Court Opinion

ID: 9536621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:03:31.31947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:51.837821
License: Public Domain

Fromme, J.,
dissenting. The Workmens Compensation Act has for many years contained provisions for compensation to be paid in case of certain scheduled injuries. (K. S. A. 1974 Supp. 44-510d.) The last paragraph of this statute on scheduled injuries states:
“(23) Whenever the workman is entitled to compensation for a specific injury under the foregoing schedule, the same shall be exclusive of all other compensation except the benefits provided in K. S. A. 44-510, as amended, and no additional compensation shall be allowable or payable for either temporary or permanent disability: Provided, That the director may, in proper cases, allow additional compensation during the actual healing period, such period not to be more than 10 percent (10%) of the total period allowed for the scheduled injury in question nor in any event for longer than fifteen (15) weeks: Provided further, That the return of the workman to his usual occupation shall terminate the healing period.”
The effect of this court’s decisions in Jackson v. Stevens Well Service, 208 Kan. 637, 493 P. 2d 264, Berger v. Hahner, Foreman & Cale, Inc., 211 Kan. 541, 506 P. 2d 1175, and Bergemann v. North Central Foundry, Inc., 215 Kan. 685, 527 P. 2d 1044, has been to move away from disability payments based on scheduled injuries toward payments based on general bodily disability. The present opinion of the majority just about writes the scheduled injury statute out of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. In the future a claimant’s attorney will be remiss, when claimant has suffered a scheduled injury, if he does not obtain medical testimony that the loss of use of the scheduled member has resulted in some other temporary or permanent disability to the body as a whole. The trick will be to obtain medical testimony that the percent of disability to the body as a whole is not based solely on the loss of use of the scheduled member. The claimant’s doctor should be able to testify in most cases that the loss of the scheduled member created some new and distinct disability or injury to the claimant’s body or mind.
The technical distinctions adopted by this court in changing a disability to the scheduled member to one of permanent disability to the body as a whole does violence to the provisions of K. S. A. 44-510d and will have the effect of writing the scheduled injury statute out of the act.
This does violence to the otherwise plain provisions of the act which I cannot accept and I register my dissent.
Fontron, J., joins in the foregoing dissent.