Court Opinion

ID: 9689761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:46:08.804119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:52.035816
License: Public Domain

Gillespie, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the results with reservations and some doubts. On the one hand, I cannot approve the actions of the Commissioner who advised appellee to accept a lump sum settlement or payment based on fifty percent loss of use of his arm without advising the employer and carrier that he would immediately employ an attorney and seek additional compensation. On the other hand, I am unable to say that appellee, circumstanced as he was, is estopped as a matter of law. He followed the advice of the Commissioner, and in his situation probably had no reason to think he was doing anything irregular.
My concurrence is largely based on these considerations: (1) Appellee sustained a total loss of use of his arm; this is undisputed and appellants did not seek to controvert this issue of fact although they had an opportunity to do so; (2) the determination that appellee sustained only a fifty percent loss of use or disability to his arm at the time of the lump sum payment was a mistake because it was a fact that the disability was one hundred percent; and (3) the matter of reopening the case under Section 21 is a matter for the Commission whose action may not be reversed unless there was an abuse of discretion, and the question of estoppel was addressed to the sound discretion of the Commission under all the circumstances including the undisputed fact that appellants owed appellee compensation for one hundred percent disability to his arm.