IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 21-1934

Filed November 17, 2022

DAVID KNAEBLE,

Petitioner-Appellant,

vs.

JOHN DEERE DUBUQUE WORKS,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Jeffrey D. Farrell, 

Judge.

David Knaeble appeals from a district court order affirming the Iowa 

Workers’ Compensation Commission’s award of disability benefits. AFFIRMED.

Zeke R. McCartney and Mark J. Sullivan of Reynolds & Kenline, L.L.P., 

Dubuque, for appellant.

Dirk J. Hamel of Gilloon, Wright & Hamel, P.C., Dubuque, for appellee.

Heard by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Greer and Schumacher, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Presiding Judge.

This appeal from a workers’ compensation decision raises issues relating 

to an award for successive disabilities.

David Knaeble sustained three employment-related injuries while working

for John Deere Dubuque Works of Deere & Company: one to his right leg and left 

foot in 2014, a second to his hands and finger in 2017, and a third to his shoulder 

also in 2017. He filed three petitions for workers’ compensation benefits.

On the first petition, a deputy commissioner assigned Knaeble thirty-percent 

industrial disability. See generally Knaeble v. John Deere Dubuque Works, Iowa 

Workers’ Comp. Comm’n No. 5055713, 2019 WL 6358888, at *1 (Sept. 20, 2019). 

The record reveals no appeal of that decision.

The second petition named the Second Injury Fund of Iowa and John Deere 

as defendants. See Iowa Code § 85.64 (2017). That petition was consolidated 

with the third petition. A deputy commissioner determined Knaeble’s industrial loss 

for the first and second injuries was eighty-five percent and the industrial loss for 

the third injury was five percent. The deputy initially determined the industrial 

disability for all three injuries was ninety-two percent. See Knaeble v. John Deere 

Dubuque Works, Iowa Workers’ Comp. Comm’n Nos. 5066463, 5066464, 2020 

WL 8297395, at *10 (Nov. 30, 2020). On rehearing, the deputy clarified that the 

ninety-two percent figure was a “reduction in earning capacity” based on “the 

combined disability of claimant’s” 2014 leg injury “and his left shoulder” injury. Id. 

The deputy also clarified the credit owing to John Deere for previously paid 

benefits. Id.
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On intra-agency appeal, the commissioner declined to revisit the deputy’s 

eighty-five percent industrial disability determination for the first two injuries. That 

award was to be paid by the Second Injury Fund. See Knaeble v. John Deere 

Dubuque Works, Iowa Workers’ Comp. Comm’n Nos. 5066463, 5066464, 2021 

WL 2624582, at *3 (May 10, 2021). As for the ninety-two percent figure, the 

commissioner noted that the deputy “did not specifically set forth how she arrived 

at” that figure. Id. After surmising she used a specified methodology that 

incorporated the eighty-five percent industrial disability determination, the

commissioner stated:

[T]hough [Knaeble’s] combined industrial disability may have been 

92 percent after his left shoulder injury, claimant’s left shoulder injury 

only caused an additional five percent loss of earning capacity. 

Thus, without a credit or accounting for the 85 percent industrial 

disability caused by the two qualifying members, claimant is 

receiving the 85 percent industrial disability award twice—once from 

the Fund in the 85 percent award and once from Deere in the 92 

percent award. As such, an award of 85 percent industrial disability 

from the Fund and an award of 92 percent industrial disability from 

John Deere results in a double recovery. . . . 

. . . To avoid such a double recovery in this case, I find Deere 

is responsible only for a five percent loss of earning capacity as a 

result of the left shoulder injury . . . . 

. . . I find Deere is responsible for a combined disability of 35 

percent. The deputy commissioner’s finding that Deere is 

responsible for a combined 92 percent disability is therefore 

modified.

Id. at *5–6. On judicial review, the district court affirmed the commissioner’s 

decision. Knaeble appealed.

Successive disabilities are governed by Iowa Code section 85.34(7) (2017). 

The version in effect at the time of Knaeble’s injury stated in pertinent part:

(1) If an injured employee has a preexisting disability that was 

caused by a prior injury arising out of and in the course of 

employment with the same employer, and the preexisting disability 
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was compensable under the same paragraph of subsection 2 as the 

employee’s present injury, the employer is liable for the combined 

disability that is caused by the injuries, measured in relation to the 

employee’s condition immediately prior to the first injury. In this 

instance, the employer’s liability for the combined disability shall be 

considered to be already partially satisfied to the extent of the 

percentage of disability for which the employee was previously 

compensated by the employer.

(2) If, however, an employer is liable to an employee for a 

combined disability that is payable under subsection 2, paragraph 

“u”, and the employee has a preexisting disability that causes the 

employee’s earnings to be less at the time of the present injury than 

if the prior injury had not occurred, the employer’s liability for the 

combined disability shall be considered to be already partially 

satisfied to the extent of the percentage of disability for which the 

employee was previously compensated by the employer minus the 

percentage that the employee’s earnings are less at the time of the 

present injury than if the prior injury had not occurred. 

Iowa Code § 85.34(7)(b). Iowa Code section 85.34(2)(u), in turn, stated: 

In all cases of permanent partial disability other than those 

hereinabove described or referred to in paragraphs “a” through “t” 

hereof, the compensation shall be paid during the number of weeks 

in relation to five hundred weeks as the reduction in the employee’s 

earning capacity caused by the disability bears in relation to the 

earning capacity that the employee possessed when the injury 

occurred.

Knaeble argues the commissioner “grossly under compensate[d]” him “for 

his successive injuries.” He asserts, “The plain language of section 85.34(7)(b)(1) 

limits its application to successive disabilities with the same employer 

compensable under the same paragraph of [section] 85.34(2).” In his view, the 

deputy correctly applied the provision to find that his 2014 injury and 2017 shoulder 

injury resulted in ninety-two-percent industrial disability, whereas the 

commissioner incorrectly applied the provision by “simply adding” five percent for 

the shoulder injury “to the 30% previously awarded for the . . . 2014 injury.” 
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Knaeble’s argument is facially appealing. But the issue is not whether the 

2014 injury and the 2017 shoulder injury were both compensable under 

section 85.34(2) but the effect of the intervening 2017 hand/finger injury. The 

commissioner essentially determined the deputy’s ninety-two percent industrial 

disability figure—even if it putatively encompassed only the leg and shoulder 

injuries—had to account for the reduced use of Knaeble’s hands and finger. In 

other words, the deputy could not ignore the loss of earning capacity associated 

with the hand/finger injury in assessing the later shoulder injury. Because Knaeble 

was compensated for the hand/finger injury through the Second Injury Fund by 

virtue of the eighty-five-percent industrial disability finding, the commissioner 

determined the ninety-two-percent finding would result in double-recovery. See 

Warren Props. v. Stewart, 864 N.W.2d 307, 315–16 (Iowa 2015) (“When a 

successive injury increases a preexisting permanent disability to the body as a 

whole, the benefits provided for the successive injury must not include a double 

recovery for the first disability or a double reduction for the first disability.”).

We conclude the commissioner did not err in interpreting Iowa Code 

section 85.34. See Roberts Dairy v. Billick, 861 N.W.2d 814, 817 (Iowa 2015)

(stating “the legislature did not clearly vest the commissioner with authority to 

interpret the subsections of Iowa Code section 85.34 at issue in this case” and, 

“[a]ccordingly, our review of the commissioner’s interpretation . . . is for correction 

of errors at law” (final alteration in original) (citation omitted)). As for the 

commissioner’s application of law to fact, we are persuaded the determination that 

“an award of 85 percent industrial disability from the Fund and an award of 92 

percent industrial disability from John Deere results in a double recovery” was not 
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irrational, illogical, or wholly unjustifiable. See Neal v. Annett Holdings, Inc., 814 

N.W.2d 512, 526 (Iowa 2012) (“Because the challenge to the agency’s industrial 

disability determination challenges the agency’s application of law to facts, we will 

not disrupt the agency’s decision unless it is “irrational, illogical, or wholly 

unjustifiable.”).

We turn to the credit granted John Deere. The commissioner subtracted 

“the percentage of industrial disability attributable to the first [] injury (30 percent) 

from [Knaeble’s] combined industrial disability after his left shoulder injury (35 

percent)” and concluded Knaeble was “due an additional five percent of industrial 

disability.” Knaeble argues, “The Commissioner realized that he could not give the 

employer credit for the award on the Second Injury Fund claim” and, for that 

reason, “substantially reduced the amount of the industrial disability awarded by 

the deputy.” In his view, Deere was “not entitled to credit for any payments for the 

scheduled member injury to the bilateral upper extremities, nor [was] it entitled to 

any credit for the compensation that the Fund paid under Iowa Code § 85.64.”

Again, Knaeble’s argument carries some appeal. But the commissioner’s 

understandable concern with double-recovery as proscribed by Warren Properties

leads us to conclude the commissioner’s application of law to fact was not

irrational, illogical, or wholly unjustifiable.

Finally, Knaeble contends the commissioner’s “award of just 35% industrial 

disability for the [] 2017 left shoulder injury is inadequate and not supported by 

substantial evidence.” To be clear, the commissioner affirmed the deputy 

commissioner’s finding that the left shoulder injury resulted in five—rather than 

thirty-five—percent industrial disability. The commissioner then determined 
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Knaeble sustained “combined disability of 35 percent,” calculated by taking “30 

percent for the prior 2014 injury and an additional five percent for the left shoulder 

injury.” We read Knaeble’s argument as a challenge to the commissioner’s 

combined industrial disability figure of thirty-five percent. “[W]e accept the 

commissioner’s factual findings when supported by substantial evidence. See 

Chavez v. MS Tech. LLC, 972 N.W.2d 662, 666 (Iowa 2022) (citation omitted); see 

also Warren Props., 864 N.W.2d at 311 (“We are bound by the agency’s findings 

of fact unless they are not supported by substantial evidence.”). Suffice it to say,

that figure is supported by substantial evidence. See Mike Brooks, Inc. v. House, 

843 N.W.2d 865, 889 (Iowa 2014).

AFFIRMED.