Court Opinion

ID: 9607365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:57:54.829553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:37.206529
License: Public Domain

Frankum, Judge,
dissenting. After careful consideration of the record in this case and the authorities which I deem to be controlling, I must dissent from the judgment of affirmance and from the rulings made in the opinion. It is fundamental that in a workmen’s compensation case the burden is upon the claimant in the first instance to show all of the essential facts necessary to entitle him to compensation. Johnson v. St. Paul-Mercury Indem. Co., 89 Ga. App. 1 (78 SE2d 262); Rivers v. Travelers Ins. Co., 93 Ga. App. 779 (1) (92 SE2d 818); Dept, of Revenue v. Graham, 102 Ga. App. 756, 758 (2) (117 SE2d 902). Where an award of compensation has been terminated in one of the ways provided by law, upon the hearing of an application by the employee for additional compensation on account of a change in condition, the burden is likewise upon such employee to show a change in his physical condition and earning capacity which will authorize the award of additional compensation. Baker v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 103 Ga. App. 100 (2) (118 SE2d 386).
The majority opinion, while not expressly so stating, in effect authorizes the board to completely disregard a previously approved agreement terminating compensation. This constitutes *444a startling departure from previously well-established principles enunciated by both the Supreme Court and this court and goes further in relieving the employee of the consequences of his solemnly executed agreements which have been approved by the board than the courts have ever gone before, and, insofar as the opinion and judgment of this court is subject to this interpretation, establishes an unsound precedent which will be productive of far more evil than the supposed evil it is designed to eliminate. An agreement between the claimant and the employer, duly signed by the parties and approved by the board, is, in the absence of fraud, accident or mistake, conclusive as to the matters agreed upon, and the approval by the board of the agreement has the same legal effect as an award of the board made after a hearing of the issues. Ga. Marine Salvage Co. v. Merritt, 82 Ga. App. 111, 114 (1) (60 SE2d 419); Arnold v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 94 Ga. App. 493 (2) (95 SE2d 29); National Union Ins. Co. v. Mills, 99 Ga. App. 697, 698 (109 SE2d 830); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Wilson, 215 Ga. 746, 752 (113 SE2d 611). The legal effect of an award made after .the hearing on the issues which grants or denies compensation is that it is res judicata as to the extent of the employee’s disability up to and including the time of such hearing. Wiley v. Bituminous Cas. Co., 76 Ga. App. 862, 863 (3) (47 SE2d 652); Ga. Marine Salvage Co. v. Merritt, 82 Ga. App. 111, supra; Manus v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 100 Ga. App. 289 (1) (111 SE2d 103); Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Morgan, 199 Ga. 179, 181 (33 SE2d 336). Under repeated rulings of both this court and the Supreme Court, the force and effect of such an award (or of an approved agreement) can only be changed by the board after a hearing had on application claiming a change in condition. Arnold v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 94 Ga. App. 493, supra; Lumbermen’s Mut. Cas. Co. v. Cook, 195 Ga. 397, 400 (24 SE2d 309); Cardin v. Riegel Textile Corp., 217 Ga. 797, 799 (1) (125 SE2d 62). When such an application is made to the board the only inquiry authorized by law to be made by the board is strictly limited to a change in condition, Arnold v. Indemnity Ins. Co., supra, Hartford Acc. &c. Co. v. Webb, 109 Ga. App. 667, 669 (1) (137 SE2d 362), Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Wilson, *445215 Ga. 746, supra, and “the condition as it existed at the time of the agreement is settled by that agreement, and can not be redetermined upon the review.” Lumbermen’s Mut. Cas. Co. v. Cook, 195 Ga. 397, 400, supra. To the same effect see also Manus v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 100 Ga. App. 289, supra. The binding force and. authority of the rules just stated are neither abrogated, modified nor weakened by the provisions of Code Ann. § 114-706, authorizing the board to hold a hearing on the application of either party, which is limited in its application to those cases where the parties have failed to agree as to the payment or discontinuance of compensation. Where the parties have agreed as to those matters and that agreement has been approved by the board, Code Ann. § 114-706 is not applicable. Arnold v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 94 Ga. App. 493 (4), supra.
In the instant case no contention was made by the claimant that the agreement terminating compensation signed by him and by the representative of the insurance carrier was obtained by fraud, accident or mistake such as to authorize the agreement to be set aside on those grounds. For these reasons the ruling contained in the majority opinion that payments of compensation continued to be due the employee under the last approved agreement for the payment of compensation, notwithstanding that the employee and insurance carrier had entered into a further agreement terminating compensation, which further agreement had been approved by the board, is to my mind, clearly contrary to law as enunciated by the authorities which I have hereinabove cited. Moreover, this ruling is, in my view, totally unnecessary to the accomplishment of the results reached in this case, that is, the affirmance of the award as modified by the superior court, because the award under review was entered after a hearing on an application filed by the claimant contending that he had undergone a change in condition, and the deputy director and the full board so found. The superior court affirmed that finding, but ordered that the award be modified to fix the effective date for the resumption of the payment of compensation as of August 17, 1963, the date the employee’s application for a hearing on account of a change in condition was filed, rather than August 5, 1963, the date he was discharged. This *446was consonant with the rulings made in authorities hereinabove cited. The judgment of the majority merely affirms the judgment of the superior court in this regard.
I cannot agree with that result, though, because I do not think it was authorized by the. evidence. The sole question which the board had to consider on the hearing requested by the claimant was whether or not he had undergone a change in condition sufficient to authorize an award directing the payment of further compensation on account of a change in condition. Such a change in condition as is referred to by the Act, means a change in the physical condition of the employee subsequent to the entering of an award or approved agreement. Ga. Marine Salvage Co. v. Merritt, 82 Ga. App. 111 (1b), supra. The award of compensation here was made under the provisions of Code Ann. § 114-404, and in order to authorize an award of compensation under that section, it must be shown that the employee’s loss of earning capacity is total. This, to my mind, the claimant’s evidence wholly failed to show. The medical testimony adduced showed without dispute that the claimant was able to do light work in July prior to the date he entered into the agreement in question, and that there was little change, if any, in his condition in November thereafter. The whole effect of the claimant’s testimony was simply that he had exercised bad judgment in entering into the agreement approved by the board on August 5, 1963, which declared that he was able to return to work at the same wage, and that he, in fact, was not then able to do the work he had done before. An award granting additional compensation on account of a change in condition based on such evidence is directly contrary to the authorities hereinbefore cited, and it cannot be sustained, in my opinion, on any theory of law. I would, therefore, reverse the judgment of the superior court affirming the grant of compensation based on total disability.
I am authorized to state that Judges Jordan, Eberhardt and Russell concur is this dissent.