Court Opinion

ID: 9780083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 01:17:30.857457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:55.104858
License: Public Domain

McDONALD, J.
dissenting.
| ¶ With all due respect to my colleagues, I respectfully dissent. I believe this result creates strange consequences and I do not believe this was either contemplated or intended by the legislature. I do not believe “wages” or earnings includes retirement or social security benefits and I believe it was intended to be based on current employment. To hold otherwise creates a strange anomaly as noted by the majority. It “allows additional recovery to those widows and widowers whose spouses retired and were receiving pension benefits at the time of death, in contrast to those widows or widowers whose spouses were not receiving such benefits and were dependent upon wages only.” In such a situation, the widow or widower is collecting twice. The employee did not lose any day’s wages because of the disability. I also believe the majority is correct that a very strong argument can be made “that death benefits may have been intended to replace lost earnings rather than supplement retirement benefits and that the presumption of dependency may be moot where there are no wages being earned at the time of death.” Not only do I believe this argument may be made, I believe this is the crux of the issue before us. For these reasons, I believe the decision of the WCJ should be affirmed.