Court Opinion

ID: 9853570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:50:25.91002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:51.298777
License: Public Domain

Nichols, Justice,
dissenting. I dissent from the judgment in this case on the sole ground that an award or agreement to pay compensation is res judicata and a later agreement not to pay compensation — which is without consideration — whether it has received the technical approval of the State Board of Workmen’s Compensation or not is a nullity.
In Cardin v. Riegel Textile Corporation, 217 Ga. 797 (125 SE2d 62), this court in a full bench decision held that an agreement in which it was agreed that the claimant had experienced a change of condition and provided for the payment of compensation was res judicata and could only be modified by a later award based on a hearing for a change in condition. In view of the facts of the case, this necessarily meant in the absence of a further agreement between the parties.
Under the holding by a majority of this court in New Amsterdam Cas. Co. v. McFarley, 191 Ga. 334 (12 SE2d 355), an award denying compensation cannot be reviewed upon an application for a hearing on a change of condition. In Lumbermen’s Mut. Cas. Co. v. Cook, 195 Ga. 397 (24 SE2d 309), the holding in New Amsterdam Cas. Co. v. McFarley, supra, was explained and the true rule apparently established that a first award, unappealed from, in the absence of an agreement to the *830contrary, denying compensation forecloses the employee from ever receiving compensation, but once an award is rendered granting compensation then until the maximum period for paying compensation has expired (subject to other time limitations in the Act) a new award may be rendered again awarding compensation although in the interim an award has been rendered stopping compensation.
In Complete Auto Transit v. Davis, 106 Ga. App. 369 (126 SE2d 909), in a decision concurred in by all nine judges of the Court of Appeals (certiorari denied, 106 Ga. App. 886), Judge Eberhardt, speaking for that court, pointed out once again that an employer is completely protected when an employee returns to work whether or not a new award is then obtained and whether or not the employee signs a form stating that he is no longer disabled and no longer entitled to compensation.
Of what effect is an agreement under such circumstances? As has been shown, no benefit flows to the employer as he is already protected. No benefit flows to the employee since he is shut out if such agreement is valid, and must apply to the board if he is not as well as he thinks he is and cannot continue to work. The return to work is no consideration since the employee only receives his wages from such time forward for labor performed.
The “agreement” is nothing more than a piece of paper signed by all parties giving no benefit to the employer or employee and at most being a detriment to the employee without any consideration whatever, and therefore a nullity.