Court Opinion

ID: 9849399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:39:34.510595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:22.058157
License: Public Domain

RUSSELL, J.,
dissenting.
Code § 65.1-63 forfeits a claimant’s right to compensation only if he refuses employment procured for him “suitable to his capacity .. . unless in the opinion of the Industrial Commission such refusal was justified.” The statute contains no hint of the gloss added by the majority opinion: that “capacity” in this sense *44means “ residual capacity resulting from the industrial accident.” Rather, the statutory language demonstrates a clear legislative intent to leave to the Industrial Commission the discretion to determine which refusals are justified and which are not.
As the majority notes, the Commission’s decisions have adopted a rule that selective employment must be within the employee’s capacity at the time such employment is offered and that refusal based on an unrelated physical condition is not necessarily unjustified. This interpretation leaves it to the Commission to determine as a factual matter in each case whether selective employment was refused in good faith and for good cause. It appears to me that this interpretation comports with both the letter and spirit of the statute. Accordingly, I would affirm.
I also think it worthy of note that the Commission’s authority to determine whether a refusal is justified remains in the statute, even when it is subjected to the majority’s interpretation. Thus, if an employer should, in bad faith, take advantage of an employee’s temporary incapacity by knowingly offering him selective work while he is, for example, confined to bed by influenza, the Commission would, in my view, retain the authority to determine a refusal justified in the circumstances.