Opinion ID: 2518013
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Overruling Section III.C. of Avalanche Industries

Text: Our review of these two cases causes us to revisit section III.C. of our opinion in Avalanche Industries. The discretionary exception gave us sufficient authority to uphold the decisions of the court of appeals and ALJ in that case. Therefore, we did not need to address the default provision or define the term time of injury to resolve that case. We recognized that section III.C. was unnecessary to affirm the decisions of the lower courts by prefacing section III.C. as follows: As a separate issue, we note that the ALJ's determination could be similarly affirmed under the default provision. Id. at 597 (emphasis added). Thus, section III.C. of Avalanche Industries was unnecessary to that decision, and we overrule our holding that the term time of injury could mean either the time of the accident or the time of disablement. See McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U.S. 130, 141-42, 101 S.Ct. 2224, 68 L.Ed.2d 724 (1981) (holding that a section in a prior opinion was unnecessary to resolve that case and therefore was not controlling in a subsequent case); Young v. People, 54 Colo. 293, 307, 130 P. 1011, 1016 (1913) (same). Our decision today does not alter the core holding of Avalanche Industries, which is that the discretionary exception allows an ALJ to compute an employee's AWW based on compensation received at a subsequent employer, provided the ALJ does not abuse his or her discretion. 198 P.3d at 591-97. In the present cases, the court of appeals relied on section III.C. of Avalanche Industries to hold that the claimants were entitled to the maximum rate of benefits in effect at the time of disablement. Simpson, 219 P.3d at 362; Bennett, slip op. at 9. Because we overrule section III.C. of Avalanche Industries, we undermine the basis for the court of appeals' holdings.