Court Opinion

ID: 9622737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:22:41.238597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:07.693554
License: Public Domain

RANSOM, Justice, specially concurring. A worker who suffers an injury to a scheduled member of his body is limited to compensation under the scheduled injury provisions of the Worker’s Compensation Act, unless that injury renders him totally disabled as a whole. Hise Constr. v. Candelaria, 98 N.M. 759, 652 P.2d 1210 (1982). However, the scheduled injury provisions are not exclusive if, in addition to impairment of the scheduled member, there is separate and distinct impairment to other parts of the body with resulting partial disability as a whole. Id. Here, the worker was not totally disabled. Therefore, the judgment must be based upon the scheduled injury unless there is separate and distinct impairment to other parts of the body. On this crucial issue, the majority states that the trial court found the worker’s injuries were to the whole man and not simply to his hand, wrist and elbow. I agree. I do not agree, however, that recitation in the judgment that psychological therapy is a service to be provided if reasonable and necessary constitutes either a finding of a psychological impairment or of necessity for psychological therapy. What I find persuasive is that the court specifically found that the worker had “incapacitating pain in his arm, wrist and right hand.” “Incapacitating pain” is a disability as a whole and not the type of impairment for which compensation is scheduled when loss or loss of use of a specific body member results from an accidental injury. See discussion of “disability vs. impairment” in Perez v. International Minerals and Chem. Corp., 95 N.M. 628, 634-35, 624 P.2d 1025, 1031-32 (Ct.App.), cert. denied, 95 N.M. 669, 625 P.2d 1186 (1981). Incapacitating pain is an impairment related to the central nervous system. Cases from other jurisdictions recognize that incapacitating pain is separate and distinct from the loss or loss of use of the specific body member which was injured. See Gold Kist, Inc. v. Casey, 495 So.2d 1129 (Ala. App.1986); Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Ins. Co. v. Aguirre, 690 S.W.2d 672 (Tex.Ct.App.1985). Cases to the contrary either were decided before the distinction was fully developed between impairment of the scheduled member and impairment to other parts of the body as a result of injury to the scheduled member, or were decided on the basis of pain that was not incapacitating and was no more than normally results from a specific injury. See Sisneros v. Breese Indus., Inc., 73 N.M. 101, 385 P.2d 960 (1963) (regarding machine press accident to worker’s hand, pain that spread to other parts of the body was still incident to the injury suffered and could not be the basis for partial disability to the body as a whole); and Lee v. United States Fidelity & Guar. Co., 66 N.M. 351, 348 P.2d 271 (1960) (cabinet maker not able to work outside in cold weather because scheduled injury to thumb and index finger sensitive to cold). Consequently, the court of appeals erred in reversing the trial court’s award of worker’s compensation benefits under Section 52-1-42 (partial disability as a whole) and in remanding for an award of benefits under Section 52-1-43 (loss or loss of use of specific body members).