Court Opinion

ID: 9587462
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:22:22.557653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:46.160112
License: Public Domain

Justice HUDSON
dissenting.
Plaintiff Shaw argued, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that in his narrow circumstances, when the employer’s contributions to his pension and 401(k) plan are fully paid, vested, and quantifiable, they should have been included in the calculation of his average weekly wages under N.C.G.S. § 97-2(5). Since I believe that existing legal *464authority from this Court supports the Court of Appeals majority and the plaintiffs position, I respectfully dissent.
Most fundamentally, prior language from this Court directly contradicts the majority’s holding today. The issue here is whether the amounts contributed by the employer to plaintiff’s pension and 401(k) plan should have been considered as earnings for purposes of determining the average weekly wage under this section. The Commission found as fact, and the parties do not dispute, that the total of the employer contributions in the year at issue is $1,798.33 (to pension) plus $899.17, which, if divided by 52, would increase plaintiff’s average weekly wage by $51.87. The pivotal point is simply whether the employer’s contributions to the pension plan constitute “earnings” within the context of N.C.G.S. § 97-2(5). In the government context, we have already held that: “ ‘ “A pension paid ... is a deferred portion of the compensation earned for services rendered.” ’ If a pension is but deferred compensation, already in effect earned, merely transubstantiated over time into a retirement allowance, then an employee has contractual rights to it. . . . Fundamental fairness also dictates this result.” Bailey v. State, 348 N.C. 130, 141, 500 S.E.2d 54, 60 (1998) (quoting Simpson v. N.C. Local Gov’t Employees’ Ret. Sys., 88 N.C. App. 218, 223-24, 363 S.E.2d 90, 94 (1987) (quoting Great Am. Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 257 N.C. 367, 370, 126 S.E.2d 92, 94 (1962)), aff'd per curiam, 323 N.C. 362, 372 S.E.2d 559 (1988)). With language so precisely on point, our inquiry should stop there. Having already held that retirement accounts for state employees are sufficiently sacrosanct to invoke the Contracts Clause of the state and federal constitutions, and even to pierce sovereign immunity, I cannot agree with a holding that consigns similar rights for an injured worker to some ephemeral realm not encompassed in the universe of “earnings.”
Beyond Bailey, few rules are better established than that the Workers’ Compensation Act must be liberally construed, to the end that benefits for injured workers not be limited or denied based on narrow or strained technical interpretations of the Act. E.g. Adams v. AVX Corp., 349 N.C. 676, 680, 509 S.E.2d 411, 413 (1998); Hollman v. City of Raleigh, 273 N.C. 240, 252, 159 S.E.2d 874, 882 (1968); Johnson v. Asheville Hosiery Co., 199 N.C. 38, 40, 153 S.E. 591, 593 (1930). The section of the Act at issue here reads in pertinent part: “ ‘Average Weekly wages’ shall mean the. earnings of the injured employee in the employment in which he was working at the time of the injury during the period of 52 weeks immediately preceding the date of the injury ....” N.C.G.S. § 97-2(5) (2007). Defendants contend *465that these amounts, while earned by plaintiff, are not “earnings” within the meaning of the statute because these types of payments are not specifically mentioned in the Act. For several reasons in addition to Bailey, I conclude that this interpretation is not consistent with the well-established requirement of liberal construction, but represents the opposite. The plain language of N.C.G.S. § 97-2(5) appears to contemplate that amounts beyond basic wages should be included in the statutory term “average weekly wages,” by the use of the word “earnings.” The General Assembly clearly knew how to use the word “wages” if that is what it intended; in this section, it used the broader term “earnings.”
Defendants and the dissent in the Court of Appeals argue that because the kinds of benefits at issue here did not exist when the Act was first written in 1929 and the statute was not amended over the years specifically to include them, they must be excluded. I disagree, since I conclude that the language of the section is broad enough to include them, and other language in the Act supports that this was the legislature’s intent. For example, although this language is not at issue here, this section provides elsewhere that “[w]herever allowances of any character made to an employee in lieu of wages are specified part of the wage contract, they shall be deemed a part of his earnings.” Id. (emphasis added). This part of the section indicates clearly that the legislature intended that additional payments of any kind should be included in the computation of average weekly wage.
Defendants and the dissent refer to the amounts at issue here as “fringe benefits,” not intended for inclusion. I conclude otherwise, in that such benefits are no longer considered “fringe” (if they ever were), but are actually a critical part of the package of recompense, and a central part of the employment contract. It is undisputed that plaintiff left a higher-paying job to join defendant precisely because of the employer contribution at stake here. Common sense dictates that being the impetus for switching jobs, the contributions represented something of value — the linchpin of determining whether a particular benefit should be included as the basis of wage-benefit calculations. See 5 Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law § 93.01 [2] [a] (Nov. 2005). It is not realistic, in my view, to require the legislature to amend this section of the Act whenever a new form of benefit comes into existence, in light of the broad language of the existing statute.
*466Moreover, I do not believe that the cases relied upon by defendants, especially Morrison-Knudsen and Kirk, compel the conclusion argued. Morrison-Knudsen Constr. Co. v. Dir., Office of Workers’ Comp. Programs, U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 461 U.S. 624, 76 L. Ed. 2d 194 (1983); Kirk v. N.C. Dep’t of Corr., 121 N.C. App. 129, 465 S.E.2d 301 (1995), disc. rev. improvidently allowed, 344 N.C. 624, 476 S.E.2d 105 (1996).
In Morrison-Knudsen, a case brought under the federal Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, the issue concerned whether employer contributions to the union trust fund should be considered as “wages.” 461 U.S. at 626, 76 L. Ed. 2d at 197. In that case, not brought under our statute, the benefits in question were not quantifiable and it was unclear from the record whether they were vested as they are here. Id. at 627-28, 76 L. Ed. 2d at 198. Thus, the analysis is inapposite. Further, in Kirk, the Court was asked to include health insurance premiums in average weekly wages. 121 N.C. App. at 134, 465 S.E.2d at 305. Again, these benefits were not vested, quantifiable, or paid to the plaintiff in cash equivalent. Id. at 136, 465 S.E.2d at 306.
Here, the contributions to plaintiff were vested, quantifiable (and quantified above), and available to plaintiff, in that he could have withdrawn them at any time, albeit at risk of penalty and tax consequences. The majority’s assertion that “defendant-employer’s contributions are subject to neither federal income tax nor Medicare and Social Security taxes” is simply incorrect; they are taxed as income at. the time they are withdrawn, with penalties if withdrawn early.
The majority also relies on selected excerpts from a federal income tax guide. The publication provides persuasive, not binding, authority in yet another context — federal income tax. However, a study of the Internal Revenue Code itself shows that the payments at issue here are treated as regular income upon withdrawal— a position that runs directly contrary to the majority’s holding today. See, e.g., I.R.C. § 402(h)(3) (2000) (providing that contributions to retirement accounts are subject to tax upon withdrawal: “Any amount paid or distributed out of an individual retirement plan pursuant to a simplified employee pension shall be included in gross income by the payee or distributee, as the case may be . . . .”). Therefore, the majority’s reliance on an Internal Revenue Service guide is misplaced at best.
*467Plaintiff has argued persuasively that in his limited circumstances, when the employer’s contributions are fully vested, quantifiable, and available to him personally as cash equivalent, such benefits should be included in the calculation of his average weekly wage pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 97-2(5). I conclude that the long-standing tradition and mandate of liberal construction of the Workers’ Compensation Act require that we include, rather than exclude, these amounts from plaintiff’s average weekly wage. While it is not for us to expand the benefits the legislature has prescribed under the Workers’ Compensation Act, it is equally inappropriate for us to shrink them in the absence of a statutory mandate to do so. For these reasons, I would affirm the Court of Appeals.
Justice TIMMONS-GOODSON joins in this dissenting opinion.