Opinion ID: 1061020
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Differentiation Between Permanent Total and Permanent Partial Benefits

Text: Unlike most of the cases on this subject, the constitutional challenge before us is not limited to consideration of the reasonableness of tying workers' compensation benefits to the onset of Social Security old-age benefits. Our more difficult concern is a classification that is not age-based but disability-based. Specifically, while permanently, totally disabled workers lose their benefits at age sixty-five (or after 260 weeks), permanently, partially disabled workers draw benefits based on a presumption that the maximum total benefit is 400 weeks. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-207(3)(E) (1995 Supp.). Thus, a worker who becomes permanently, totally disabled at age sixty draws 260 weeks of benefits while the same worker who becomes ninety percent permanently, partially disabled draws 360 weeks of benefits. Undoubtedly, the line drawn in this instance by our legislation is imperfect. It creates a result which, described in its best light, is odd. As the trial judge noted, plaintiff would have received more benefits from a determination of less disability. Such a scheme is irrational. It improperly differentiates between persons and cannot stand. Although we conclude that the differentiation between permanently totally and permanently partially disabled workers over sixty is irrational, we do not find that conclusion to authorize an award of lifetime benefits to plaintiff. That remedy, created by the trial judge, is inappropriate. It is the business of the legislature to pass new laws and modify existing ones. Thus, if the legislature deems the award of lifetime benefits the appropriate solution, they will undoubtedly amend the permanent, total disability section. Pursuant to the statute, plaintiff, an employee who suffered injuries ... after age sixty (60) is entitled to benefits for a period of two hundred sixty (260) weeks reduced by appropriate old-age benefits. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-207(4)(A)(i) (1995 Supp.). In order to lend some rationality to the compensation scheme, we conclude that the 260 week cap set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated Section 50-6-207(4)(A)(i) applies to all injured workers over sixty who are awarded benefits under the Workers' Compensation statute for permanent partial or permanent total disability. We recognize that this conclusion militates against injured workers in some context notwithstanding the remedial purpose of the Act. It is, nonetheless, required to avoid an otherwise irrational result. Should the legislature intend lifetime benefits for all that are permanently totally disabled and a 400 week cap for permanent partial injuries, it may so declare.