Court Opinion

ID: 9616278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:45:05.976586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:46.978456
License: Public Domain

NELSON, Presiding Judge
(dissenting).
While I agree with the majority as to the canons of statutory construction they employ, it is my view that an award which results in no compensation to an injured workman who is admittedly covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act and who has an undisputed loss of earning capacity of more than 50% as a result of his industrial accident, is in fact “an absurdity such as cannot be contemplated the legislature intended . . . ” Garrison v. Luke, supra.
I also agree with the majority that petitioner’s mathematical formula of applying A.R.S. § 23-1044 C without reference to the limiting factor of A.R.S. § 23-1041 E until after the subtraction has been accomplished is not a permissible construction. Notwithstanding this position, the Court is not without a remedy for the absurd position in which we find ourselves. In 1951, the Arizona Supreme Court, in its decision in Whyte v. Industrial Commission, 71 Ariz. 338, 227 P.2d 230 (1951) recognized that inflationary factors should be removed from the computation of recoveries for permanent disabilities. In 1974, this Court in Altamirano v. The Industrial Commission of Arizona, 22 Ariz.App. 379, 527 P. 2d 1096 (1974) recognized that the same rationale should be applied to recoveries for temporary partial disabilities.
The Supreme Court of Arizona recognized in Whyte, supra, that the legislative intent is paramount:
“The intent of the legislature in using the language under consideration was to furnish the commission with a yardstick by which it could with reasonable accuracy determine the diminished earning capacity of an injured employee and by the use of which no inequalities, inequities or injustices could arise. To do this it, of course, intended that the length of the yardstick to be used should at all times remain constant. It follows then that the legislature did not intend that wages received two, five or ten years after an employee has sustained an injury (depending upon when the injury becomes stationary), regardless of changes in business conditions during those periods where all wages have doubled, due to a business boom, or cut in two due to *408business depression, should be used by the commission as a part of its formula in ascertaining the loss of his earning capacity.” 71 Ariz. at 344, 227 P.2d at 233.
While the language of the legislature in question here is free from ambiguity, both this Court and the Arizona Supreme Court have already held that the use of 1948 dollars, or any other year’s value of dollars other than the year in question, i. e., 1951 in Whyte, supra, and 1974 in Altamirano, supra, results in absurd consequences not contemplated by the legislature.
I would set aside the award.