general, said he agrees with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals' September ruling that the Johnsons' constitutional right to marriage was not infringed upon. Racines said the denial to continue Richard Johnson's permanent total disability benefits in 2005 was an honest interpretation in reading a 1980s statute indicating that a client's "household" income shall be considered.

Racines said the division's employees simply used the statute that applied in the 1980s when Johnson was determined to be permanently disabled.

The Wyoming legislature in 1998 sought to clarify the intent of that 1980s statute, and said the division shall not consider income of the injured worker's spouse or children or other members of the household.

However, the language did not appear in statute, Racines said, so the intent of the 1980s language was still in dispute until the Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the legislature's clarification this summer.

"While the Johnsons may have suffered an indirect burden on their marriage, there was no direct substantial burden on their freedoms to marry and to associate with family," District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell wrote in Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals' Sept. 23 decision.

Johnsons' attorney, George Santini, said the underlying problem still exists; The Workers' Safety and Compensation Division faces no federal or state penalty for abuses against injured workers in Wyoming. He said the notion that the division's employees thought they had to apply the 1980s statute without the legislature's 1998 preamble is disingenuous.

In fact, it was a large volume of complaints from injured workers -- Johnson's among them -- that prompted the legislature to write the 1998 clarification, according to Santini.

"If the Wyoming Workerss Compensation and Safety Division was a private insurance company, Mr. Johnson would have a right of redress. But our workers' compensation division is protected by sovereign immunity. Even though it acts like an insurance company, it doesn't have to play by the same rules as private enterprise," said Santini.

A flood of complaints about Wyoming's workers' compensation program, including allegations of baseless denial of claims and outright harassment toward injured workers, prompted Wyoming lawmakers to launch a comprehensive reform of the states workers' compensation program this year. Several draft bills are before the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Interim Committee.

Santini said there are many areas of improvement at the division, however not all them can be addressed by the Legislature.

"The governor can do something by who he puts in charge, but is disinterested," said Santini. "The Legislature is trying to do something but it is largely the tail (the workers' compensation division) wagging the dog (Legislature) because the way they get info from the (division)."

Contact energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@trib.com