Court Opinion

ID: 9444968
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:17:17.054216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:05.025383
License: Public Domain

DENMAN, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The court is clearly in error in construing Section 43-3-4, A.C.L.A., as preventing Keehn’s recovery for a temporary disability arising from a succeeding operation on his back on September 12, 1953,1 after a settlement on June 25, 1953, on the amount of a prior temporary disability from a prior operation on his back' and of his permanent partial disability. The pertinent portion of that section is:
“If an injured employee (is) entitled to compensation under any subdivision or part of this schedule, and it shall afterwards develop that he * * * is or was entitled to a higher rate of compensation under same or some other part of [or] subdivision of this schedule, then and in that event he * * * shall receive such higher rate, after first *717deducting the amount that has already been paid him * * *.”
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that such statutes shall be liberally construed in favor of the injured workman.2 Construing the words “rate” in Section 43-3-4 liberally in favor of the employee we find that Webster’s dictionary gives as the synonyms of the noun “rate” the words “amount” and “quantity”. The Board, therefore, has jurisdiction to determine whether the second temporary disability arose from Keehn’s employment since the statute means that the Board so should act “if it afterwards develop that he or she is or was entitled to a higher amount, of compensation.”
It is therefore clear that if Keehn suffered a succeeding temporary disability he may recover an increased amount for his total temporary disabilities, from which shall be deducted “the amount that has already been paid him”, for his prior partial disability.
Instead of considering the temporary disability after the September, 1953 back operation the Board declined so to act and instead in effect held that it had no such power in its finding:
“there was no showing that the aggravation caused by the second injury exceeds forty percent permanent partial disability for which compensation was paid under the Compromise and Release dated June 25, 1952 * *
The court’s opinion, with which I disagree, that it is most unlikely that if the matter were sent back to the Alaska Industrial Board it would be likely to come to a different conclusion is entirely irrelevant. The important thing that the opinion establishes for the Alaska law is a contention highly adverse to the rights of injured workmen.
The judgment should be reversed and the case remanded to the Alaska Industrial Board to determine whether the temporary disability after the operation of September 12, 1953, was caused by happenings in Keehn’s employment with the Bellingham Canning Company, or as suggested, but not found by the Board, from other injuries prior to his employment.

. The agreed statement of facts (Tr. 30, 31) states: “Dr. Gray then performed a Laminectomy with no relief from pain: On January 26, 1953, a spinal fusion was done by Dr. Gray. This also afforded no relief from pain for the patient. Three months ago another spinal fusion was done in Portland, Oregon.”
“Physical Examination: The patient is a pale, perspiring, chronically ill, white male, weighing 158 lbs. stripped. (Usual weight is 170 lbs.) His blood pressure is 120/70.” [Emphasis supplied.]

. See, e. g., Industrial Commission of Wisconsin v. McCartin, 1947, 330 U.S. 622, 628, 67 S.Ct. 886, 91 L.Ed. 1140; Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Co. v. Norton, 1932, 284 U.S. 408, 414, 52 S. Ct. 187, 76 L.Ed. 366; Old Dominion Stevedoring Corp. v. O’Hearne, 4 Cir., 1955, 218 F.2d 651; Robinson v. Bradshaw, 1953, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 216, 206 F.2d 435.