Court Opinion

ID: 9931854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 18:29:36.122381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:52.061246
License: Public Domain

Section 25-5-57(a)(1), Ala. Code 1975, is limited in its scope. It governs the payment of disability benefits only during the time that an employee is temporarily, totally disabled. Specifically, § 25-5-57(a)(1) provides that the compensation payable thereunder "shall be paid during the time of the disability," meaning the "time" during which the employee suffers from "total disability," as referenced previously in that subsection.
Thus, any period of time during which an employee is not totally disabled is not a *Page 955 
period of time governed by § 25-5-57(a)(1). Accordingly, if an employee previously has been totally disabled, but even before reaching MMI recuperates to the extent that, during some meaningful period of time, he or she is only partially disabled (during which time his or her benefits would be governed by §25-5-57(a)(2) rather than by § 25-5-57(a)(1)) or is fully
capable of returning to his or her regular employment at his or her normal wage, such period could not be considered a "time of [temporary total] disability" governed by § 25-5-57(a)(1).
I see no reason in any statutory language, in any existing judicial precedent, or in logic for limiting the "exception" (to the general rule that the time of temporary total disability lasts until MMI is reached) recognized in the main opinion to those instances in which an employee is able to return to workfull-time (as opposed to part-time) and earn 100% (as opposed to some lesser portion) of his or her normal, preinjury wage.
BRYAN, J., concurs.