Opinion ID: 2031771
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: compensability of disabilities

Text: The compensation court on rehearing found that notwithstanding Rodriquez' inability to perform work for which she has previous training or experience, she was not entitled to permanent total disability benefits, explaining that the following language of § 48-121(3) applies only when multiple members are injured and the resultant disabilities are the product of a single accident: In any case in which there shall be a loss or loss of use of more than one member or parts of more than one member set forth in this subdivision, but not amounting to total and permanent disability, compensation benefits shall be paid for the loss or loss of use of each such member or part thereof, with the periods of benefits to run consecutively. The total loss or permanent total loss of use of both hands, or both arms, or both feet, or both legs, or both eyes, or hearing in both ears, or of any two thereof, in one accident, shall constitute total and permanent disability and be compensated for according to the provisions of subdivision (1) of this section. [Subdivision (1) specifies the benefits for total disability.] In all other cases involving a loss or loss of use of both hands, both arms, both feet, both legs, both eyes, or hearing in both ears, or of any two thereof, total and permanent disability shall be determined in accordance with the facts.... In all cases involving a permanent partial loss of the use or function of any of the members mentioned in this subdivision, the compensation shall bear such relation to the amounts named in said subdivision as the disabilities bear to those produced by the injuries named therein. Single member permanent disabilities are compensated under an earlier portion of § 48-121(3), which provides in pertinent part: For disability resulting from permanent injury of the following classes, the compensation shall be in addition to the amount paid for temporary disability; Provided, the compensation for temporary disability shall cease as soon as the extent of the permanent disability is ascertainable, viz: .... For the loss of an arm, sixty-six and two-thirds per cent of daily wages during two hundred twenty-five weeks [but not more nor less than the amounts specified in Neb.Rev.Stat. § 48-121.01 (Cum.Supp.1986)]. Rodriquez contends the court below misread the multiple-member disability language of § 48-121(3), claiming that a worker who sustains the partial loss of use of two or more members as the result of separate compensable accidents may, if he or she is in fact rendered totally disabled thereby, receive total disability benefits. In reaching its conclusion that the multiple-member language of § 48-121(3) applies only when two or more members are injured in the same accident, the compensation court relied upon Krijan v. Mainelli Constr. Co., 216 Neb. 186, 342 N.W. 2d 662 (1984); Rodriquez correctly observes that this reliance was misplaced. Although the Krijan court observed that the injured worker in that case had suffered permanent partial disability of two members in one accident as well as prior injuries in a separate accident, that observation was not directed to the question presented in this case. Indeed, in Krijan there was neither dispute as to whether the injury to both members was in fact sustained in a single accident, nor argument that the language questioned in this case applied only to disabilities arising out of injuries sustained in a single accident. Nevertheless, the compensation court's legal conclusion as to the import of the language at issue is correct. The question now before us may be phrased as being whether the in one accident requirement of § 48-121(3) applies not only to the total loss or permanent total loss of use of both specified members, or any two thereof, but as well to all other cases involving a loss or loss of use of both those members, or any two thereof. In construing a statute it is presumed that the Legislature intended a sensible rather than an absurd result. County of Lancaster v. Maser, 224 Neb. 566, 400 N.W.2d 238 (1987); State v. Sinica, 220 Neb. 792, 372 N.W.2d 445 (1985); Reed v. McClow, 205 Neb. 739, 290 N.W.2d 186 (1980). It would be outrageously absurd indeed to provide that one who totally lost, or lost the total use of, multiple members could receive total disability benefits if and only if such occurred in a single compensable accident, but provide that one who lost something less than all of two or more members, or lost something less than the total use of two or more members, could receive total disability benefits although such disabilities were produced by different compensable accidents. There is no basis upon which we can conclude that such an absurd intention lurked in the minds of our legislators. Quite the opposite is true; the legislative history establishes the intent to have been to change the method of paying workmen's compensation when two members of an injured employee's body suffer less than total disability in one accident to provide that compensation be paid for each member separately. (Emphasis supplied.) Introducer's Statement of Purpose, L.B. 807, Labor Committee, 83d Leg., 2d Sess. (Jan. 29, 1974). The statements made by a judge of the compensation court during the course of the committee's hearing on L.B. 807, if such statements constitute a part of the legislative historya matter we need not and do not decidedo not, contrary to Rodriquez' suggestion, belie the introducer's statement of purpose. Prior to the enactment of L.B. 807, the relevant statutory language provided: The loss of both hands, or both arms, or both feet, or both legs, or both eyes, or of any two thereof, shall constitute total and permanent disability and be compensated for according to the provisions of subdivision (1) of this section.... In all cases involving a permanent partial loss of the use or function of any of the members mentioned in this subdivision, the compensation shall bear such relation to the amounts named in said subdivision as the disabilities bear to those produced by the injuries named therein. Section 48-121(3) (Reissue 1974). The judge appearing before the committee explained that frequently the results under that language were inequitable, for a worker sustaining relatively minor multiple-member injuries frequently received more compensation benefits than a worker suffering more severe injury to the body as a whole. He then went on to explain that under L.B. 807, if there is a two member disability which actually results in a total permanent disability, he would be totally and permanently disabled and would get the maximum for life. So he would be protected, the one who is seriously injured. If he completely loses two members, it is a presumption in the law. If it is something less than a 100% of two members, and, in fact, results in total permanent, he would get total permanent. But if it is something less than total permanent, he would not get lifetime benefits, which he does get at present. Labor Committee Hearing, L.B. 807, 83d Leg., 2d Sess. 3 (Feb. 6, 1974). We read the judge's comments to have been made within the context of the introducer's statement; he was therefore explaining the consequences of injuries to multiple members arising from a single accident. We do not read his comments to claim that L.B. 807 would operate irrespective of the number of accidents involved. Indeed, he could not have so claimed, for it must be remembered that the schedule of benefits contained in § 48-121 (Cum.Supp.1986) is subject to the requirement contained in Neb.Rev.Stat. § 48-101 (Reissue 1984), that there be personal injury caused ... by accident, not accident s. (Emphasis supplied.) (L.B. 807 made no change in § 48-101.) PAYMENT FOR WAITING TIME AND ATTORNEY FEE This then brings us to the cross-appeal of Fireman's Fund. Where there is no reasonable controversy regarding an employee's claim for workers' compensation, Neb.Rev.Stat. § 48-125 (Cum.Supp.1986) authorizes the award to the employee of an attorney fee and a 50-percent payment for waiting time on delinquent payments. Mendoza v. Omaha Meat Processors, 225 Neb. 771, 408 N.W.2d 280 (1987). Whether a reasonable controversy exists is a question of fact, and this court is bound by the findings of the compensation court on rehearing, to the extent such findings have support in the evidence. Mendoza v. Omaha Meat Processors, supra ; Minshall v. Plains Mfg. Co., 215 Neb. 881, 341 N.W.2d 906 (1983). While it is true that Kratochvil's report of July 6, 1984, created doubt as to whether the first accident, which is the only one Fireman's Fund covered, caused temporary total disability, there is no question but that temporary total disability existed and that under the circumstances, the employer, Prime Meat Processors, was liable therefor, irrespective of which of the two accidents caused it. Thus, the compensation court on rehearing erred only in not assessing the waiting time payment and attorney fee against the employer, thereby leaving the employer and its insurers free to resolve which insurer owed the contractual obligation to indemnify the employer, a question which was of no concern to Rodriquez. See Franklin v. Pawley, 215 Neb. 624, 340 N.W.2d 156 (1983), wherein the appellant Pawley, a contractor, argued that the school for which he was working at the time employee Franklin was injured was Franklin's true employer by action of statute, and therefore liable for Franklin's injuries. For his part, Franklin cross-appealed, seeking an award of a waiting time penalty and an attorney fee. After refuting Pawley's argument, this court reinstated the waiting time penalty and attorney fee awarded on initial hearing, but denied on rehearing, and noted that the record discloses that there was no reasonable controversy as between Pawley and Franklin. Whether [the school] was a statutory employer and therefore jointly and severally liable would not in any manner have affected Pawley's independent liability. Id. at 630, 340 N.W.2d at 160. The provisions of Neb.Rev.Stat. § 48-146 (Cum.Supp.1986), requiring that policies insuring liability arising under the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Act provide that jurisdiction over the insured shall be jurisdiction over the insurer and that the insurer shall in all things be bound by the awards, judgments, or decrees rendered against the insured, do not authorize the compensation court to ignore the separate identities of the insured and insurer.