Court Opinion

ID: 9540460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:16:20.323779+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:51.076057
License: Public Domain

Price, J.
(dissenting): I dissent from that portion of the court’s opinion which holds that the method of computation used by the commissioner and approved by the lower court was in accordance with the provisions of the statute under consideration, and will state my views very briefly.
Notwithstanding the liberal construction rule in favor of the injured workman — with which I agree — I cannot agree that the court is justified in construing the act in a manner contrary to its plain and express wording.
My point is simply this — here claimant’s average weekly wage was . $90 at the time of his injury. Not one word of evidence was offered as to what he earned in either of his two subsequent employments or as to what he was able to earn in any employment, yet the commissioner computed the award solely on the basis of his earnings at the time of his injury.
The statute, G. S. 1947 Supp. 44-510, (3) subparagraph 22, (quoted in full in the court’s opinion) under which this award was made, provides that:
. . the workman shall receive . . .,60 percent of the difference between the amount he was earning prior to said injury . . . and the amount he is able to earn after such injury in any employment, . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
On numerous occasions this court is called upon to interpret a statute the wording and intent of which are not clear, but here it seems to me there is no room for “judicial interpretation” and that the doctrine of stare decisis is being overworked. The legislature *184has fixed the yardstick for measuring compensation in a case such as this in plain and unambiguous language, and its mandate should be followed. If an inequitable and unjust result should arise from a literal interpretation of the provision in question I think the legislature and not this court should amend it.
Wedell, J., concurs in the foregoing dissent.