Court Opinion

ID: 9557659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:54:13.832397+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:10.326841
License: Public Domain

Price, J.,
dissenting: I believe this appeal has been decided incorrectly and therefore dissent.
Neither the commissioner, the trial court, the employer, nor the writer, disputes the fact claimant sustained a permanent injury and therefore is entitled to compensation notwithstanding he is now gainfully employed in another line of work. He is to be commended for not permitting himself to become a burden to his family or society because of his disability. The allowance of an award for permanent partial disability, notwithstanding an injured workman may be earning as much or more after his injury in the same or other employment, as upheld in the Daugherty case, is precisely what was done here. Compensation was not terminated — the court merely found, on substantial evidence, that claimant was 66% per cent permanently partially disabled and made an award accordingly, and I think it is an unwarranted assumption to say the trial court based its reduction from total to two-thirds disability because claimant had secured remunerative employment in another field. In the very nature of things — and particularly on a hearing for review and modification — the work being performed by a claimant *317at the time of the hearing, or at any other time subsequent to the injury, is evidence to be considered along with other evidence, but of course is not controlling. (McGhee v. Sinclair Refining Co., 146 Kan. 653, 659, 73 P. 2d 39, 118 A. L. R. 725.)
Even in cases involving the workmen s compensation act — which is to be construed liberally in favor of an injured workman — an appeal by a claimant should not be turned into a quest for error. As applied to the facts of this case I think the reasoning and findings of the commissioner, which were approved and adopted by the trial court, were correct. The award is supported by the record and the judgment should be affirmed.