Court Opinion

ID: 9549053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:12:33.943549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:46.474997
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
dissenting.
I do not disagree with the majority’s statement of the odd-lot doctrine, nor with the test they apply:
“ * * * [W]hether the workman is so disabled that the services which he is reasonably equipped to perform by his experience and training are not marketable in a well-known branch of the labor market in the community so as to provide a steady and continuous source of income * * 669 P.2d at 528.
I do, however, disagree with the majority’s application of this doctrine to the facts of this case.
The question in this case is whether the employee has met his burden of proving that he falls within the odd-lot doctrine. The employee has two methods available to prove odd-lot coverage, only one of which requires him to prove the unavailability of suitable work. The difficulty in this case is determining if the employee has the burden of proof on unavailability of regular, suitable work. The majority adopt the rule for *531allocating the burden of proof as set out in 2 Larson Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 57.61 at 10-164.95 to 1-164.114 (1982):
“ * * * If the evidence of degree of obvious physical impairment, coupled with other facts such as the claimant’s mental capacity, education, training, or age, places claimant prima facie in the odd-lot category, the burden should be on the employer to show that some kind of suitable work is regularly and continuously available to the claimant. Certainly in such a case it should not be enough to show that claimant is physically capable of performing light work, and then round out the case for noncompensability by adding a presumption that light work is available. ⅜ * *
“The corollary of the general-purpose principle just stated would be this: If the claimant’s medical impairment is so limited or specialized in nature that he is not obviously unemployable or relegated to the odd-lot category, it is not unreasonable to place the burden of proof on him to establish unavailability of work to a person in his circumstances, which normally would require a showing that he has made reasonable efforts to secure suitable employment.”
The first paragraph states this general rule: An employee must show that his obvious physical impairment coupled with other factors, such as education, training or age, mandate placement in the odd-lot category. The obviously impaired employee need not show unavailability of work; the burden shifts to the employer to show that suitable light work of a regular nature is available. If the employer does not do that, then the employee prevails.
However, not all partially disabled employees will be able to make this showing. The second paragraph describes those who will not: those with a limited or specialized impairment who are not obviously unemployable. The corollary would not preclude those employees with specialized impairments from showing odd-lot coverage. However, they must make an additional showing, not required of the obviously unemployable employees, that suitable work is unavailable — and this ordinarily requires a showing that reasonable efforts have been made to find suitable work. Once the unavailability of work is proved by showing reasonable efforts, then the burden shifts to the employer to show that special work is. in fact available. If the employer does not do that, then the employee prevails.
Thus, the odd-lot doctrine is available to those who are not obviously unemployable as well as those who are. However, the threshold showing differs: those with less obvious injuries have a greater showing to make. The essential question in this case is whether the employee met his burden of proof. Before that question can be answered, it must be determined what his burden of proof is, and to decide that requires a determination of whether he is obviously unemployable or has a specialized impairment.
This employee is a 56-year-old man with an eleventh-grade education whose entire adult life prior to his medical retirement had been devoted to physical work. He had worked a total of 19 years as a mechanic (14 of those years as a diesel mechanic with this employer) and 19 years in the oil fields. Whether we classify a mechanic as a manual laborer or as a highly skilled artisan, this employee was reasonably equipped by his experience to perform only physical labor.
The evidence was clear that the employee could no longer work as a mechanic because his injury would not allow him to do the standing, stooping, kneeling, crawling and lifting required of a mechanic. In fact, he was discharged from his position because of his medical inability to perform these tasks. The showing that the employee cannot continue in his current employment generally is not adequate to demonstrate that there is no suitable employment available for him. However, because this employee was reasonably suited by experience and training to be a mechanic only, and because all mechanic jobs require the same physical maneuverability as the position he held, in this particular case the fact that he was discharged from his current job for inability to *532perform constitutes a clear showing that he could not take any other mechanic position. As to the oil-field work, it is equally apparent that he would be unable to perform the tasks required by that type of physical labor. The employee made the requisite showing that he obviously falls within the odd-lot category — he demonstrated that he was incapacitated from performing any work at any gainful occupation for which he was reasonably suited by experience and training, as required by § 27-12-405(a), W.S.1977. That is enough to meet the requirements of the law of this state. In re Iles, 56 Wyo. 443, 110 P.2d 826, 829 (1941); Cardin v. Morrison-Knudsen, Wyo., 603 P.2d 862, 864 (1979); Gifford v. Cook-McCann Concrete, Inc., Wyo., 526 P.2d 1197, 1199 (1974). Professor Larson’s rule, which the majority today adopts, does not require that all employees show reasonable efforts to obtain other employment to merit odd-lot coverage. Nor has this court ever so held:
“ * * * It appears that all his life he has been accustomed to do hard work. The theory of counsel for the employer appears to be that the workman must go further than to show that he cannot do any hard work; that he must also show that he cannot do light work. Of course, it would almost be impossible, in many instances, for a man educated only to do hard work, to show that at some time or other some good Samaritan might not turn up and offer him some light work which he might be able to do. The law does not require impossibilities. It is stated in 71 C.J. 1071 that ‘where it is found that the employee is permanently and totally disabled so far as hard or manual work is concerned, but that he might do light work of a special nature not generally available, the burden is on the employer to show that such special work is available to the employee.’ In Lunardello v. Republic Coal Co., 101 Mont. 94, 53 P.2d 87, 90, the court stated: ‘There is no merit, however, in the suggestion that the burden was on plaintiff to prove not only that he could not work at his former occupation, but that he was totally incapacitated from obtaining remunerative employment of any kind. * * This we think is the proper rule. * * ’ ” In re Iles, supra, 110 P.2d at 829.
Most recently this court said:
“Before the burden of which In re lies, supra, speaks shifts to the employer, the employee must prove that he or she is so disabled that he or she will not be capable of employment in any well-known branch of the labor market. Since the evidence in this case is that Cardin is capable of light or sedentary work, we think the court below was justified in holding that the facts do not serve to make the ‘odd-lot’ doctrine available to this worker and the court was, therefore, justified in finding the worker not to be permanently totally disabled.” Cardin v. Morrison-Knudsen, supra, 603 P.2d at 864.
The Cardin case differs from this one because there the employer’s safety engineer testified there were jobs suitable for the worker, given his restriction on activity and movement. Cardin, supra, 603 P.2d at 864. Therefore, in Cardin the employee made the requisite showing which was in fact countered by the employer’s evidence that special work was available. This court has constantly reiterated the proper rule:
“The burden is upon the claimant to show that he is entitled to an award of compensation. [Citations.] Here, although there was not substantial evidence to support the order entered, claimant did present evidence of some disability. If that disability were attributable to the work injury and was total so far as hard or manual work was concerned but he could do light or mental work, the burden was upon the employer to show that such special work was available. [Citation.]” Gifford v. Cook-McCann Concrete, Inc., supra, 526 P.2d at 1199.
The trial judge erred in deciding that the employee had failed to meet his burden of proof, and I would reverse.
The majority cite an alternate ground for affirmance: that the application for modification of the award was improper in that it failed to show
*533“the ground of increase or decrease of incapacity due solely to the injury, or upon grounds of mistake or fraud,”
as required by § 27-12-606, W.S.1977. I would point out, however, that the statutory requirement of mistake or fraud — the overreaching to which the trial judge referred — may be indicated in this case by the way this employee was led down the primrose path — retained as an employee until after the permanent-partial-disability claim had been settled, and then almost immediately summarily dismissed on the basis of his employer’s admission that he was totally permanently disabled. The majority also note that there had apparently been no increase in the injury but do not address the meaning of “incapacity due solely to the injury” as used in the statute. The statutory definitions are silent and I am inclined to favor the position that, at least in the odd-lot doctrine, incapacity means injury plus inability to work at gainful employment, not simply physical injury.
“Inability to get work, traceable directly to a compensable injury, may be as effective in establishing disability as inability to perform work. * * * Even without total medical disability, the two essentials are present: wage loss, and causation of the wage loss by work-connected injury. The fact that the wage loss comes about through refusal or unavailability of employment rather than through incapacity to perform the work does not change the result.” 2 Larson, supra, § 57.61 at 10-164.83 to 10-164.90.
An increase in inability to work, as evidenced by subsequent loss of employment, might well constitute an increase in incapacity in odd-lot cases.