Court Opinion

ID: 9733430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:07:32.926593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:41.444436
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree that under Minn.Stat. § 65B.44, subd. 5 (1982), Rindahl is entitled to the reasonable value of the household services she was unable to perform because of her injury. I must respectfully dissent, however, from that portion of the majority decision holding that she is not entitled to disability and income loss benefits under Minn.Stat. § 65B.44 (1982) for her inability to do her farmwork. I would affirm the decisions of the trial court and the court of appeals holding that she is entitled to recover such benefits based on the reasonable value of the services she would have performed on the farm had she not been disabled.
I agree with the majority that the statute is unclear with respect to the compensation of self-employed persons for No Fault benefits for income loss. The express language of the statutory definition of “income,” though, suggests that the legislature recognizes two measures of the value of income loss: the value of the work itself, measured by “salary, wages * * * and other earnings,” and the value of things produced by work. The latter measure, as the majority recognizes, cannot be construed as the exclusive measure of a self-employed person’s income; a self-employed person may also recover for the value of his or her work. When, as here, a self-employed person does not pay herself a salary or wages, the question becomes how the term “other earnings” is to be interpreted to measure income loss.
At common law the "reasonable value” of services provided is often used as a substitute method of valuation of work when other means fail or must be supplied in the interest of justice. Given that the *301statute is intended not to penalize self-employed persons who do not pay themselves salaries or wages, similarly construing “other earnings” as the reasonable value of the services is consistent with the legislative scheme. Further, measuring “other earnings” by the reasonable value of services comports with the legislative intent to permit benefits to be calculated on some “direct, certain basis.” The reasonable value of most services is subject to relatively simple and objective proof. In contrast, proof of loss of gross income and proof that the injury was a cause of such loss is extremely difficult to show. This is especially true when the claimant is a small farmer whose business is directly affected by numerous unpredictable variables ranging from the seasonal rainfall to political responses to international agricultural production. A self-employed small farmer, operating under those conditions, may well find proving that a drop in gross income was attributable to a short term injury an impossible hurdle. This penalty, imposed on self-employed persons who do not have the option of either paying themselves wages or hiring substitute help by requiring proof of gross income loss, is obscured by the majority’s approach. In small farming operations in particular, cash on hand is a scarce resource. Yet, under the majority’s rule, had Rindahl been able to hire substitute help, she would have been able to recover the cost of doing so and, further, to avoid the burden of proving a decline in business income. I do not agree that this disparity of treatment comports with the intent of the statute. I would affirm the court of appeals.