Opinion ID: 2103874
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Calculation of Benefits

Text: Our primary task in this case is to determine whether trial courts should calculate permanent partial disability awards for employees over age 60 as a percentage of 260 or 400 weeks. Easy Trucking asserts that a rational interpretation of the Workers' Compensation Act compels that such awards be calculated as a percentage of 260 weeks. Peace, on the other hand, contends that the awards should be calculated as a percentage of 400 weeks, with the benefit award to be capped at 260 weeks. We conclude that the proper basis is 400 weeks with a cap at 260 weeks. Normally, benefits for permanent partial disability to the body as a whole are calculated pursuant to Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-207(3)(F) (1999), which provides that injuries not covered by the compensation schedule of that statute shall be apportioned to the body as a whole, which shall have a value of four hundred (400) weeks, and there shall be paid compensation to the injured employee for the proportionate loss of use of the body as a whole resulting from the injury. When an employee is permanently and totally disabled, on the other hand, benefits are calculated pursuant to Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-207(4)(A)(i) (1999), which provides in pertinent part: [C]ompensation shall be paid during the period of the permanent total disability until the employee reaches sixty-five (65) years of age; provided, that with respect to disabilities resulting from injuries which occur after 60 years of age, regardless of the age of the employee, permanent total disability benefits are payable for a period of two hundred sixty (260) weeks. Thus, the statute provides that permanently and totally disabled employees over age 60 may receive a full five years (260 weeks) of benefits without regard to the cutoff at age 65 which otherwise would apply. A conflict arises, however, between the statutory sections governing permanent partial and permanent total disability when the employee is age 60 or older. In Vogel v. Wells Fargo Guard Services, we noted that a partially disabled employee over age 60 in some cases could receive more in benefits than a totally disabled employee of the same age because permanent partial disability benefits are calculated on a basis of 400 weeks rather than 260 weeks. 937 S.W.2d 856, 861-62 (Tenn.1996). We concluded that this statutory conflict creates a result which, described in its best light, is odd. Id. Because we found that the statute created an irrational distinction between partially disabled and totally disabled employees, we held that [i]n 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. Id. at 862. In so doing, we recognized that our conclusion militate[d] against injured workers in some context notwithstanding the remedial purpose of the Act. Id. Nonetheless, we resolved that our holding was required to avoid an otherwise irrational result. Id. In McIlvain v. Russell Stover Candies, Inc., however, we declined to extend the rationale of Vogel. 996 S.W.2d 179, 185 (Tenn.1999). Though we acknowledged in McIlvain that benefits for a scheduled member injury to an employee over age 60 may sometimes exceed the 260 weeks of benefits allowable for permanent and total disability, we nonetheless held that the 260-week cap [3] established by Vogel does not apply to scheduled member injuries because such injuries are `exclusively controlled by the impairment rating established by the General Assembly for that member.' Id. at 185 (quoting Reagan v. Tennessee Mun. League, 751 S.W.2d 842, 843 (Tenn.1988)). Similarly, in Tucker v. Foamex, L.P., we considered whether the age-65 limitation of Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-207(4)(A)(i) should apply when an employee who is not over age 60, but who is within 400 weeks of his or her sixty-fifth birthday, sustains a permanent partial disability. 31 S.W.3d 241 (Tenn.2000). Although we recognized that under our holding some employees could receive a larger award for a permanent partial disability to the body as a whole than they would receive if they were found permanently totally disabled, we declined to apply the rationale of Vogel and limit employees' benefits because to do so effectively would require us to rewrite the statute and would substantially limit, without clear statutory authority, benefits to many partially disabled workers between the ages of 58 and 60. Id. at 245. Thus, while we have continued to apply the 260-week provision of Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-207(4)(A)(i) to employees over age 60 who have permanent partial disabilities, we have been ever mindful that it is not our province to create new statutes or modify existing ones. Nor is our power to correct inconsistencies in the plain language of the Workers' Compensation Act unlimited. See Vogel, 937 S.W.2d at 862; McIlvain, 996 S.W.2d at 185. Here, Easy Trucking contends that under the logic of Vogel, permanent partial disability benefits must be calculated as a percentage of 260 weeks rather than as a percentage of 400 weeks capped at 260 weeks. If benefits are based on 400 weeks capped at 260 weeks, then any partially disabled employee over age 60 who is 65 percent or more disabled will receive the same amount in benefits as a permanently and totally disabled employee. [4] Easy Trucking contends that this is the type of irrational result that we sought to correct in Vogel and that the percentage of disability should be based on 260 weeks so that injured employees are compensated in proportion to their disability. We find this contention unpersuasive. In Vogel, our concern was that the permanent partial and permanent total disability statutes differentiated between persons by causing totally disabled employees over age 60 to receive less in benefits than partially disabled employees of the same age. See Vogel, 937 S.W.2d at 862. However, if awards are capped so that partial disability awards cannot exceed total disability awards, this irrational result does not arise. While basing permanent partial disability awards on a percentage of 260 rather than 400 weeks also avoids this result, such an approach has an added disadvantage. If a 260 week basis is applied, benefits are reduced even for those employees whose award would not otherwise have exceeded 260 weeks. [5] Thus, our decision would adversely affect employees whose benefit awards would not have exceeded an award for permanent total disability, even though the concerns we voiced in Vogel are inapplicable to such employees. We decline to embrace a result which reduces benefit awards to disabled employees any more than is necessary to preserve the rationality of the Workers' Compensation Act. Cf. Vogel, 937 S.W.2d at 861 (discussing the remedial purpose of the [Workers' Compensation] Act); see also Ingram v. State Industries, Inc., 943 S.W.2d 381, 384 (Tenn.1995) ([The Workers' Compensation Act] must be interpreted in a manner designed to protect workers and their families from the economic devastation that can follow on-the-job injuries.); Betts v. Tom Wade Gin, 810 S.W.2d 140, 142 (Tenn.1991) (Tennessee's workers' compensation laws must be construed so as to ensure that injured employees are justly and appropriately reimbursed for debilitating injuries suffered in the course of service to the employer.). We recognize that our solution does not settle the conflict between Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-207(3)(F) and Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-207(4)(A)(i). Benefit awards for permanent partial disability will reach a plateau at 65 percent disability, for under the current statutory scheme an employee who is over age 60 and is 65 percent disabled receives 260 weeks of benefits, the same award that an employee over age 60 would receive if totally disabled. Thus, any disability greater than 65 percent is rendered meaningless, a result plainly inconsistent with the Worker's Compensation Act's statement that compensation shall be paid for the proportionate loss of use of the body as a whole resulting from the injury. Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-207(3)(F). However, we find that capping benefit awards for employees over age 60 at 260 weeks is the best solution available because it avoids the concerns raised in Vogel without incurring the added costs to disabled workers over age 60 that would result if benefits were based on 260 rather than 400 weeks. A complete resolution of the conflict seems impossible without redrafting the two statutes, a task which must be accomplished by the legislature. Only by doing so will workers be compensated in proportion to their disability in keeping with the purpose underlying the workers' compensation system.