Court Rulings

Workers' compensation—Claimant's activities in a workplace environment do not preclude temporary total disability compensation benefits, when.

Petitioner was the lead plaintiff in a class action sex discrimination suit filed against the Public Printer under tit. VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, and the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. sec. 206(d). In 1982, she was awarded back pay under the Equal Pay Act on the basis that her work was similar to, and required skill, effort, and responsibility substantially equal to that required for the bookbinder jobs performed by males. The measure of the back pay owing to her but withheld was the difference in the wages paid to bookbinders and the wages paid to her. In 1982, petitioner was also awarded liquidated damages under the Equal Pay Act. Held, the amount received by petitioner as back pay was not damages for a personal injury but wages due for an action in the nature of breach of contract and therefore the back pay award is not excludable from petitioner's taxable income under sec. 104(a)(2), I.R.C. 1954. Held, further, the liquidated damages award received by petitioner was in the nature of damages for a personal injury and, as such, is excludable from her taxable income undersec. 104(a)(2).

<p>APPEAL from tbe District Court of tbe Third Judicial District for Ada County. Hon. Carl A. Davis, Judge.</p> <p>Action for writ of mandate to compel tbe state engineer to give notice and issue a certificate of completion of diversion</p> <p>works. Writ granted. Appeal by defendant.</p> <p>Numerous eases bave been tried involving questions of jurisdiction relative to tbe distribution of tbe waters of interstate streams for irrigation purposes. These cases, however, only determined tbe rights of individuals, and in no case has tbe interest of the state in its waters been decided; in fact, tbe supreme court of tbe United States has held that this question cannot be raised by tbe individual, but must be raised by the state itself. (Rickey Land & Cattle Co. v. Miller & Lux, 218 U. S. 258, 31 Sup. Ct. 11, 54 L. ed. 1032; Kansas v. Colorado etc., 206 U. S. 46, 27 Sup. Ct. 655, 51 L. ed. 956.)</p> <p>Although title to things in tbe negative community was never recognized as vesting in the individual, yet tbe right of a state or nation, either as proprietor or by reason of its sovereignty to control the use of things in the negative community for the benefit of its citizens, has become firmly established by the courts. (1 Farnham on Waters and Water Rights, 74, 75; State v. Rodman, 58 Minn. 393, 59 N. W. 1098; Freund, Police Power, p. 447; Commissioners etc. v. Withers, 29 Miss. 21, 64 Am. Dec. 126; Geer v. Conn., 161 U. S. 519, 16 Sup. Ct. 600, 40 L. ed. 793; Hudson County Water Co. v. Me-Garter, 209 U. S. 349, 28 Sup. Ct. 529, 52 L. ed. 828, 14 Ann. Cas. 560.)</p> <p>When Idaho became a state, Congress approved the constitution adopted in the constitutional convention, and thereby passed the title and control of all of the public waters within the state to the state of Idaho, by ratifying sec. 1 of art. 15.</p> <p>That the legislature has always assumed that the state owns its waters is to be gathered from a careful consideration of all the water laws passed since Idaho