Court Opinion

ID: 9562569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:31:37.706141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:24.767085
License: Public Domain

Oxner, Justice
(concurring in result).
Respondent contends, and the Court below held, that his average weekly wages should be calculated on the basis of his combined earnings as bricklayer and theater worker, while appellants contend that he should be limited to the $6.00 per week received from the theater.
Where an employee sustains an accidental injury while concurrently engaged in similar employment for two or more employers, there is a diversity of opinion as to whether his average weekly wages should be computed on the basis of the total compensation from all employments, or solely on the basis of the compensation received from the employer for whom he was working when injured. An excellent review of the authorities will be found in the recent case of St. Paul-Mercury Indem. Co. v. Idov, 88 Ga. App. 697, 77 S. E. (2d) 327, 330, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Georgia in 210 Ga. 256, 78 S. E. (2d) 799. The better view, I think, is to allow compensation on the basis of total earnings in all employments. This was the view *195adopted in the foregoing decision. But the Georgia Court restricted its application to concurrent work “similar in character to the work in the course of which the accident was sustained.” In the instant case the two .employments were wholly dissimilar. Under these circumstances, I think the correct method of determining respondent’s weekly wages' is to ascertain the amount which he would have received had he been regularly employed by the theater in the type of work in which he was engaged when injured. Where the employments are unrelated, I would apply the following rule laid down by the Supreme Court of Arizona in Wells v. Industrial Commission, 63 Ariz. 264, 161 P. (2d) 113, 116:
“Where * * * an employee is injured who is working in several employments and the burden of compensation is imposed upon one employer, the basic wage upon which benefits are computed should be limited to the total amount that the employee would have received from such employer if he were employed continuously at the usual and regular rates for the particular services he was performing at the time of the accident. It is our view that the statute does not contemplate that any employer for whom an employee is working on a part-time basis should be compelled to assume a burden of compensation greater than the amount chargeable if the employee were working for him on a full-time basis.”
The record does not disclose sufficient information for the calculation of respondent’s wages according to the foregoing formula. In fact, this theory seems not to have been advanced by either party in the Court below and is not raised on this appeal. Doubtless the failure of appellants to do so was because they would have gained little, if anything, in result. But the principle is important.
The sole question raised by the exceptions is that the Court erred in not restricting respondent’s weekly wages to the sum of $6.00, the amount he received from the theater. I agree that this method of computation is unsound. Under these circumstances, I concur in the result of the majority opinion.