Court Opinion

ID: 9758843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:52:30.918098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:53.521894
License: Public Domain

Andree Layton Roaf, Judge, concurring. I agree with the that this case should be affirmed on all points. With regard to the issue on which this court is in disagreement, whether Alvin Ray White is entitled to an award for more than the two percent anatomical rating sustained during his employment with the appellee, it needs to be clearly said that we must affirm on this issue for the simple reason that the case involves only anatomical impairment. There is no evidence of any wage loss award by the Commission in the record before us, nor even any discussion of wage loss in the Commission’s opinion. As pointed out by the majority, all of the 26 percent disability awarded to White by the Commission in its first opinion was based on an anatomical rating, of which a portion was sustained during White’s previous employment in Texas, and a portion' sustained during White’s employment with the Appellee. After this court reversed, on remand, the Commission found that there was insufficient evidence to support 14 percent of this rating, and that only two percent of the proven 13 percent anatomical impairment was sustained during his employment with appellee Gregg Agricultural Enterprises. I agree that there is substantial evidence to support these findings. Consequently, under these facts, there is no issue of apportionment and no Second Injury Trust Fund liability because the fund is liable only for wage-loss benefits, not anatomical loss. Most importantly, there can be no liability to either Gregg Agricultural Enterprises or the Second Injury Trust Fund for' the anatomical loss suffered by White in his previous employment. In Weaver v. Tyson Foods, 31 Ark. App. 147, 790 S.W.2d 442 (1990), this court affirmed a decision in which the Commission found that a preexisting 15 percent anatomical impairment combined with the new 5 percent anatomical impairment rating to result in an additional 30 percent wage loss disability for a total award of 50 percent, and that there was thus Second Injury Trust Fund liability. Flowever, the Commission further found that the second employer was only responsible for the 5 percent anatomical impairment Weaver sustained while under its employ, and that the Second Injury Trust Fund was entitled to a credit for the preexisting 15 percent impairment. On appeal, Weaver objected to the credit allowed to the Second Injury Trust Fund. In affirming the Commission’s decision, this court stated: When it is determined that through the combination of a preexisting condition and a current compensable injury the claimant has sustained a disability greater than would have resulted from either of them alone, the statute provides that the claimant shall be fully compensated for his current disability. But the statute does not provide that the Second Injury Fund shall compensate the claimant for his preexisting condition. There are several obvious reasons for this. If the preexisting condition was the result of a compensable injury, the claimant has presumably already been fully compensated for it. But if the preexisting condition was from a nonwork-related injury, a congenital defect or disease process, it is not covered by the workers’ compensation law and neither the employer nor the Second Injury Fund is liable. To hold otherwise would make workers’ compensation general disability insurance. (Emphasis added.) Moreover, in Nelson v. Timberline Int’l, Inc., 332 Ark. 165, 964 S.W.2d 357 (1998), this court stated that the legislature clearly intended that “any employer who employs a handicapped or disabled worker is responsible only for such actual anatomical impairment as may result from the last injury, and the Second Injury Trust Fund is obligated to provide compensation for any greater disability that may result from a combination of injuries.” Unlike in Weaver, this case has no wage-loss component. Clearly, there can be no combination of a preexisting condition and a current compensable injury which results in a disability greater than would have resulted from either of them alone when, as in the instant case, there is no additional award of wage loss, and it matters not whether the current injury is characterized as an “aggravation” of a preexisting condition as asserted by the dissent, or a new injury. This is simple math; the current employer, Gregg Agricultural Enterprises, is liable only for the 2 percent anatomical impairment sustained by White while in its employ, and no one is liable for payment on account of the preexisting 11 percent anatomical loss. It has already been paid for by White’s previous employer.