Opinion ID: 1881409
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Apportioned Disability.

Text: Although the procedural law applicable to the motion to reopen is the law in effect at the time of reopening, Peabody Coal Co. v. Gossett, supra, at 36, the substantive law applicable to a reopened case is the law in effect at the time of the injury. Maggard v. Int'l Harvester Co., Ky., 508 S.W.2d 777, 783 (1974). Here, that includes the apportionment procedures mandated by former KRS 342.120(7), which provided, inter alia: The remaining compensation for which such resulting condition would entitle the employee, including any compensation for disability resulting from a dormant disease or condition aroused into disabling reality by the injury or occupational disease, but excluding all compensation which the provisions of this chapter would have afforded on account of prior disabling disease or injury had it been compensated thereunder, shall be paid out of the special fund.... (Emphasis added.) Thus, as recognized in Young v. Young, supra, at 835-36, if the case is practiced under KRS 342.120, i.e., if part of the award is to be apportioned against the Special Fund, exclusion for a prior disabling injury is required by the apportionment statute, [3] and the common law whole man theory simply does not apply. In fact, Poff, supra , distinguished two prior cases that had required an exclusion for a prior disability because those cases had been practiced under KRS 342.120 whereas Poff had not. Id. at 714. The reason an apportionment case is different is that only in KRS 342.120, the apportionment statute, does the law expressly require that a pre-existing disability be excluded (in the form of a deduction) from the benefits otherwise payable as the result of a compensable injury or disease. Schneider, supra, at 371. However, Schneider clarified that, even then, the exclusion is required only if, as here, the pre-existing condition is a contributing factor to the disability caused by the subsequent injury. Id. at 372. The employee's pre-existing visual impairment in Schneider was not a contributing factor, thus did not require an exclusion (even though causation of the claimant's work-related back injury in Schneider was apportioned between the employer and the Special Fund). Id. Here, both the 1990 and 1994 injuries affected the same bodily functions and the award was apportioned between the employer and the Special Fund under KRS 342.120. Thus, KRS 342.120(7) required that an exclusion for the pre-existing disability for which Nye had been previously compensated and precluded application of the whole man theory to this case.