Opinion ID: 1163156
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Is Real Estate Sales a Job Within the Meaning of AS 23.30.041?[4]

Text: Alaska Statute 23.30.041(e) provides: An employee shall be eligible for [reemployment] benefits under this section upon the employee's written request and by having a physician predict that the employee will have permanent physical capacities that are less than the physical demands of the employee's job as described in the United States Department of Labor's Selected Characteristics of Occupations Defined in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles for (1) the employee's job at the time of injury; or (2) other jobs that exist in the labor market that the employee has held or received training for within 10 years before the injury or that the employee has held following the injury for a period long enough to obtain the skills to compete in the labor market, according to specific vocational preparation codes as described in the United States Department of Labor's Selected Characteristics of Occupations Defined in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. (Emphasis added.) Arnesen does not dispute that he has received training for, kept current a license for, and practiced real estate sales within the ten years before his injury. He nevertheless argues that real estate sales is not a job because income from real estate sales is based solely on commissions. Arnesen argues that the term job contemplates an employee being hired by an employer through a contract of hire, and that his real estate broker's license was maintained merely as a hobby. We have previously held that, where a term used in a statute is not defined in that statute, the plain or common meaning ... is controlling. Tesoro, 746 P.2d at 905. The American Heritage Desk Dictionary defines a job as a regular activity performed in exchange for payment, especially a trade, occupation, or profession. We believe that most people would consider a position as a real estate sales agent and broker  indisputably a trade, occupation, or profession  to be a job. [5] The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) contains entries for both real estate sales agent and real estate broker and recognizes that compensation is generally by commission. Anchorage Refuse argues that this is dispositive of the existence of these positions as jobs given the reference to the DOT in subsection .041(e). Whether or not it is dispositive, the DOT listing is certainly persuasive. It seems safe to say that the positions are occupations, given the DOT listing. Arnesen attempts to make a distinction between an occupation and a job. Nothing in the statute or elsewhere suggests that the legislature intended the same distinction, or contemplated anything other than the common meaning of the word job. [6] Arnesen does not have to work as a real estate sales agent or broker if he does not want to. If he wants a job as an employee for a fixed wage, he is free to search for one. But the purpose of the reemployment benefit scheme is to ensure that an injured employee has some skills with which he or she can earn a living after an injury. Arnesen, a licensed real estate agent and broker, has such skills. [7] Whether he uses those skills in a self-employment situation or through an established real estate company is up to him. But under the terms of AS 23.30.041(e), he cannot provide a physician's prediction that his permanent physical capacities are less than the physical demands of another job that exists in the labor market that he has held or received training for in the ten years preceding the injury. [8] We affirm the superior court's holding that the Board properly denied reemployment benefits to Arnesen.