Court Opinion

ID: 9674726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:34:23.177945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:29.430060
License: Public Domain

John F. Stroud, Justice, dissenting. I respectully dissent with the interpretation of Ark. Stat. Ann. § 81-1313(f)(2)(iii) (Repl. 1976) given by the majority opinion. The applicable portion of the statute provides: (f) Second injury: In cases of permanent disability arising from a subsequent accident, where a permanent disability existed prior thereto: . . . (2)(iii) If an employee who had previously incurred permanent partial disability through the loss of one [1] hand, one [1] arm, one [1] foot, one [1] leg, or one [1] eye, incurs permanent total disability through the total loss of another member, enumerated in this sentence, he shall be paid in addition to the compensation for permanent and partial disability provided in Section 13 (c) . . . additional compensation .. . (Emphasis added.) The amendment made to the statute in 1948 only added the word “total.” I can conceive of no reason for the General Assembly to have amended the statute and added the word “total” unless it meant for the Second Injury Fund to be applicable only upon the “total loss of another member.” The majority opinion construes the statute as urged by Petitioner from a disability viewpoint rather than from an anatomical viewpoint. If the legislature had intended for the Second Injury Fund to be applicable when the use of a second member is lost, I believe it would have said so by inserting the appropriate words “total loss of use of another member.” The General Assembly has seen fit to amend the statute again, and, among other things, makes the Second Injury Fund applicable when a loss of use of a second member occurs: If the previous disability or impairment or disabilities or impairments whether from compensable injury or otherwise, and the last injury together result in total and permanent disability, the employer at the time of the last injury shall be liable only for the disability resulting from the last injury considered alone and of itself; . . . the employee shall be paid the remainder of the compensation that would be due for permanent total disability under Section 10 [§ 81-1310] out of the special fund known as the second injury fund. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 81-1313 (i)(l) (Supp. 1979). The amendment just quoted does not become effective until January 1, 1981. The majority opinion has in effect amended the statute prior to its effective date to reach the same result provided by the latest amendment. I would affirm the finding of the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission and the decision of the Arkansas Court of Appeals that the Second Injury Fund is inapplicable to the claim of respondent Starling Greer.