Court Opinion

ID: 9521995
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:16:39.764771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:10.888284
License: Public Domain

*175Robinson, J.,
¶ 20. dissenting. This is a tough case. In my view, it pits a longstanding- agency interpretation — never court-tested, but by now woven into the fabric of our workers’ compensation system — against a clear legislative directive reflected in the applicable statute. A ruling in either direction must stray from an important core principle — deference to the agency charged with administering our workers’ compensation laws on the one hand, and fealty to the will of the Legislature, as reflected in the language and purposes of the Workers’ Compensation Act on the other.
¶ 21. Like the majority, I believe that the question of whether health insurance premiums paid by employers fall within the broad definition of “wages” in 21 V.S.A. § 601(13) is squarely one for the Legislature. Our task is to consider the statute the Legislature has passed, with appropriate deference to the Department of Labor, in an effort to discern how the Legislature has directed us to answer the question. Given the plain language of the statute, as well as the purposes underlying the law, I cannot conclude that the Legislature intended to exclude such a critical component of many employees’ total compensation from the calculation of average weekly wage.
I.
¶ 22. “Our paramount goal in interpreting a statute is to give effect to the Legislature’s intent.” State v. Deyo, 2006 VT 120, ¶ 14, 181 Vt. 89, 915 A.2d 249. We traditionally afford deference to the Commissioner’s interpretation of the workers’ compensation statute, affirming the Commissioner’s construction absent a compelling indication of error. Wood v. Fletcher Allen Health Care, 169 Vt. 419, 422, 739 A.2d 1201, 1204 (1999). However, this deference is not unlimited, and “we will not affirm an interpretation that is unjust or unreasonable,” Clodgo v. Rentavision, Inc., 166 Vt. 548, 550, 701 A.2d 1044, 1045 (1997); see also Morin v. Essex Optical/The Hartford, 2005 VT 15, ¶ 4, 178 Vt. 29, 868 A.2d 729, or that undermines the regulatory purpose of the statute, see In re Williston Inn Grp., 2008 VT 47, ¶ 19, 183 Vt. 621, 949 A.2d 1073 (mem.).
¶ 23. Moreover, we have recognized that “our workers’ compensation statute is ‘remedial in nature and must be liberally construed to provide injured employees with benefits unless the law is clear to the contrary.’ ” Murray v. Luzenac Corp., 2003 VT *17637, ¶ 4, 175 Vt. 529, 830 A.2d 1 (mem.) (quoting St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Surdam, 156 Vt. 585, 590, 595 A.2d 264, 266 (1991)). Our general practice of affirming an agency’s construction of a statute unless it is clearly wrong, and the specific precept that we construe the workers’ compensation laws liberally to afford benefits unless the law clearly provides otherwise, are in tension in this case. Ultimately, although the Commissioner enjoys a thumb on the scale as we weigh competing interpretations of the statute, and although we are mindful of the remedial purposes of the workers’ compensation laws generally, our overriding responsibility is to give effect to the Legislature’s intent. Deyo, 2006 VT 120, ¶ 14.
¶ 24. Vermont’s workers’ compensation law reflects a trade-off pursuant to which injured workers forfeit their common-law right to sue employers for negligence and the damages associated therewith, but are entitled to a remedy for work injuries independent of fault; employers, on the other hand, are shielded from liability for tort damages and instead face a limited and determinate liability. See 21 V.S.A. § 622 (right to compensation exclusive); In re Chatham Woods Holdings, LLC, 2008 VT 70, ¶ 9, 184 Vt. 163, 955 A.2d 1183.
¶25. Within this broader scheme, we have recognized that one of the purposes of the law is to protect against an injured worker’s loss of earning capacity. See Bishop v. Town of Barre, 140 Vt. 564, 572, 442 A.2d 50, 53 (1982) (“The claimant correctly assigns protection against wage loss as one of the Act’s purposes.”). Even in the case of permanent disability benefits, which are awarded on the basis of schedules rather than individual future wage loss, we have acknowledged that a goal of the system is to compensate for likely future lost earning capacity:
“[Exclusion of individual wage loss evidence] is not . . . to be interpreted as an erratic deviation from the underlying principle of compensation law — that benefits relate to loss of earning capacity and not to physical injury as such. The basic theory remains the same; the only difference is that the effect on earning capacity is a conclusively presumed one, instead of a specifically proved one based on the individual’s actual wage-loss experience.”
Id. at 572-73, 442 A.2d at 53-54 (quoting 2 A. Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law § 58.11, at 10-173 to -174 (1981)).
*177¶ 26. Proper calculation of an injured worker’s predisability “average weekly wages” is critical to achieving this goal because temporary total and temporary partial disability benefits and permanent partial disability benefits are calculated with reference to a worker’s average weekly wage. See 21 V.S.A. § 642 (subject to statutory minimum and maximum and adjustment for dependents, temporary total disability benefit is two-thirds of average weekly wage); id. § 646 (temporary partial disability benefits are calculated as two-thirds of difference between worker’s average weekly wage and average weekly wage injured worker is able to earn after injury); id. §§ 645, 648(a) (subject to maximum and minimum, weekly permanent partial and permanent total disability benefits are two-thirds of average weekly wage). Pursuant to the Department of Labor’s rules, the extent of a claimant’s entitlement to vocational rehabilitation services to restore earning power is also tied to the injured worker’s average weekly wage. Workers’ Compensation Vocational Rehabilitation Rules §§ 51.2600, 51.2700, 53.0000, 3 Code of Vt. Rules 24 010 012-2 to -4, available at http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/codeofvtrules. Thus, consistent with the goal of targeting loss of earning capacity, subject to a floor and a ceiling, the workers’ compensation scheme provides for benefits to workers in proportion to their preinjury average weekly wage; injured workers who had higher preinjury earnings are entitled to higher benefits than those who had lower preinjury earnings.
¶ 27. The provision defining “average weekly wages” also reinforces the earnings-protection purposes of the workers’ compensation laws. 21 V.S.A. § 650. Generally, an injured worker’s average weekly wage is calculated based on the average of that worker’s earnings during the twenty-six weeks preceding the injury. Id. However, periods of sickness or suspension of work during that period don’t count;,if a worker got a raise or other change leading to regular larger wages during that period, the prior period of lower earnings doesn’t count; and concurrent wages from other insured employers count in the calculation of average weekly wage. Id. The statute thus ensures that the average weekly wage calculation reflects as closely as possible the worker’s actual earning power at the time of injury, without distortions caused by sickness, recent raises, or the fact that a worker has multiple jobs.
¶ 28. The specific provision at issue here — the statutory definition of “wages” — must be understood in the context of this *178broader statutory scheme and the goals it promotes. State v. Jarvis, 146 Vt. 636, 637, 509 A.2d 1005, 1006 (1986) (in determining legislative intent, we “must examine and consider fairly, not just isolated sentences or phrases, but the whole and every part of the statute”) (quotation omitted)).
II.
¶ 29. “Wages” is defined in the workers’ compensation statute as follows:
‘Wages” includes bonuses and the market value of board, lodging, fuel and other advantages which can be estimated in money and which the employee receives from the employer as a part of his or her remuneration; but does not include any sum paid by the employer to his or her employee to cover any special expenses entailed on the employee by the nature of his or her employment.
21 V.S.A. § 601(13).
¶ 30. At issue in this case is whether this broad definition of wages includes employer-provided (or subsidized) health insurance. I start with the plain language of the statute. In re Porter, 2012 VT 97, ¶ 10, 192 Vt. 601, 70 A.3d 915 (We first look to the plain language of the statute. If the meaning is clear, we enforce the statute according to its terms without resort to statutory construction.”). In this case, the plain language is fully congruent with the underlying purposes of the statute described above, so I consider the language and purposes of the statute in tandem. Merkel v. Nationwide Ins. Co., 166 Vt. 311, 314, 693 A.2d 706, 707-08 (1997) (reciting that in construing a statute, “[w]e consider the purpose of the statute and look to the broad subject matter of the law, its effects and consequences, and the reason and spirit of the law.” (quotation omitted)). The question is: in light of the language and purposes of the workers’ compensation statute, is health insurance an “other advantage” which can be estimated in money, and which the employee receives from the employer as a part of his or her remuneration?
¶ 31. The broad reference to “other advantages” an employee receives from the employer suggests a legislative intent to cast a wide net, consistent with its goal of protecting earning capacity. We have previously recognized that, although the term “wages” ordinarily implies “compensation in money,” the term, as used in *179Vermont’s workers’ compensation statute, “is synonymous with ‘earnings,’ ” and includes “material objects or benefits other than cash.” Quinn v. Pate, 124 Vt. 121, 124, 197 A.2d 795, 797 (1964); see also 2 A. Larson & L. Larson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law § 93.01[2][a] (2012) (“In computing actual earnings as the beginning point of wage-basis calculations, there should be included not only wages and salary but any thing of value received as consideration for the work, as, for example, tips, bonuses, commissions and room and board, constituting real economic gain to the employee.”).
¶ 32. There can be little doubt that health insurance is an “advantage” received by employees as part of their remuneration. Most workers — 56% — have health insurance through an employer plan. Henry J. Kaiser Family Found. & Health Research & Educ. Trust, Employer Health Benefits: 2012 Annual Survey 50, http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/ 03/8345-employer-health-benefits-annual-survey-full-report-0912.pdf [hereinafter Kaiser Foundation Survey]. The fact that 81% of workers who are eligible to participate in an employer’s plan choose to do so reflects the importance of health insurance to the American worker. Id. at 51. In 2012, employers contributed an average of $4664 for single coverage and $11,429 for family coverage, not counting employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts. Id. at 76, 77. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, in December 2012, health insurance accounted for 8.5% of workers’ total compensation — a greater percentage than paid leave (7%) • and supplemental pay such as overtime, bonuses, or shift differentials (2.4%). Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — December 2012, Table A (Mar. 12, 2013), http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ archives/ecec_03122013.htm. Given the centrality of health insurance as a valuable and substantial component of most workers’ total compensation, I cannot conclude that it is not among the “other advantages” included within the definition of wages.
¶ 33. Employer argues that the term “other advantages” should be understood in the context of the preceding list of benefits — board, lodging and fuel — and that viewed in that light, health insurance is not among the “other advantages” identified by the statute. The majority relies on a U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that an employer’s contribution to a union health and welfare fund that provided benefits to workers was not a “similar *180advantage” to board, rent, housing, or lodging for purposes of the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA). Morrison-Knudsen Constr. Co. v. Dir., Office of Workers’ Comp. Programs, 461 U.S. 624 (1983). The circumstances in Morrison-Knudsen are distinguishable from this case; more importantly, the majority opinion in that case is less persuasive than Justice Marshall’s dissent.
¶ 34. First, the distinctions. The LHWCA at the time defined wages to include “ ‘the reasonable value of board, rent, housing, lodging, or similar advantage received from the employer.’ ” Morrison-Knudsen, 461 U.S. at 629 (quoting LHWCA) (emphasis added). “Wages” in our statute includes “other advantages” received from the employer, without a restriction that those advantages be “similar” to the preceding list. I presume the Legislature chose its terms advisedly; had it intended to limit the “advantages” of employment included in the wage calculation to those that are similar to board, lodging, and fuel, it could have done so. See Robes v. Town of Hartford, 161 Vt. 187, 193, 636 A.2d 342, 347 (1993) (“[W]e presume that the legislature chose its words advisedly. If the legislature had intended the payment of ‘current expenses,’ then it would have used the more specific term rather than the general term ‘expenses.’ ” (citation omitted)).
¶ 35. Second, the benefit at issue in Morrison-Knudsen was different from the health insurance premium in this case in significant ways. In Morrison-Knudsen, pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement, the employer paid a fixed sum for every hour of work to union trust funds for health and welfare, training, and pensions. 461 U.S. at 627 n.3. The Court did not suggest that these contributions were not significant advantages to the worker, but concluded that the value of the injured worker’s interests in the funds to which the employer contributed on his behalf was too nebulous to consider in the calculation of his base wage. Id. at 630-32. Notwithstanding the per-hour contributions by the employer, workers were entitled to actual pension benefits funded by the pension trust fund only if they met certain requirements, and only after vesting; the value of the training fund that had been established by the union was “even more amorphous”; and the value to the injured worker of the health and welfare fund — which covered everything from medical benefits to unemployment benefits to compensation for injuries to the purchase of health insurance — was not ascertainable. Id. The Court emphasized that *181the worker could not have, on the open market, purchased insurance policies similar to the funds administered by the union for the sums contributed by the employer to those funds. Id. at 630. The Court’s analysis in Morrison-Knudsen, as applied to the question before us pursuant to Vermont’s statute, did not undermine the notion that health insurance is an advantage but, rather, focused on the question of whether it could be “estimated in money.” 21 V.S.A. § 601(13).
¶ 36. The benefit at issue in this case — health insurance coverage provided by the employer — is not nebulous in the way that the worker’s interest in the various union trust funds was in Morrison-Knudsen. Whereas health insurance was just one component of a broad array of benefits encompassed by the union health and welfare fund in Morrison-Knudsen, 461 U.S. at 627 n.3, the focus in this case is on health insurance by itself. Health insurance premiums are a fixed sum paid by an employer, either exclusively or with contributions from the worker, that purchase a defined product on the insurance market, or through a regulated self-insurance plan resting on similar actuarial assumptions. A health insurance market drives the cost of premiums, and the cost of a particular plan of coverage is directly related to the scope of coverage available under that plan. In contrast to the situation in Morrison-Knudsen, there is no disconnect here between the employer’s contribution and the benefit received by the employee. There is no mystery about the value of a particular plan of coverage in this context, nor about the value of the employer’s contribution to that plan. In fact, the employer’s contribution to a worker’s health insurance premium is a readily ascertainable sum that often appears on workers’ pay stubs, is documented in the employer’s own books, and must be reported by the employer to workers annually. See 26 U.S.C. § 6051(a)(14).
¶ 37. Moreover, in modem life, health insurance coverage is a valuable resource regardless of whether an insured requires medical treatment. The majority suggested in Morrison-Knudsen that the value of a worker’s protection under a broad union health and welfare fund that encompassed a host of benefits, including but not limited to coverage for health care, is incalculable because it varies depending upon the worker’s use of the benefits provided by that fund; this reasoning, to the extent it is persuasive at all, does not extend to this circumstance. The worker’s remuneration in this case does not include a contingent promise for payment by *182the employer of future medical costs; nothing in this record suggests that the employer would ever pay for the worker’s health care costs. Characterizing the benefit in this case as a promise to pay for future medical expenses flies in the face of the record. The in-kind benefit provided by the employer to the worker in this case is health insurance.5 The question is: Does health insurance have a meaningful and ascertainable value?
¶ 38. Health insurance, as distinguished from the health care for which it may ultimately pay, is a critical and valuable product in its own right. In fact, health insurance is deemed to be such an essential commodity that after 2013 most people in this country will be required to secure health insurance or pay a tax penalty for failing to do so. 26 U.S.C. § 5000A (describing requirement to maintain minimum essential coverage pursuant to Affordable Care Act); Natl Fed’n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius,_U.S._,_, 132 S. Ct. 2566, 2594-99 (2012) (upholding constitutionality of “individual mandate” as within Congress’s taxing power).
¶ 39. The notion that health insurance is not a tangible benefit unless one “uses” it makes no more sense than the suggestion that board and lodging provided to a worker as part of compensation only count as part of wages if the worker sleeps in the lodging and eats the food, or the suggestion that the money payment a worker receives has no value as long as it sits in the worker’s bank account unused. The employer’s argument is especially incongruous given the Department of Labor’s own conclusion that the value of a ski pass is a component of wages for the purpose of calculating an injured worker’s average weekly wage. Gaboric v. Stratton Mountain/Wilberton Inn, No. 12-04WC (Apr. 26, 2004), http://lahor.vermont.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=513. The Commissioner did not consider whether and how many times the injured worker actually skied using the ski pass; the cost of the *183ski pass itself was the basis for the Commissioner’s valuation of that benefit. Id.
¶40. Like an apartment or a ski pass — regardless of how much it is used — health insurance has a significant and determinable value6; insurance companies charge, and individuals and businesses pay, substantial sums in the health insurance market. The suggestion that health insurance has no ascertainable value beyond the future health care for which it might pay ignores this modern economic reality.
¶ 41. Not only is Morrison-Knudsen distinguishable, but the Court’s opinion in that case is less persuasive than Justice Marshall’s dissent when applied to Vermont’s workers’ compensation statute. Justice Marshall recognized that the LHWCA, like the New York workers’ compensation law upon which' it was substantially based, was directed at the “loss of earning power.” 461 U.S. at 640 (Marshall, J., dissenting). He reasoned:
Viewed against this background, the term “wages” as used in the 1927 Act should encompass employer-funded benefits because those benefits indisputably represent a portion of the employee’s earning power. Union members with various benefits that they have collectively bargained for clearly have a greater earning capacity than employees with equal take-home pay but without such benefits. For the purposes of determining a worker’s earning power, there is no principled distinction between direct cash payments and payments into a plan that provides benefits to the employee.
Id. at 641.
¶ 42. Responding to the majority’s view that the value of the benefits was nonetheless too difficult to calculate and therefore not properly considered as part of wages, Justice Marshall said:
In my view, it is better to be roughly right than totally wrong. The trust funds obviously have some value for employees and simply to exclude them from consideration is hardly an appropriate response to uncertainty about *184their precise value. In addition, the statute itself calls only for inclusion of “the reasonable value” of noncash items. While an employer’s contribution may understate the true value of the benefits received under the collective bargaining agreement, it nonetheless provides a readily identifiable and therefore reasonable surrogate for the “advantage” received.
Id. at 642-43 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (citation omitted). As noted above, the market value of an employer’s contribution to a worker’s health insurance premium is much clearer than the value of the broad trust fund benefits Justice Marshall was considering in Morrison-Knudsen. His observation that in service to the statute’s language and purpose, “it is better to be roughly right than totally wrong.” id., applies with even greater force in this case given that the value of a particular plan of coverage is, in the modern insurance market, reflected by the premium associated with that plan.
¶ 43. Even if the “other advantages” in Vermont’s definition of wages had to be similar to board, lodging, and fuel, I would reach the same conclusion. In determining what kind of benefit is “similar” to those on the list, I ask: Similar in what way? What is the unifying principle that connects these in-kind benefits? Board, lodging, and fuel were “the known non-cash components of an employee’s earning power” at the time the workers’ compensation laws were first enacted. Id. at 642. Given the purposes of the workers’ compensation laws, health insurance — a vital necessity of living in modern times, and the single biggest noncash component of most workers’ total compensation — has the same role and at least as much significance today as board, lodging, and fuel did in the past. I see no principled basis for concluding that health insurance is different in kind, or different with respect to the purposes of the workers’ compensation laws, from these other components of remuneration.7
*185¶ 44. My construction not only honors the clear language of the statute, but also best promotes a core purpose of the workers’ compensation system: to protect workers’ earning power. Consider two workers: The first earns $600 per week plus individual health insurance coverage, which the employer covers at 100% for $100 per week. The second earns $700 per week, but because she has no employer-supported health insurance coverage, she has to procure it through another source. Although their cash wages are different, their total earnings are comparable. Assuming that the second can buy individual coverage for a price comparable to the rates available to the first through his employer, their standards of living, after securing health insurance, are likewise comparable. Now assume that they both suffer disabling injuries that prevent them from working, triggering temporary total disability payments. The first stops receiving $600 per week, and is forced to assume the cost of her health insurance through COBRA, at an additional cost to her of $100 per week.8 The second stops receiving $700 per week, and continues to bear the cost of purchasing health insurance through another source.
¶ 45. Pursuant to the majority’s opinion, the first of these workers will have $300 per week in earnings after receiving a weekly workers’ compensation benefit and paying the previously employer-covered insurance premium; the second will have $366 after insurance premiums — substantially more than the first. It doesn’t make sense that two workers with comparable preinjury earning power and actual earnings should receive such disparate support following a disabling injury solely because their respective compensation packages, although comparable in total compensation provided, were constructed differently. See Clodgo, 166 Vt. at 550, 701 A.2d at 1045 (Court should not affirm interpretation that *186is unjust or unreasonable); In re Williston Inn Group, 2008 VT 47, ¶ 16 (rejecting interpretation that undermines regulatory purpose of statute).
¶46. My view is also fully consistent with another important purpose of the workers’ compensation laws: to provide limited and determinate liability to employers. Quinn, 124 Vt. at 124, 197 A.2d at 797. There is nothing open-ended or uncertain about the cost of health insurance premiums.9 The employer is as cognizant of its contributions to an employee’s health insurance coverage as it is of its cash payments to workers. Both are clearly identifiable, documented, and reported sums.
III.
¶ 47. Courts that have considered the issue in the context of their own state workers’ compensation schemes have come down both ways. Although other courts’ analyses may be limited in their persuasiveness given differences in states’ workers’ compensation statutes, other courts’ decisions are nonetheless instructive. See State v. Deyo, 2006 VT 120, ¶ 23 n.5.
¶48. The primary case relied upon by claimant is the Washington Supreme Court’s decision in Cockle v. Department of Labor & Industries, 16 P.3d 583 (Wash. 2001), in which that court considered whether employer contributions to health insurance coverage were components of “wages” in that state’s workers’ compensation statute. The statute in question was very similar to Vermont’s, defining wages to include “the reasonable value of board, housing, fuel, or other consideration of like nature received from the employer as part of the contract of hire.” Id. at 584. The court construed the phrase “board, housing, fuel, or other consideration of like nature” to refer to “identifiable and reasonably calculable in-kind components of a worker’s lost earning capacity at the time of injury that are critical to protecting workers’ basic health and survival,” and concluded that “[c]ore, non fringe benefits such as food, shelter, fuel, and health care all share that ‘like nature.’ ” Id. at 584, 593-94. The Washington legislature codified the court’s ruling in 2007. See Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 51.08.178.
*187¶ 49. The Colorado Court of Appeals likewise construed the phrase “board, rent, housing, lodging, or any other similar advantages received from the employer” to include health insurance, and held that an employee’s replacement cost for securing insurance, less any employee contribution toward the insurance previously provided by the employer, was the measure of the value of the insurance benefit. State Comp. Ins. Auth. v. Smith, 768 P.2d 1256, 1258-59 (Colo. App. 1988). The Colorado legislature subsequently codified the inclusion of health insurance coverage in the definition of wage and expanded the impact of that inclusion by valuing the coverage with reference to the employee’s replacement cost, without regard to the employee’s prior contributions. Humane Soc’y of Pikes Peak Region v. Indus. Claim Appeals Office, 26 P.3d 546 (Colo. App. 2001); see also Ex parte Murray, 490 So. 2d 1238, 1240 (Ala. 1986) (health insurance fell within statutory definition that included in earnings “[wjhatever allowances of any character made to an employee in lieu of wages [and] specified as part of the wage contract” (quotation omitted)); Ciampi v. Hannaford Bros., 681 A.2d 4 (Me. 1996) (health insurance fell within statute that included “[a]ny fringe or other benefit paid by the employer that does not continue during the disability” in calculation of average weekly wage).
¶ 50. Other states have broad statutes that expressly include employer-provided health insurance benefits in the base-wage calculation. See, e.g., Fla. Stat. Ann. § 440.02(28) (including in wages “employer contributions for health insurance for the employee or the employee’s dependents”); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 44-511(a)(2)(A)(ii) (expressly including employer-provided insurance in definition of wage); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. §418.371(2) (including fringe benefits not continued during disability in calculation of average weekly wage, subject to cap).
¶ 51. To be sure, many courts applying their own state statutes have held that health insurance benefits, in the form of premiums or partial premiums, are not included in the base wage calculation. Courts in these cases have generally followed the reasoning of Morrison-Knudsen, construed a more narrow statute, or both. In Lazarus v. Industrial Commission of Arizona, 947 P.2d 875 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1997), cited by the majority, the court declined to include health insurance benefits within the definition of wages. Significantly, and in contrast to Vermont’s statute, the Arizona statute before that court defined “average monthly wage” as “the average *188wage paid during and over the month in which the employee is killed or injured” and provided no further guidance about the definition of wage or the propriety of including in-kind benefits such as board and lodging. Id. at 877.- The inclusion of some in-kind benefits as wages under the Arizona statute arose not from any specific legislative guidance but, rather, from judicial construction of the term “wage.” Id. In addition to following the analysis of Morrison-Knudsen, the court emphasized that the Arizona statute in question was not susceptible to as broad a construction as the statutes before the courts that had included health insurance benefits in the base wage calculation. Id. at 878. Likewise, the statute before the court in Groover v. Johnson Controls World Service, 527 S.E.2d 639, 641 (Ga. Ct. App. 2000), included no language defining “wages” or suggesting, as does the Vermont statute, that the definition of “wages” for the purpose of the workers’ compensation law was broader than the ordinary understanding of that word..
¶ 52. The lessons from these out-of-state cases are two-fold: First, the fact that a number of states include employer-provided health insurance coverage in the calculation of base wage — some expressly by statute and some by judicial construction of more general statutes — undermines the employer’s suggestion that such a system is unworkable. Second, the primary rationales underlying those opinions that exclude health insurance coverage from the calculation of base wage are either inapplicable to our case (because the statutes in question don’t contain broad language like the Vermont statute), or are unpersuasive for the same reasons as the majority’s opinion in Morrison-Knudsen. The two courts that have considered language most nearly identical to, albeit somewhat narrower than, Vermont’s have concluded, as I do, that the language and purposes underlying the respective statutes support inclusion of employer-provided health insurance in the calculation of base wage.
IV.
¶ 53. I recognize that the statute in question predates the ascendance of widespread employer-provided health insurance by many decades, and that the Legislature that launched Vermont’s workers’ compensation system in 1915 did not anticipate the specific question presented by this case. In the absence of clear language and a well understood statutory purpose illuminating the *189Legislature’s intent, the vintage of the statute we are construing might provide a rationale for acceding to the Department’s now-established practice of excluding an employer’s health insurance contributions from the weekly wage calculation. But where the Legislature has spoken clearly, our obligation is to give effect to its intent — whether it expressed that intent through legislation a year ago, a decade ago, or a century ago. As Justice Marshall recognized in his Morrison-Knudsen dissent: “Old laws apply to changed situations. The reach of [an] act is not sustained or opposed by the fact that it is sought to bring new situations under its terms. While a statute speaks from its enactment, even a criminal statute embraces everything which subsequently falls within its scope.” 461 U.S. at 638 (alteration in original) (quoting Browder v. United States, 312 U.S. 335, 339-40 (1941)); see also Griffiths v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 308 U.S. 355, 358 (1939) (“Legislative words are not inert, and derive vitality from the obvious purposes at which they are aimed.”).
¶ 54. Having discerned the Legislature’s intent from the statute that it passed, I cannot conclude that the Legislature’s failure to amend that statute in the face of the Commissioner’s two-decade long interpretation amounts to legislative acquiescence reflecting a new legislative intent. This Court has recognized that, “[although some courts have held that legislative inaction following a contemporaneous interpretation is evidence of that legislature’s intent to adopt the interpretation, ‘[t]he acquiescence of the legislature seems to be of small consequence where the statute or its contemporaneous interpretation was not called to the legislature’s attention.’ ” Lake Bomoseen Ass’n v. Vt. Water Res. Bd., 2005 VT 79, ¶ 21, 178 Vt. 375, 886 A.2d 355 (quoting 2B N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutes and Statutory Construction § 49:10, at 112-14, 117 (6th ed. 2000)). We have quoted approvingly the recognition that “ ‘[legislative inaction has been called a ‘weak reed upon which to lean’ and a ‘poor beacon to follow’ in construing a statute.’ ” Id. (quoting 2B Singer, supra, § 49:10, at 117).
¶ 55. There is no basis in the record or briefing for concluding that the Legislature has considered the question since the Commissioner determined that health insurance coverage was not included within the definition of wages. In fact, the only change the Legislature has ever made to the definition of “wages” in § 601(13) was its addition of bonuses to the types of remuneration included — a change that dates back to 1955. See 1955, No. 228, *190§2. Given the absence of evidence that the Legislature engaged with the issue and opted to leave the Commissioner’s interpretation intact, or even that the Legislature was aware of the Commissioner’s interpretation, I cannot divine a new legislative intent that supersedes that expressed in the statute.
¶ 56. As the majority affirms, this is ultimately a question for the Legislature. I do not share the majority’s view of what the Legislature has already said on the subject, but take heart in the knowledge that if today’s Legislature concludes that the average weekly wage calculation should reflect the value of employer contributions for employee health insurance, it can amend the statute accordingly.
¶ 57. I am authorized. to state that Chief Justice Reiber joins this dissent.

 For this reason, employer’s argument that because employer paid the health insurance premium contributions directly to the insurer, claimant did not “receive” anything from the employer misses the point. Claimant does not argue that the health insurance benefit was a “cash” benefit; the question in this case is whether it is the sort of in-kind, benefit encompassed within the definition of wages. Lodging, board, or fuel provided by an employer to a worker is unquestionably a benefit “reeeive[d] from the employer as a part of [ ] remuneration,” regardless of whether the employer pays a third-party landlord, fuel dealer, or restaurant to supply these in-kind benefits. Employer in this case undisputedly provided the in-kind benefit of health insurance to claimant. The fact that employer paid a third-party vendor to supply the insurance is immaterial to the analysis.

 Nationally, the average premium in 2012 was $5615 for single coverage, and $15,745 per year for family coverage. Kaiser Foundation Survey, supra, at 21. The cost of health insurance coverage is not only readily ascertainable, but is quite substantial.

 The exclusion of employer-provided health insurance coverage from the calculation of an injured worker’s average weekly wage is especially incongruous given the employer-provided in-kind benefits that the Commissioner has concluded should be considered in calculating average weekly wage. See Gaboric, No. 12-04WC (ski pass); Workers’ Compensation Board: Estate of Lyons v. American Flatbread/Peerless Ins. Co., No. 36R-03WC (Nov. 3, 2003), http://labor.vermont.gov/ Default.aspx?tabid=791 (massages).

 Pursuant to the rules and decisions of the Department of Labor, if the employer continues its contributions to the injured worker’s health insurance plan notwithstanding the worker’s disability from work, the value of that benefit would not be included in the calculation of the worker’s average weekly pay for the purposes of temporary total disability benefits, but luould be included for the purposes of permanent partial disability benefits. See Vermont Workers’ Compensation & Occupational Rules 15.4130, 3 Code of Vt. Rules 24-010-003 (value of benefits worker continues to receive during temporary total disability not counted in calculating compensation rate); see Donovan v. AMN Healthcare, No. 12-11WC (May 26, 2011), http://www.labor.vt.gOv/portals/0/WC/DonovanMSJ.pdf (housing allowance included in calculation of average weekly wage for purposes of permanent partial disability benefits even though it was never discontinued by employer).

 Determining the value of employer-provided lodging, which is expressly included in the statute, is actually far more complicated than determining the value of employer-provided health insurance.