Court Opinion

ID: 9572563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:42:49.199575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:30.299441
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Justice,
dissenting:
I dissent.
In the majority opinion, we once again find an appellate court invading the fact-finding province of a lower tribunal.
I have no quarrel with the law cited in the majority opinion which indicates that a preexisting nonindustrial injury will be deemed to convert a scheduled injury to an unscheduled injury only if the preexisting injury resulted in a loss of earning capacity. Also, there is a rebuttable presumption that a preexisting scheduled-type nonindustrial injury causes a loss of earning capacity.
Based on the employee’s own testimony that despite the loss of the sight in his right eye he had always been able to do “any job,” the administrative law judge found the presumption rebutted. The majority, however, casts aside the employee’s testimony and returns to the previously overruled Ross v. Industrial Commission, 112 Ariz. 253, 540 P.2d 1234 (1975), for support. With this position I cannot agree.