Case Title: Uninsured Employer's Fund v. Thrush

Citation: 

Docket Number: 970477

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 1998-01-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  All the Justices 
 
THE UNINSURED EMPLOYER'S FUND 
                                         OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 970477 
CHIEF JUSTICE HARRY L. CARRICO 
                                       January 9, 1998 
CLARA ANNETTE THRUSH, ET AL. 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
This is a workers' compensation case involving an employee 
who was hired to work only one day for a total wage of $42 and 
was killed after working a portion of the day.  The case has 
twice been before the Workers' Compensation Commission (the 
Commission) and the Court of Appeals.  In the second round, the 
Commission awarded the employee's widow and minor child 
compensation at a weekly rate of $160, based upon an average 
weekly wage of $240.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the award.  
Finding that the case involves matters of significant 
precedential value, we awarded an appeal to the Uninsured 
Employer's Fund (the Fund), which became a party to the 
proceeding because the employer was uninsured. 
 
The employee, Brian Lee Thrush (Brian), a pipelayer by 
trade, lived and worked in Florida.  However, on December 8, 
1991, he was in Virginia for a court appearance the next day, 
planning to return to Florida immediately afterward. 
 
Reichert Painting Company, a sole proprietorship owned by 
Nancy Reichert (Reichert), contracted with Cavalier Ford, Inc. of 
Chesapeake to paint light poles on Cavalier's car lot.  Needing 
extra help, Reichert hired Brian, a part-time painter, to work 
seven hours on December 8 at $6 per hour.  After about an hour 
and a half of painting, Brian apparently fell from a "mobil[e] 
scaffold," came into contact with a high-voltage electric line, 
and died a short time later of "[s]hock due to electrocution." 
 
On December 7, 1993, Brian's widow, Clara Annette Thrush, 
and his minor child, Teauna Mae (collectively, Thrush), filed 
with the Commission a claim for death benefits.  A deputy 
commissioner entered an award in favor of the widow and child for 
death benefits of $196 per week, based upon an average weekly 
wage of $294, derived from the formula $6 per hour x seven 
hours = $42 per day x seven days = $294 per week.  Upon the 
Fund's request for review, the full Commission affirmed the 
award. 
 
The Fund appealed the award to the Court of Appeals 
(Thrush I). In an unpublished memorandum opinion, the Court of 
Appeals reversed the Commission's decision, stating that "a work 
week of forty-nine hours was inexplicably adopted by the 
commission, resulting in a purely conjectural calculation of 
[Brian's] average weekly wage."  The Court of Appeals remanded 
the case to the Commission "for redetermination of the award in 
accordance with an average weekly wage based upon a forty-hour 
work week at $6 per hour." 
 
Upon remand, the Commission interpreted the Court of 
Appeals' action as a "remand . . . with directions to find that 
the average weekly wage of the deceased employee was $240."  
Accordingly, the Commission entered an award in the amount of 
$160 per week, based upon an average weekly wage of $240, derived 
from the formula $6 per hour x forty hours per week = $240.   
 
The Fund appealed this award to the Court of Appeals  
(Thrush II).  The Fund took the position that "the amount of the 
average weekly wage [was] not determined by the unpublished 
opinion [in Thrush I]."  However, in an unpublished per curiam 
opinion, the Court of Appeals ruled that the Fund sought to raise 
in Thrush II "the precise issue that was previously determined 
[in Thrush I]" and, therefore, that the "law of the case" 
doctrine barred the court from reexamining the issue and 
"mandate[d] affirmance of [the Commission's award]."  Hence, the 
Court of Appeals did not reach the merits of the Fund's appeal. 
 
As noted in the Court of Appeals' opinion in Thrush II, the 
"law of the case" doctrine provides as follows:  
 
 
Where there have been two appeals in the same case, 
between the same parties, and the facts are the same, 
nothing decided on the first appeal can be re-examined 
on a second appeal. . . .  It differs from res judicata 
in that the conclusiveness of the first judgment is not 
dependent upon its finality. 
American Filtrona Co. v. Hanford, 16 Va. App. 159, 164, 428 
S.E.2d 511, 514 (1993) (quoting Steinman v. Clinchfield Coal 
Corp., 121 Va. 611, 620, 93 S.E. 684, 687 (1917)). 
 
We must first determine whether the Court of Appeals' "law 
of the case" ruling is binding upon this Court and bars its 
consideration of the merits of the case.  If this question is 
answered in the affirmative, our inquiry is at an end. 
 
On this question, Thrush's counsel stated in oral argument 
before this Court: 
 
The Court of Appeals correctly said that [the holding 
of Thrush I] is the law of this case.  There was no 
appeal taken by [the Fund] from the initial 
determination of the Court of Appeals of Virginia [in 
Thrush I], which essentially told them what the 
computation of the average weekly wage could have been, 
and I think that would have been the appropriate time 
for [the Fund] to bring that argument before this 
Court.  I think they are too late to try to bring it to 
you today.  
 
We disagree with Thrush.  The Fund was not bound to appeal 
from the Court of Appeals' decision in Thrush I.  This is made 
clear by Code § 17-116.09, one of the Code sections enacted as 
part of the legislation creating the Court of Appeals. Code § 17-
116.09 states as follows: 
 
A judgment, order, conviction, or decree of a circuit 
court or award of the Virginia Workers' Compensation 
Commission may be affirmed, or it may be reversed, 
modified, or set aside by the Court of Appeals for 
errors appearing in the record.  If the decision of the 
Court of Appeals is to reverse and remand the case for 
a new trial, any party aggrieved by the granting of the 
new trial may accept the remand or proceed to petition 
for appeal in the Supreme Court pursuant to § 17-
116.08. 
 
While the Court of Appeals in Thrush I may have told the 
parties what the computation "could have been," the court did not 
modify the Commission's award as Code § 17-116.09 permits but 
reversed the award and remanded the case with directions for the 
Commission to make a new award.  The Fund was entitled to accept 
the remand, rather than petition for an appeal to this Court, and 
to attempt on remand to persuade the Commission to make an award 
favorable to the Fund.  As it happened on remand, the Commission 
made an award that was not favorable to the Fund.  This prompted 
the Fund to appeal the award to the Court of Appeals in Thrush II 
and then to seek an appeal to this Court, a course of action 
which, in our opinion, is permissible under Code § 17-116.09. 
 
To say, as Thrush would have us say, that the Court of 
Appeals' application of the "law of the case" doctrine is binding 
at this stage of the appellate process would mean that, by 
accepting the remand, the Fund effectively waived its right to 
seek an ultimate appeal to this Court from an unfavorable 
decision following the remand.  In our opinion, this is not the 
result the General Assembly intended by its enactment of Code 
§ 17-116.09. 
 
This brings us to the merits of the case.  The Fund contends 
that the Commission erred in calculating the average weekly wage 
in this case "as if the worker was a full time, forty hour a week 
employee."  On the other hand, Thrush contends that the 
Commission's "determination that [Brian's] average weekly wage 
was $240.00 is fully supported in both fact and law."  
 
Thrush notes that the purpose "'for calculating the average 
weekly wage is to approximate the economic loss suffered by an 
employee or his beneficiaries.'" (quoting Bosworth v. 7-Up Dist. 
Co., 4 Va. App. 161, 163, 355 S.E.2d 339, 340 (1987)). Thrush 
then says that, to achieve this purpose, the Workers' 
Compensation Act "gives the Commission considerable discretion in 
computing an employee's average weekly wage."  
 
Thrush first points out that Code § 65.2-101(1)(a) defines 
"average weekly wage" as "[t]he earnings of the injured employee 
in the employment in which he was working at the time of the 
injury during the period of fifty-two weeks immediately preceding 
the date of the injury, divided by fifty-two."  Thrush tacitly 
concedes that this method of computing average weekly wage is 
inapplicable.  Thrush emphasizes, however, that the section goes 
on to permit an alternative method by providing that if it is 
impractical to compute the average weekly wage "as above defined" 
because of the shortness or the casual nature of the employment, 
"regard shall be had to the average weekly amount which during 
the fifty-two weeks previous to the injury was being earned by a 
person of the same grade and character employed in the same class 
of employment in the same locality or community." 
 
However, Thrush submitted no evidence to the Commission 
concerning the earnings of a person engaged in similar 
employment.  Indeed, the Court of Appeals stated in its Thrush I 
opinion that the record of the original Commission hearing was 
"silent with respect to wages of similarly situated employees 
during the fifty-two weeks prior to [Brian's] injury," and the 
record of the remand hearing is equally silent. 
 
Thrush next points to Code § 65.2-101(1)(b) as providing  
alternative methodologies for computing average weekly wage.  
This section provides that "[w]hen for exceptional reasons the 
[formula prescribed by § 65.2-101(1)(a)] would be unfair either 
to the employer or employee, such other method of computing 
average weekly wages may be resorted to as will most nearly 
approximate the amount which the injured employee would be 
earning were it not for the injury."  
 
At one point on brief, Thrush indicates that the "other 
method" the Commission resorted to in computing Brian's average 
weekly wage was to take "the amount of wages he was being paid by 
Reichert per hour and projecting those wages over a forty-hour 
work week."  However, Brian was employed by Reichert to work only 
one day, not a forty-hour week, so an essential component of the 
Commission's projection breaks down upon analysis. 
 
At another point on brief, Thrush indicates the Commission 
could have computed Brian's average weekly wage by combining the 
wage he was to earn as a painter for Reichert with the wage he 
earned from his previous work as a pipelayer.  For example, 
responding to the Fund's argument that the long-standing 
"dissimilar employment rule" in workers' compensation law does 
not permit such combination when, as here, the previous work is 
dissimilar, Thrush states that "it is clear under any reasonable 
view of the plain language of [Code § 65.2-101(1)(b)] and the 
particular facts of this case that the Fund's assertion that 
dissimilar employment prevents extrapolation of a daily wage to a 
weekly wage is entirely erroneous." 
 
Thrush's argument suggests that Code § 65.2-101(1)(b) has 
somehow discredited the dissimilar employment rule.  We reject 
the suggestion; the rule is alive and well in workers' 
compensation law. 
 
The rule finds its origin in the decision of the Industrial 
Commission (now the Workers' Compensation Commission) in Thompson 
v. Herbert, 4 O.I.C. 310 (1922).  There, the Commission 
considered the same statutory language that is now contained in 
Code § 65.2-101(1)(b).  The Commission held it was not 
permissible to combine wages earned in dissimilar employment 
because such action would contradict the definition now contained 
in Code § 65.2-101(1)(a) of "average weekly wage" as "the 
earnings of the injured employee in the employment in which he 
was working at the time of the injury."  Id. at 316. 
 
This Court considered the propriety of combining dissimilar 
employment in Graham v. Gloucester Furniture Corp., 169 Va. 505, 
194 S.E. 814 (1938).  There, the employee was injured while 
working in a part-time job.  In order to obtain the maximum rate 
of workers' compensation, the employee sought to have his part-
time wages combined with wages earned in his regular full-time 
employment.  The Industrial Commission fixed compensation at the 
minimum rate.  Although not mentioned in the opinion, what is now 
Code § 65.2-101(1)(b) was then part of the workers' compensation 
law.  This Court affirmed because the evidence supported the 
Commission's finding that the employee's part-time work "was not 
the same character of work as that performed" in his full-time 
employment.  Id. at 510, 194 S.E. at 816.  
 
More recently, in Hudson v. Arthur Treachers, 2 Va. App. 
323, 343 S.E.2d 97 (1986), involving the same factual pattern as 
Graham, the Court of Appeals focused directly upon Code § 65.2-
101(1)(b) in considering the question whether its language 
permits "the combination of wages earned from concurrent 
dissimilar employment in determining the claimant's average 
weekly wage."  Id. at 326, 343 S.E.2d at 99. The Court of Appeals 
answered the question in the negative, observing that because the 
Commission has consistently applied the dissimilar employment 
rule for many years, it must be presumed "that the legislature 
was aware of, and is in agreement with, this practice."  Id.  The 
Court of Appeals also made an observation, with which we concur, 
that this Court's holding in Graham "represents an 
acknowledgement and approval of the Commission's practice of 
denying the combination of wages earned in dissimilar employment 
for purposes of determining a claimant's pre-injury average 
weekly wage."  Id. at 327, 343 S.E.2d. at 99. 
 
Hence, although the Workers' Compensation Act provides 
several permissible methods of computing the average weekly wage, 
none supports the average weekly wage determination made by the 
Commission in this case.  This leaves for consideration only the 
$42 Brian was to be paid for his one day of work for Reichert as 
a basis for computing the compensation payable to Thrush.  
 
 Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment appealed from and 
remand the case to the Court of Appeals with directions to remand 
the matter to the Commission.  The remand to the Commission shall 
direct that it fix the amount of compensation payable to Thrush 
based upon the actual weekly wage of $42 and consistent with the 
views expressed in this opinion. 
 
Reversed and remanded.