Court Opinion

ID: 9660622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:17:04.747533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:20.896780
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Justice
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Raising the shield of stare decisis, the majority today turns from the uncertainty and confusion appellate courts have brought to the interpretation of Section 287.250, RSMo 1986, and declares itself willing to perpetuate both in the name of “the uniform course of prior holdings going back for more than fifty years” (At 106). Further, the majority creates a re-buttable presumption that all medical bills submitted by a claimant which she testifies are related to her injury are fair and reasonable. While I do not disagree with the majority’s approach, until today, the law in Missouri was that paid bills were presumed reasonable and unpaid bills bore no such presumption. On this legal tenet, both the Commission and the employer relied at the hearing. The majority acknowledges as much. To change the rules without allowing the employer an opportunity to rebut the newly-imposed presumption seems manifestly unfair to me.
I concur in that portion of the opinion which finds Martin’s injury compensable, that Mid-America Farm Lines, Inc. is the employer and that interest accrues at the statutory rate. However, I respectfully dissent from those portions of the opinion which establish the rate of compensation and approve the medical bills without further hearing.
In this case, the Court of Appeals, Southern District, held that Mrs. Martin failed to establish a compensation rate and was thus entitled only to the statutory minimum of $40.00 per week. Recognizing that its analysis of the appropriate compensation rate was contrary to May v. U.B.C. Marketing, 719 S.W.2d 43 (Mo.App.1986), that court transferred the case to this Court. While reaching a result consistent with precedent, the Court of Appeals, Eastern District, in May, apparently took no comfort in its decision.
The statute is ambiguous and very confusing to employers and employees, to lawyers, and to judges. It seems to have been adopted for employment practices as they existed in a previous day. The term “continuous” employment as used in section 287.250(1) should be better defined. Subsections 4 and 5 of that statute refer to “custom to operate” which would seem by the plain language to apply to the employer’s business rather than to the days worked by the employee by his choice, although the cases hold otherwise. (Citations omitted.)
May, 719 S.W.2d at 45-6. In his opinion for the unanimous Court of Appeals, Southern District, Judge Maus determined to seek an end to the confusion, hoping this Court could achieve that end. Obviously that hope was in vain.
Martin was a part-time employee. She did not go with her husband on every trip; instead, she chose the trips on which she would accompany him. Determination of the appropriate compensation rate has been particularly difficult when part-time employees are involved. No party argues that Section 287.250(1) applies in this case. This is because the word “continuously” has been held by the Court of Appeals to apply only to full-time, as opposed to part-time, working arrangements. Glazebrook v. Hazelwood School District, 498 S.W.2d 823 (Mo.App.1973); Baer v. City of Brook-field, 366 S.W.2d 469 (Mo.App.1963); Bicanic v. Kroger Grocery and Baking Company, 117 S.W.2d 650 (Mo.App.1938); Bietsch v. Midwest Piping and Supply Company, 86 S.W.2d 187 (Mo.App.1935); and Coble v. Scullin Steel Company, 54 S.W.2d 777 (Mo.App.1932). Martin was thus not employed by Mid-America “continuously during the year next preceding the injury” as that phrase has been interpreted by the courts.
*114Heretofore, Section 287.250(3) has been interpreted in the same manner as subdivision 1 applying only to full-time employees “who accept employment normally requiring full year services but who are injured prior to the expiration of a year after initial hiring.” Eagle v. City of St. James, 669 S.W.2d 36, 40 (Mo.App.1984). See also Glazebrook, 498 S.W.2d at 827. This Court has followed Glazebrook. Stegeman v. St. Francis Xavier Parish, 611 S.W.2d 204, 210 (Mo. banc 1981).
Having eliminated the applicability of subdivisions 1 and 3 by construction, our courts have employed subdivisions 4 and 5 to determine the compensation rate for part-time employees, irrespective of the length or nature of their employment relationship with the employer. Cope v. House of Maret, 729 S.W.2d 641 (Mo.App.1987); May, 719 S.W.2d at 45; Glazebrook, 498 S.W.2d at 829. Yet, the language in subdivision 4 describes “employments in which it is the custom to operate throughout the working days of the year ...” (emphasis added). Subdivision 5 applies to “employments in which it is the custom to operate for a part of the whole number of working days in each year ...” (emphasis added). Nevertheless, this Court has construed that language to mean the number of days worked by the employee, not the number of days which the employer operates. “Subdivision (e) [5], relating to employees in businesses in which it is the custom to operate for only a part of the whole number of working days, of necessity applies to workmen of less than full-year employment.” Hartman v. Union Electric Light & Power Company, 331 Mo. 230, 53 S.W.2d 241, 245 (1932). The court of appeals has followed Hartman. May, 719 S.W.2d at 46; Eagle, 669 S.W.2d at 41; Glazebrook, 498 S.W.2d at 827.
When reviewing the history of our courts’ interpretations of Section 287.250, one is left with the distinct impression that the judicial system has exacerbated the problems created by the legislature’s imprecise language by adopting cramped, outcome directed, constructions of that language. I find no compelling rationale which requires the word “continuously” as found in subdivision 1 to mean only full-time employees; this, of course, is the key to the majority’s conclusion. Yet, it is the length of the employment which provides the distinction drawn in subdivision 1, not whether it is full or part-time. An employee can agree to work one day each week for a full year. In my view, such employment is continuous even though part-time since it is “characterized by uninterrupted extension in time or sequence_” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 494 (1966). I believe that Coble v. Scullin Steel Co., 54 S.W.2d 777 (Mo.App.1932), is simply wrong.
Once one abandons the notion that “continuously” limits subdivision 1 to full-time employees, subdivision 3 can be applied to part-time employment situations for which subdivision 1 would provide the rate but for the occurrence of an injury prior to the expiration of a year’s employment. Such a result is not inconsistent with the language of Glazebrook limiting subdivision 3 to “employees who accept employment which normally requires services for a full year_” Glazebrook, 498 S.W.2d at 827.
Moreover, such a result avoids unrealistic annual wage calculations and advances at least two worthy policy objectives. As to the former, “in New York ... a housewife ... for over two years worked only one day a week as a machine cleaner. Although her regular pay for this had amounted to only $10.03 a week, the Board awarded her temporary total benefits of $25.72 a week, a figure arrived at by applying the portion of the wage-calculation formula that calls for multiplying the daily wage by 200 to arrive at the annual earning capacity.” 2 Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation, § 60.21(c) (1987) (footnote omitted).1 In this case, a similar distortion arises under subdivision 5. Martin was employed for fifteen weeks prior to her injury. During those fifteen weeks, *115she worked but eighteen days and received $1,032.52 in compensation. Yet, under the majority’s holding, she will receive $3,309.23 ($220.61 X 15) for the next fifteen weeks as a result of her injury.
As to policy objectives, the first relates to the desirability that any award accurately reflect the claimant’s future earning capacity.
Since the entire objective is to arrive at as fair an estimate as possible of the claimant’s future earning capacity, a claimant who has made only part-time earnings should have his wage basis figured on part-time wages only if the employment itself or his relation to it is inherently a part-time one and likely to remain so; otherwise his earnings should be converted to a full time basis.
2 Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation, § 60.00 (1987).
Second, the purpose of the act is to make the employee whole, not provide an opportunity for a windfall as a result of an injury. The use of either subdivision 4, for which Martin argues, or subdivision 5, which the Commission employed, results in a financial windfall to Martin which does not reflect her chosen earning capacity under her part-time arrangement. “ ‘[T]he purpose of the Act is to compensate, or ‘make whole,’ an injured employee, not create a financial windfall. To hold otherwise would create a situation in which it is more advantageous, financially, to be injured than to be employed.’ ” Hosler v. Industrial Commission, 97 Ill.2d 46, 52, 73 Ill.Dec. 447, 450, 454 N.E.2d 307, 310 (1983). See also Cardiff v. Industrial Commission, 128 Ill.App.3d 52, 83 Ill.Dec. 671, 470 N.E.2d 1091 (1984), and Pawhuska Auction Company v. Cochran, 471 P.2d 451 (Okla.1970).
I would hold that Section 287.250(3) applies in this case. There is no question but that Martin failed to establish “the annual earnings which persons of the same class in the same employment and same location ... have earned during that period_” Section 287.250(3). I do not fault Martin for that omission, however, since under prior interpretations of Section 287.250, she had no reasonable expectation that subdivision 3 would apply in her case. (One wonders what reasonable expectation she could have had given the courts’ decisions.) I would remand to the Commission for a hearing at which Martin will be allowed to produce proof in a manner consistent with the requirements of Section 287.250(3).
Finally, on the issue of the medical bills, I would reverse. On remand, the employer should be given an opportunity to show that the bills submitted are unreasonable, unfair, or not related to the injury in light of the rule announced by the majority today.

. The majority rejects Larson’s views on the basis that his views diverge from those expressed in our cases. One would hope that this Court would be open to changing its views in the face of well-reasoned criticism.