Title: Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. Darcy

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  All the Justices 
 
 
GEORGIA-PACIFIC CORPORATION 
OPINION BY JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON 
v. 
Record No. 970867               February 27, 1998 
 
CLAUDE F. DANCY 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
Code § 65.2-503 of the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act 
generally deals with compensation for permanent loss.  It 
provides that compensation shall be awarded pursuant to Code 
§ 65.2-500 for permanent and total incapacity when there is:  
“Loss of both hands, both arms, both feet, both legs, both eyes, 
or any two thereof in the same accident. . . .”  § 65.2-
503(C)(1).  The statute further provides that:  “In construing 
this section, the permanent loss of the use of a member shall be 
equivalent to the loss of such member . . . .”  § 65.2-503(D).  
Code § 65.2-500 measures the compensation for total disability. 
 
The issue we decide is whether the Court of Appeals erred 
in affirming a ruling of the Workers’ Compensation Commission.  
The Commission determined the claimant was entitled to 
compensation for permanent and total incapacity when the 
evidence showed that the claimant suffers a permanent injury to 
both legs and that “the combination of the two leg injuries 
renders him unemployable.”  We hold the Court of Appeals did not 
err and will affirm. 
 
Appellee Claude F. Dancy, the claimant, sustained serious, 
compensable injuries in an industrial accident on May 20, 1985 
in Jarratt on the premises of his employer, appellant Georgia-
Pacific Corporation.  The claimant, age 38 at the time, was 
crushed under falling lumber.  He sustained extensive fractures 
of both legs, injuries to both knees, and damage to his left 
hip, foot, and ankle.  Subsequently, the self-insured employer 
paid the claimant under several awards entered by the Commission 
for temporary total and permanent partial disability.  See 
Georgia Pacific Corp. v. Dancy, 17 Va. App. 128, 435 S.E.2d 898 
(1993), in which the Court of Appeals affirmed the Commission’s 
award of temporary total disability benefits based on claimant’s 
June 1991 application. 
 
In July 1994, the claimant filed an application with the 
Commission alleging a change of condition and sought an award 
for permanent total disability under Code § 65.2-503(C).  At the 
subsequent hearing on the application before a deputy 
commissioner, the evidence showed that claimant “continued to 
suffer” from a 100% disability to his left leg and a 15% 
disability to his right leg as a result of the industrial 
accident.  The deputy concluded from the evidence that the 
claimant “cannot use his legs in gainful employment.”  Based on 
these findings, the deputy entered an award for compensation for 
permanent total disability from December 19, 1994 at the rate of 
 
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$295.00 per week with medical benefits to “continue for as long 
as necessary.” 
 
Upon review, the full Commission affirmed the deputy.  
Interpreting Code § 65.2-503(C)(1), the Commission found “that 
the claimant suffers a permanent injury to his right leg, albeit 
less serious than the left, and that the combination of the two 
leg injuries renders him unemployable.”  The Commission said 
“the claimant has no marketable capacity for employment that 
would require use of his legs, i.e., that he cannot use his legs 
in gainful employment.” 
 
Upon appeal, a panel of the Court of Appeals unanimously 
affirmed the Commission’s award.  Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. 
Dancy, 24 Va. App. 430, 482 S.E.2d 867 (1997).  The Court of 
Appeals, answering the employer’s argument, said the Commission 
“was not required to make separate findings that each leg is 
unusable in employment.”  Rather, the Court of Appeals stated, 
“the proper inquiry was whether the rated loss of use in Dancy’s 
legs rendered both of Dancy’s legs effectively unusable.”  Id. 
at 437, 482 S.E.2d at 871.  Thus, the Court of Appeals held that 
the Commission correctly based “its ruling of permanent and 
total incapacity on the combined effect of the injuries to both 
of Dancy’s legs.”  Id.
 
Determining that the Court of Appeals’ decision involves a 
matter of significant precedential value within the meaning of 
 
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Code § 17-116.07(B), we awarded the employer this appeal from 
the March 1997 judgment below. 
 
On appeal to this Court, the employer contends that Code 
§ 65.2-503(C) requires the claimant to establish that each of 
his legs is unusable in employment to qualify him for permanent 
and total disability benefits.  In other words, the employer 
contends, the Commission and the Court of Appeals wrongly 
evaluated Dancy’s claim by using a “combined effect” test, 
which, according to the employer, “ignores the potential that 
one minimally injured limb could still be used in gainful 
employment but for the total disability which the other limb 
causes.” 
 
The employer points out the claimant was hospitalized in 
June 1995 for “multiple health problems.”  It notes the July 
hospital discharge summary described a number of conditions, 
including cellulitis of the left ankle, ulcerations of the left 
foot and ankle, severe vascular disease, chronic pulmonary 
disease, heart disease, hypertension, old leg fractures with 
soft tissue injury and residual disability, arthritis, and 
tobacco abuse.  The employer contends there is “an absence of 
any evidence that the 15% disability to Dancy’s right leg 
renders him unemployable, or unable to use the right leg in 
gainful employment.”  Therefore, the employer argues, the Court 
of Appeals erred in affirming the Commission’s award “of 
 
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lifetime benefits for the total loss of use of two members.”  We 
disagree. 
 
The rulings of the Court of Appeals and the Commission 
correctly applied our decisions interpreting the ancestors of 
Code § 65.2-503(C)(1) and (D), that is, former §§ 65.1-56(18) 
and 65-53(18), both containing language identical to the present 
statute. 
 
Virginia Oak Flooring Co. v. Chrisley, 195 Va. 850, 80 
S.E.2d 537 (1954), interpreted former § 65-53(18).  There, the 
most severe injuries suffered by the claimant in an industrial 
accident were comminuted fractures of the upper third of the 
femur in each leg.  The medical evidence showed the claimant had 
a 25% permanent disability to his left leg and a 30% permanent 
disability to his right leg. 
 
In affirming the Commission’s award for total and permanent 
incapacity, this Court observed:  “It is conceded that claimant 
in the same accident sustained severe injuries to both legs.  
The legs were not lost in the sense that they were severed from 
the body, but for the total loss of use of both legs claimant is 
entitled to the same compensation as if they had been severed.”  
Id. at 856, 80 S.E.2d at 541.  The Court noted:  “The same 
doctors, who stated that claimant had lost only a small 
percentage of use of his legs, stated that he was not able to 
hold a job and earn a living but ‘he is probably able to do odd 
 
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jobs around the house.’”  Id. at 857, 80 S.E.2d at 541.  The 
Court said:  “The phrases ‘total and permanent loss’ or ‘loss of 
use’ of a leg do not mean that the leg is immovable or that it 
cannot be used in walking around the house, or even around the 
block.  They do mean that the injured employee is unable to use 
it in any substantial degree in any gainful employment.”  Id. 
 
Further, the Court stated:  “The question of law presented 
is whether, in determining the extent of the loss of use of two 
members injured in the same accident, the ability of the injured 
employee to engage in gainful employment is a proper element for 
consideration.”  Id.  Answering the question in the affirmative, 
the Court held:  “If two members are injured in the same 
accident and it is proven that there is total and permanent loss 
or loss of use of both members resulting therefrom,” the 
claimant is entitled to compensation for total and permanent 
incapacity.  Id. at 860, 80 S.E.2d at 542-43. 
 
Borden, Inc. v. Norman, 218 Va. 581, 239 S.E.2d 89 (1977), 
interpreted former § 65.1-56(18).  There, the injuries suffered 
by the claimant in an industrial accident included a comminuted 
fracture of the right tibia, severe laceration of the left leg, 
and slough of wounds of both legs requiring skin grafting.  The 
record showed the claimant had a “15% permanent loss of function 
of the left leg and a 50% permanent physical impairment of the 
right leg.”  Id. at 584, 239 S.E.2d at 91.  A physician, who saw 
 
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the claimant once two years after the accident, concluded that 
claimant was “unfit for any occupation other than a ‘sedentary 
type one.’”  Id. at 588, 239 S.E.2d at 93.  The Commission ruled 
the claimant “suffered a permanent loss of the use of both legs 
of such extent as to render him unable to market his remaining 
capacity for work,” id. at 582, 239 S.E.2d at 90, and awarded 
compensation for total and permanent incapacity. 
 
Reversing the Commission, the Court said:  “The issue 
involved here can be tersely stated.  Is [the claimant’s] loss 
of use of both legs less than total?  If so, he is not entitled 
to recover under Code § 65.1-56(18).”  Id. at 584, 239 S.E.2d at  
91.  The Court stated:  “No case has been brought to our 
attention where an award was made under § 65.1-56(18), and in 
which a court held that a 10% to 15% impairment of one leg, and 
a 30% to 50% impairment of the other, constituted a total loss 
of the use of both legs.  And the medical evidence does not 
support such a finding here.”  Id. at 587, 239 S.E.2d at 93.  
The Court said that both the claimant’s attending physician and 
his plastic surgeon were of opinion that claimant’s “leg 
injuries were not total and that he was able to follow some form 
of gainful employment.”  Id. at 588, 239 S.E.2d at 93.  
Therefore, the Court held the claimant had not “suffered a loss 
of both legs, or a loss of the use of both legs, within the 
meaning of Code § 65.1-56(18).”  Id.
 
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Factually, the present case is like Chrisley (claimant 
unable to use legs to any substantial degree in any gainful 
employment), and unlike Borden (claimant able to follow some 
form of gainful employment).  Neither decision, nor Code § 65.2-
503(C) (which specifies loss of “both legs,” not “each leg”), 
supports the employer’s contentions (1) that the claimant must 
establish each leg is unusable in employment or (2) that the 
Commission violates the statute when it considers the combined 
effect of the disability ratings to both legs when determining 
entitlement to benefits for total and permanent incapacity. 
 
Accordingly, we hold that the Court of Appeals correctly 
affirmed the Commission’s decision, based on credible evidence, 
that the combination of the claimant’s right and left leg 
disabilities, coupled with his inability to work, rendered him 
permanently and totally disabled. 
 
Therefore, the judgment from which this appeal is taken 
will be 
Affirmed. 
 
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