Court Opinion

ID: 9737803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:34:41.61371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:01.371842
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(concurring specially).
In Cozine, supra, we established that just because an injured worker can still do some jobs without rehabilitation does not mean the worker is capable of returning to his “usual and customary line of employment” or that rehabilitation is unnecessary to provide the worker with “suitable, substantial and gainful employment.” Just as Cozine was a truck driver unable to function as one by a work-related injury, so Beckman was a heavy production laborer unable to function as one by a work-related injury. The “jobs Cozine theoretically would be able to perform” would not necessarily be “regularly and continuously ... available to Cozine,” nor would they necessarily be “suitable ... when compared to [her] former job.” Cozine, 454 N.W.2d at 554. The same can be said for trash-picking, package-labeling and the other unskilled jobs theoretically within Beckman’s capability after his injury.
Cozine was denied rehabilitation benefits because we concluded that a four-year college degree was not reasonably necessary to the rehabilitation she required. Obviously, no similar complaint can be raised about Beckman’s ten-month printing technology course at a local vocational school and the dissent does not claim otherwise. Therefore, under Cozine, the majority’s conclusion that Beckman is entitled to rehabilitation benefits is correct.