Title: Apache Coal Co. v. Fuller
Citation: 541 S.W.2d 933
Docket Number: N/A
State: Kentucky
Issuer: Kentucky Supreme Court
Date: June 11, 1976

541 S.W.2d 933 (1976) APACHE COAL COMPANY, Appellant, v. Rodney FULLER and Workmen's Compensation Board of Kentucky, Appellees. No. 75-965. Supreme Court of Kentucky. June 11, 1976. Rehearing Denied November 12, 1976. William J. Baird, III, Baird &amp; Baird, Pikeville, for appellant. C. Kilmer Combs, Kelsey E. Friend Law Firm, Pikeville, for appellee, Fuller. LUKOWSKY, Justice. This is an appeal from a judgment of the Pike Circuit Court which granted Rodney Fuller workmen's compensation benefits in the amount of $27.00 per week for partial disability. The factual background is not in dispute. The evidence established that Fuller was injured after January 1, 1973, that he returned to work for another company after his injury at a higher wage than he was earning at the time of his injury and that he had a ten percent to thirty-five percent functional impairment to the body as a whole. The board found that his average weekly wage was $170.00, that he had two dependents and that he had an occupational disability of twenty percent. The sole question presented for decision is the system by which his benefits should be computed. This imposes upon us the unpleasant task of interpreting and applying KRS 342.620(9), (10), (11), (12), KRS 342.730(1)(b) and KRS 342.740(1). These statutes rival the Internal Revenue Code in complexity and contradiction. Their seeming internal inconsistency and inconsistency with each other is hypnotic and soporific. KRS 342.620 provides in part: KRS 342.730 provides in part: KRS 342.740(1) provides: A careful examination of these statutes will quickly establish that a sentence by sentence dissection and attempted reconciliation would serve only to confound confusion in a field already replete with inconsistency. Suffice it to say that disability is defined and paid for on the loss of earning capacity theory with a provision for entitlement to compensation based on the actual wage loss theory, whichever provides the higher benefits. Cf. Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, Sec. 57.10. It is apparent that what the legislature has done is adopt two theories for the computation of benefits and provide that the employee is entitled to be paid pursuant to the theory which will grant him the greater return. To restate the conclusion in the simplest terms, the employee is entitled to benefits computed by the most favorable of the following formulae: If we apply formula A to the facts of this case we find that the income benefits for disability should be $20.40 per week. If we apply formula B to the facts of this case we find that the income benefits for disability should be zero per week. The legislature has, however, limited its largesse by providing that the maximum weekly income benefit shall not exceed sixty *935 percent of the average weekly wage of the state (at the time of his injury $81.00), but in an effort to avoid the label of parsimony it has also provided that the minimum weekly income benefits for disability shall not be less than twenty percent of the average weekly wage of the state (at the time of this injury $27.00). In C.E. Pennington Co., Inc. v. Winburn, Ky., 537 S.W.2d 167 (1976) we held that the maximum limitation applied to income benefits to be paid for partial disability not to the product of average weekly earnings multiplied by fifty-five to sixty-two and one half percent as the number of dependents might require. Following this rationale to its logical conclusion, we are of the opinion that the minimum limitation applies to income benefits to be paid for partial disability and not only to cases of total disability in which the average weekly wage is so low that the weekly income benefit computed in accord with KRS 342.730(1)(a) is below the minimum. We remind those who may be dissatisfied with this result that the entire concept of workmen's compensation is a creature of statute. Our function in interpreting statutes is limited to analyzing and applying what the legislature has said, and does not extend to psychoanalyzing the legislature and applying what it may have meant to say. Cries for modification should be addressed to the legislature. The circuit court did not err when it increased the award from $20.40 per week to the statutory minimum of $27.00 per week. The judgment is affirmed. All concur.