Court Opinion

ID: 9782132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:01:21.263908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:48.808502
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
specially concurring.
I concur in the court’s decision to overrule section III.C. of its holding in Avalanche Industries, and I write separately only to emphasize that the remainder of the court’s rationale in that case is not at issue here. I therefore do not understand the majority’s opinion as in any way reaffirming it.
In Avalanche Industries I expressed my view that construing section 8-42-102 of the revised statutes to permit an administrative officer, based on his personal sense of fairness and equity, to disregard the statutory definition of average weekly wage and calculate a claimant’s benefits on a wage he was receiving at some point after his injury, from a different employer altogether, was unjustified, see Avalanche Industries Inc. v. Clark, 198 P.3d 589, 598 (Colo.2008)(Coats, J., dissenting), and I continue to believe that to be the case. While I agree that section III.C. of that opinion should be overruled, I do not consider it unrelated to the remainder of the court’s rationale. Because I believe the alternate rationale of section III.C. was included to bolster what was an extremely tenuous construction of the so-called “discretionary exception,” I consider that portion of the Avalanche Industries rationale weakened by today’s holding and worthy of reconsideration in an appropriate case.
I am authorized to state that Justice EID joins in this special concurrence.