Court Opinion

ID: 9583881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:42:52.224241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:57.880221
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
Under the majority’s decision, this claimant is getting a windfall of $5,720 per year in workers’ compensation benefits when she actually earned no more than $5,000 per year by working.
According to the majority’s decision, her compensation is based on imaginary full-time work for 52 weeks per year, when it is clear she was semi-retired and worked only a few months of the year.
This is patently in violation of OCGA § 34-9-261, which provides that an employee shall be paid in workers’ compensation benefits “a weekly benefit equal to two-thirds of the employee’s average weekly wage.” (Emphasis supplied.)
No one has ever suggested, until now, that an employee should under any theory receive more in workers’ compensation benefits than she ever earned or would have earned by working.
The majority apparently regrets this unfair and unreasonable re-*372suit, but says it has no choice because Mrs. Kierbow worked the whole of thirteen weeks preceding her injury, under OCGA § 34-9-260 (1).
The majority has ignored OCGA § 34-9-260 (3) which clearly states: “If either of the foregoing methods [§ 34-9-260 (1) and (2)] cannot reasonably and fairly be applied, the full-time weekly wage of the injured employee shall be used.” (Emphasis supplied.) As for what is the “full-time weekly wage,” Rule 260 (b) of the Workers’ Compensation Board provides: “Unless the contrary appears, it is assumed that the normal workweek is five days, that the normal workday is eight hours, and that the employee’s daily wage is one-fifth the weekly wage. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) Rule 260 thus assumes a claimant worked full-time but allows us to figure the full-time weekly wage as it appears in fact.
In this case, the “contrary appears” (Rule 260 (b)), which is that this semi-retired claimant worked part-time 40 hours per week for only a few months of the year and otherwise did not work at all. From this it can fairly and reasonably be calculated that her weekly wage for the year, i.e., her full-time weekly wage, is based on 22 hours per week.
The thirteen-weeks rule in § 34-9-260 (1) and (2) is merely a mechanical formula which is the usual best measure of a claimant’s actual loss, but the legislature clearly provided in section (3) that it is not to be used if it reaches an unfair and unreasonable result.
Carter v. Ocean Accident &c. Corp., 190 Ga. 857, 860 (11 SE2d 16) attempts to explain the philosophy underlying compensation for part-time work. The Supreme Court said: “The one high aim constituting the foundation of this law is compensation for an injured employee in proportion to his loss on account of the injury. That loss is deprivation of future earnings, and is measured by his proved earning capacity. It of necessity looks to the future. Under the statute authority is given to consider the past only in so far as it reveals a regular earning capacity. We think the fairest yardstick by which his compensation to cover his injury can be measured is what he was able to earn and was actually earning when the misfortune came upon him. Good workmen look to the future with hope of advancement and increased earnings, and the loss sustained by the employee is deprivation of future earnings on the basis of his earning capacity as demonstrated by the regular wage received at the time of the accident.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In other words, the Act seeks to compensate the worker for his actual loss. The worker’s history over the past thirteen weeks preceding his injury is important “only insofar as it reveals a regular earning capacity.” Id. It is not intended to give a windfall bonus of full compensation to a worker who worked thirteen weeks prior to injury al*373though, for example, he may not work at all the rest of the year.
Decided December 4, 1985
Rehearing denied December 20, 1985
Susan V. Sommers, for appellant.
The use of statutory formulae for figuring the compensation of a person who is truly a part-time worker, that is, who chooses to work only part-time or chooses to work a part-time job or at seasonal work and in effect has no full-time earning capacity, has been criticized by Larson, where it results in an award disproportionately higher than the employee ever earned or intended to earn. 2 Larson, Workers’ Compensation Law, § 60.21 (c), p. 10-585. Such cases, says Larson, “serve to emphasize the fact that it sometimes is as important to reject as it is to accept a brief recent-wage experience, if a realistic approximation of future wage loss is to be obtained.”
Where courts have figured awards to a part-time employee far in excess of his actual earnings, based on a full-time wage formula, Larson says at p. 10-591: “It is difficult to see the justification of these cases that knowingly inflate benefits beyond what the claimant intended to earn in the past and presumably intended to continue to earn in the future, as long as there is any sort of residual or catchall clause that is available when the more mechanical formulas cannot fairly be applied. . . . [T]he purpose of the wage calculation is not to arrive at some theoretical concept of loss of earning capacity; rather it is to make a realistic judgment on what the claimant’s future loss is in the light of all the factors that are known. [Fn.]” (Emphasis supplied.)
In section (3) and Board Rule 260, the legislature provided, in Larson’s words, the “residual or catch all clause that is available when the more mechanical formula cannot be applied.”
In saying it is forced to compensate this claimant by applying § 34-9-260 (1), the majority suggests that the legislature address the matter in policy. The legislature has already done this, in section (3) and Board Rule 260. I am therefore respectfully but thoroughly mystified as to why the majority insists it should award this claimant a clear windfall under section (1).
What the majority has done is to give a part-time worker (who, herself, chose to work part-time) the same benefits available to the full-time worker. This is patently unfair to the full-time worker.
I respectfully dissent. I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Deen and Judge Beasley join in this dissent.
*374Johnny B. Mostlier, for appellee.