Case ID: so2d_568/html/1229-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ROBERTSON, Judge. RUSSELL, Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Arthur WEAVER v. SHOOK & FLETCHER INSULATION COMPANY.
    Civ. 7567.
    Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.
    Aug. 22, 1990.
    John D. Gibbons, S.C. Middlebrooks, and J. Cecil Gardner of Gardner, Middlebrooks & Fleming, Mobile, for appellant.
    Edward A. Dean and Richard W. Franklin of Armbrecht, Jackson, DeMouy, Crowe, Holmes & Reeves, Mobile, for ap-pellee.
   ROBERTSON, Judge.

This workmen’s compensation case involves an award of compensation for a permanent partial disability pursuant to § 25-5-57(a)(3)g., Code 1975.

Arthur Weaver (employee) brought this action to recover benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation Act of Alabama.

After ore tenus proceedings, the trial court determined that all parties were subject to the Workmen’s Compensation Act of Alabama, that the employee sustained a compression fracture of the C-5 vertebra that was work-related, and that, as stipulated by the parties, the employee had average weekly earnings of $400 at the time of the injury.

The trial court further found that the employee “suffered a loss of the ability to earn and incurred a 15% permanent partial disability as a proximate result of his injury for which he is entitled to receive compensation from the Defendant at the rate of $40 per week.... ”

However, while the trial court found the employee to have suffered a loss of ability to earn, there was no determination of the average weekly earnings the employee is able to earn in his partially disabled condition. In other words, there was no determination of a percentage of the loss of ability to earn.

The employee contends on appeal that the 15% permanent partial disability does not automatically translate into a 15% loss of ability to earn. We agree.

Section 25-5-57(a)(3)g. provides:

“In all other cases of permanent partial disability ..., the compensation shall be 66% percent of the difference between the average weekly earnings of the workman at the time of the injury and the average weekly earnings he is able to earn in his partially disabled condition....”

The record reflects that the employee, following the injury, was unemployed, that the only job he had attempted to work at paid $5.00 an hour “and he had to leave that because he couldn’t do it,” and that he had looked for jobs but couldn’t find one “where he could work with his hands and not have to lift.”

However, the trial court made no finding of the employee’s earning ability in his partially disabled condition, or a percentage of loss of ability to earn, and without such a finding an amount of compensation pursuant to § 25-5-57(a)(3)g. cannot be calculated.

Accordingly, this case must be reversed and remanded to the trial court for a determination of the employee’s average weekly earnings ability in his partially disabled condition or a percentage of loss of ability to earn and for a judgment consistent-with § 25-5-57(a)(3)g.

REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS.

INGRAM, P.J., concurs.

RUSSELL, J., dissents.

RUSSELL, Judge,

dissenting:

I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion. This court has long held that a finding of loss of ability to earn is a prerequisite to an award of permanent partial disability benefits. Gibson v. Southern Stone Co., 500 So.2d 32 (Ala.Civ.App.1986); Littleton v. Gold Kist, Inc., 480 So.2d 1236 (Ala.Civ.App.1985). Here, however, a finding of loss of ability to earn was specifically made by the circuit court, and I do not find that the authority cited by the majority to require that the circuit court specify the percentage of that loss in its findings of fact.

Rather, those cases stand for the proposition that an award of compensation benefits for permanent partial disability cannot be supported where the trial court fails to find that the employee’s earning capacity has been diminished. See, e.g., Cook v. Munn, 521 So.2d 1341 (Ala.Civ.App.1988).

Although the circuit court did not enunciate a specific percentage when it determined that the employee suffered a loss of ability to earn, my review of its calculations demonstrates that an award of 15% of the temporary total disability rate of $266.68 ($40.00) was awarded to the employee.

Therefore, the issue before this court, as I view it, is whether there was sufficient evidence to support the circuit court’s apparent conclusion that a 15% disability of the body translates into an equivalent percentage of the employee’s loss of ability to earn.

Here, there was expert medical testimony as to the employee’s employability subsequent to his injury. One physician testified that after treatment he released the employee to return to work on full duty with only the restriction that the employee not lift anything weighing in excess of thirty-five pounds.

Furthermore, he testified that the employee suffered no neurological deficit; that the employee had no restrictions on his ability to raise his arms above his head; that he had no limitations on his ability to walk, to bend, or to stoop; and that the employee had no impairment of his vision or his hearing. Based on the above, the doctor evaluated the employee to be only five percent permanently partially disabled.

A second physician testified that, at the time of his examination, the employee had full range of motion in his neck and that there was no evidence of any permanent condition in the employee’s lower back. As to any opinion regarding a rating of the employee’s impairment, this physician deferred to the previous doctor’s evaluation of the injuries that the employee sustained to his neck. However, he stated that he would not issue an impairment rating as a result of the employee’s complaints of back injury.

In view of the above testimony, I would find that a reasonable view of the evidence does support a finding that the employee suffered a 15% loss of ability to earn. Therefore, I must dissent.