Court Opinion

ID: 9666997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:32:23.248742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:34.008048
License: Public Domain

Grant, J., dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I recognize that our cases have held that the increase or decrease in incapacity set out in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-141 (Reissue 1988) refers to a change in “physical condition” only and not to “earning power” or some other concept. Ludwickson v. Central States Electric Co., 142 Neb. 308, 6 N.W.2d 65 (1942). See, also, Pavel v. Hughes Brothers, Inc., 167 Neb. 727, 94 N.W.2d 492 (1959); Wilson Concrete Co. v. Rork, 216 Neb. 447, 343 N.W.2d 764 (1984).
I think, however, that our earlier holdings should be modified in this case, and similar cases, where the circumstances surrounding plaintiff’s condition show that a worker’s incapacity has increased, not because of any change in his physical condition alone, but because his unchanged physical condition, coupled with the fact (representing a change from the fact determined at the first award) that he cannot be rehabilitated, has caused an increase in incapacity.
In this case, at the 1986 first hearing, the compensation court found that the plaintiff was 50 percent disabled and that there was a reasonable probability that plaintiff could be rehabilitated. The latter finding has been proven wrong, as shown by the undisputed evidence at the modification hearing. In my judgment, the first finding was also wrong, but that finding, in the absence of an appeal, cannot be reviewed in a modification hearing.
It appears to me that the compensation court’s earlier finding of 50 percent disability was tied in with the court’s simultaneous *653finding that plaintiff could be rehabilitated. I think such a conclusion can be reached from the court’s remarks in paragraph XII of the 1986 award.
The evidence showed at the modification hearing that the plaintiff cannot be rehabilitated. I believe the clear change in plaintiff’s chance of rehabilitation constitutes a change in the degree of his incapacity. I would reverse.
White, J., joins in this dissent.