Court Opinion

ID: 9746523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:20:42.431714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:14.354287
License: Public Domain

LIPEZ, Justice,
with whom CLIFFORD, Justice joins, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The Board first had to determine the nature of Frank’s employment for the purpose of arriving at his earning capacity. The Board concluded that Frank’s temporary work assignment at Uni-co could not be regarded as his employment for the purpose of determining his average weekly wage. I would affirm that conclusion. In Fowler v. First Nat’l Stores, Inc., 416 A.2d 1258, 1259-60 (Me.1980), an employee who had been with the company for six months was promoted from a grocery store clerk to a produce manager one week prior to her injury. We held that the Commission should have regarded the employee’s promotion to produce manager as the acquisition of a new occupation and calculated the average weekly wage according to her higher salary at the time of her injury. Id. at 1261. As the former Workers’ Compensation Commission Appellate Division stated in Silvius v. Manpower Temp. Servs., Me.W.C.C.App. Div. 3885, 3836-37 (Me.1989), however, every work assignment obtained through a temporary agency will not automatically constitute the acquisition of a new occupation for purposes of Fowler.
The Board was not compelled in this ease to find that Frank had acquired a new occupation after working at Unico for less than two weeks. As the Court states, Frank had been informed that the duration of the Unico assignment was “indefinite.” Such a characterization does not necessarily mean that the Unico employment would continue “indefinitely” in the absence of an injury, and we should not substitute our interpretation of the facts for that of the hearing officer. Moreover, Frank was an employee of Manpower, a temporary agency, at the time that he went to work with Unico.1 He had only received two short-term jobs through Manpower during his three year association with the agency and neither job lasted longer than two weeks. Given these facts, the Board reasonably concluded that Frank’s employment at the time of his injury included his temporary position at Unico and other short-term jobs. Therefore, to consider only his earnings at Unico, and to extend those wages over a 52-week period, would result in an excessively high average weekly wage.
I must also disagree with the Court’s suggestion that subsection C is not implicated in this case. 39-A M.R.S A. § 102(4)(C) (Supp. 1996). The Court states that “[t]o the extent the Board determined Paragraph A was not applicable, it should then have proceeded to calculate Frank’s average weekly wage on the basis of Paragraph B, and to the extent that the methods set out in Paragraphs A and B could ‘not reasonably and fairly be applied,’ the Board should have invited evidence and determined Frank’s average weekly wage on the basis of Paragraph D.” Although subsections (A), (B) and (D) should be applied in the order they appear, an employee’s seasonal status, and therefore subsection *627C, could be considered in any case when the duration of employment does not meet the standard of 200 full working days, the requirement of Paragraph A. This is so because, contrary to the Court’s statement that “Paragraphs A, B and C of the statute refer to the type of employment the employee is engaged in,” subsections A and B focus only on the duration of the employment. The subsections that address the type of employment are subsection C, dealing with seasonal employment, and subsection E, dealing with concurrent employment. Both of these situations, seasonal employment or concurrent employment, must be considered in conjunction with the subsection A or B durational requirement. Indeed, as I interpret the Court’s analysis, the Court applies subsection C to conclude that Frank’s part-time employment at the time of his injury, i.e., his temporary assignment with Unico, was not seasonal.
Because Frank’s temporary work assignment with Unico did not constitute the acquisition of a new occupation pursuant to Fowler, the Board was permitted to examine Frank’s recent employment history as a construction worker for Talbot Construction from 1990 to 1992 to determine if that employment was seasonal. I agree with the Court that “seasonal employment” pursuant to subsection 102(4)(C) should be defined as employment that is inherently seasonal in nature, and not merely employment that is less than 26 weeks in duration. To the extent that the Court concludes that Frank’s construction work for Talbot was not seasonal in nature, however, I disagree.
The Court cites Professor Larson, who states that “it is the inherent seasonal nature of the employment that controls, not the claimant’s seasonal connection with it.” 2 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation, § 60.22(a), n. 39 (1993). Professor Larson refers in this note to the case of a student who works only in the summer months, but whose employment is not inherently seasonal in nature. Id. (citing May v, James H. Drew Shows, Inc., 576 S.W.2d 524 (Ky.Ct.App.1978)). Frank’s employment differed from that of a student employee. Based on Frank’s testimony, the Board found that Frank worked for Talbot “when there was construction work available,” that the work “was dependent upon the weather and that there generally was a slow season between October and February.” The inherent nature of the work made the job seasonal.
Because the Board reasonably concluded that Frank’s construction work was seasonal in nature, the Board was then required to determine whether Frank was “customarily” employed for more than 26 weeks in a calendar year. 39-A M.R.S.A 102(4)(C)(I). As the Board stated, Frank presented evidence concerning the nature of Ms employment with Talbot, but did not provide evidence to show “how many weeks he worked [for Talbot] or how much he earned during that time.” Based on the nature of his employment with Talbot and Frank’s inability to provide any evidence of the number of weeks he worked for Talbot, the Board did not err in determining that Frank’s employment was seasonal in nature for purposes of subsection 102(4)(C) and that he was “customarily employed” for less than 26 weeks in a calendar year. Moreover, because Frank failed to show any earnings from Ms employment with Talbot, the Board did not err m excluding those earmngs from the calculation of Ms seasonal wage.
Fmally, I also disagree with the Court’s statement of the burden of proof in tMs case. The issue for purposes of the subsection 102(4)(C)(1) exclusion is whether the employee is “customarily” employed for more than 26 weeks in a calendar year. Subsection (C)(1) provides that the employee “need not be employed by the same employer during this period” to fall withrn the 26 week exclusion. 39-A M.R.S.A. 102(4)(C). It is implicit from tMs language that the Board may consider the employee’s overall work-Mstory, in-cludmg work for other employers, to determine whether an employee is customarily employed, full-time or part-time, for more than 26 weeks in a calendar year. Because the employer does not ordinarily have access to employment records from other employers, the Board did not err m requiring Frank to bear the burden of proving Ms employment Mstory with Talbot. Accordingly, I *628would affirm the decision of the Workers’ Compensation Board.

. Indeed, his employer for purposes of liability was Manpower, not Unico.