Court Opinion

ID: 9523810
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:47:11.180156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:00.606301
License: Public Domain

Grant, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. As noted in the majority opinion, the compensation court found that although plaintiff was unable to perform work for which she had previous training or experience, she was not entitled to permanent total disability benefits for the stated reason that Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-121(3) (Cum. Supp. 1986), while permitting a finding of total disability when a worker suffers a two-member partial disability in one accident, does not authorize such a finding where a worker suffers the same partial disabilities in two accidents. It seems to be undisputed by the compensation court or the parties that after incurring the second accident, the plaintiff was totally disabled. Therefore, as a result of two accidents, 8 months apart, occurring while plaintiff was working for the same employer, she was rendered 100 percent disabled.
It seems to me that we are considering form over substance in approving the compensation court’s findings in this case. It is true that § 48-121(3) mandatorily provides: “The total loss or permanent total loss of use of both hands, or both arms, or both feet, or both legs, or both eyes, or hearing in both ears, or of any two thereof, in one accident, shall constitute total and permanent disability____” (Emphasis supplied.)
The sentence following that just quoted in § 48-121(3) reads: “In all other cases involving a loss or loss of use of both hands, both arms, both feet, both legs, both eyes, or hearing in both *69ears, or of any two thereof, total and permanent disability shall be determined in accordance with the facts.”
The Workers’ Compensation Act should be liberally construed so as to accomplish the beneficent purposes of the act. Spiker v. John Day Co., 201 Neb. 503, 270 N.W.2d 300 (1978); Behrens v. American Stores Packing Co., ante p. 18, 421 N.W.2d 12 (1988). Spiker, supra at 506, 270 N.W.2d at 303, further states: “The policy of the act should not be thwarted by technical refinements of interpretation.”
If the result of plaintiff’s injuries in two cases is “determined in accordance with the facts,” this plaintiff, in this case, would be awarded permanent total disability benefits.
It appears to me that, in the case before us, the statute must be so construed. I would reverse.
Boslaugh, J., joins in this dissent.