Opinion ID: 1761189
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Employee's burden of proof

Text: To recover supplemental earnings benefits the initial burden of proof is on the employee, who must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he is unable to earn wages equal to ninety percent or more of what he earned before the accident. Daugherty v. Domino's Pizza, 95-1394 (La.5/21/96), 674 So.2d 947; Smith v. Louisiana Dept. of Corrections, 93-1305 (La.2/28/94), 633 So.2d 129. Only when this burden is met does the burden shift to the employer to show, if he wishes to contend that the employee is earning less than he is able to earn so as to defeat or reduce supplemental earnings benefits, that the employee is physically able to perform a certain job and that the job was offered to the employee or that the job was available to the employee in his or the employer's community or reasonable geographic region. Smith v. Louisiana Dept. of Corrections, 93-1305 (La.2/28.94), 633 So.2d 129. The burden does not shift to the employer merely because an employee proves he is unemployed at the time of trial. To find otherwise would provide a claimant with a strong incentive to remain unnecessarily unemployed. Smith v. Hamp Enterprises, Inc., 95-2343, p. 4 (La.App. 4th Cir.1996), 673 So.2d 267, 270. Additionally, the more obviously and severely disabling an injury is, the less extrinsic evidence should be required to establish an initial prima facie case of entitlement to Supplemental Earnings Benefits. Id. The following testimony is the total offered by Seal to prove his inability to obtain ninety percent of his pre-injury wages: Q. Mr. Seal, you haven't worked since August of 1994; is that correct? A. Right. Q. Have you applied for work anywhere since then? A. No, sir. I looked around for a job. Most of them that I could get was paying minimum wages and that wasn't near enough, you know. It looks like I'm going to have to go to that.       Q. Have you asked anyone at Gaylord Container Corporation if you could work there? A. No, sir. I figured they'd contact [his attorney] being I had to hire him, you know.       Q. No one at Gaylord Container Corporation has refused you employment; is that correct?       A. No, sir, they haven't. [emphasis added] This evidence is clearly inadequate for Seal to meet his burden of proving his inability to earn ninety percent of his pre-injury wages. Seal did not apply for any employment after he stopped working in the bogol plant in August of 1994. This is despite the fact that, absent a return to his old job in the bogol plant, Seal was characterized by his own physician as a relatively healthy man as early as mid-1995. See Majority Opinion at 1163. This case is similar to Smith v. Hamp Enterprises, Inc., supra . In both cases the employees made no real effort to find other employment, and the employees could have worked in many other jobs given the few restrictions their injuries placed upon them. In Smith, the Fourth Circuit found that such an employee did not meet his burden of proving his inability to earn ninety percent of his pre-injury wages. Here, the plaintiff's only restriction is that he should not work around sulfuric acid fumes at the bogol plant due to probable recurrence with his respiratory condition. He is not disabled from any other job, and acknowledged most of the jobs he looked at were minimum wage jobs, clearly indicating some were more than minimum wage. Yet he did not name any jobs he sought, nor did he name a single employer he visited. Surely the plaintiff has to offer more than his unsupported conclusion that he is unable to earn ninety percent of his prior wage in order to carry his burden of proof. Further, by focusing on factors such as his high school education and limited experience in awarding plaintiff supplemental earnings benefits, the majority ignores the clear language in LSA-RS 23:1221(3)(a), the statute creating the entitlement to supplemental earnings benefits: For injury resulting in the employee's inability to earn wages equal to ninety per cent or more of wages at time of injury, supplemental earnings benefits equal to seventy-four percent of the difference between ninety percent of the average monthly wages at time of injury and average monthly wages earned or average monthly wages the employee is able to earn in any month thereafter in any employment or self-employment, whether or not the same or a similar occupation as that in which the employee was customarily engaged when injured and whether or not an occupation for which the employee at the time of the injury was particularly fitted by reason of education, training, and experience, such comparison to be made on a monthly basis. [emphasis added] The meaning of this statute is clear. Supplemental earnings benefits are available only to those employees who are unable to earn their pre-injury wages because of their physical disability, exclusive of factors such as education, training and experience.