 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Bauder v. Alaska Airlines8/2/2002
No. 5603
The judgment of the superior court affirming the underlying decisions of the Alaska Workers' Compensation Board is AFFIRMED for the reasons expressed in the attached opinion of the superior court.
APPENDIX
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT FOR THE STATE OF ALASKA FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT AT SITKA
BROCK C. BAUDER, Appellant, v. ALASKA AIRLINES, INC., and ALASKA WORKERS' COMPENSATION BOARD, Appellees.
Case No. 1SI-99-159 CI
DECISION ON APPEAL
Brock Bauder appeals the determinations by the Alaska Workers' Compensation Board concerning his permanent partial impairment rating, his entitlement to additional temporary total disability benefits and his compensation rate. For the reasons stated below, however, the court concludes that the Board correctly applied the law and that its determinations on these issues were supported by substantial evidence.
Mr. Bauder also argues that the workers' compensation administrator handling his case frivolously or unfairly controverted his claim. But at the time of the controversion, Mr. Bauder was not entitled to a lump sum award and therefore the controversion was not unfair or frivolous.
Finally, Mr. Bauder argues that he is entitled to penalties, interest, attorney's fees, and costs. But, again, the court determines that the Board correctly addressed these claims in its decision.
I. FACTS
On July 24, 1993, Brock Bauder injured his back while working for Alaska Airlines in Sitka, Alaska. This workers' compensation case arises out of that injury and his employment record with Alaska Airlines before and after July 24, 1993.
In the spring of 1988, Mr. Bauder graduated from high school. He fished commercially that summer and then worked for Spenard Builders Supply. But Mr. Bauder had always been intrigued with aviation and flying and he thought the best way to pursue that goal was to work for Alaska Airlines.
In December 1988, as Mr. Bauder tells it, he talked the manager of the Sitka Alaska Airline Station into hiring him as a casual employee to unload a plane loaded with freight. After that, the manager called Mr. Bauder in to work for the airline when employees were sick or on vacation over the holiday season. This casual employment lasted just a few weeks, until early January 1989. Mr. Bauder went fishing again but was re-hired by Alaska Airlines on June 5, 1989 as a temporary, part-time ramp agent. Before Mr. Bauder began to work for the company, he filled out an application and informed the company that he had undergone surgery on his back in 1985 after a high school basketball injury.
Mr. Bauder worked as a temporary employee for Alaska Airlines that summer and in August he applied for a permanent position. On September 5, 1989, he was hired as a permanent, part-time employee on the ramp. He remembers working on and off between September of 1989 and June of 1990 and the records establish that he did work over the holiday season of 1989-1990 and in the spring of that year.
In June of 1990, Alaska Airlines reclassified Mr. Bauder to a full-time position for the summer. In the fall, because of a reduction in flights, he was given the option of returning to part-time employment or being laid off. Mr. Bauder decided to go to college at the University of North Dakota to study aviation administration and to learn to fly. He was laid off on September 3, 1990.
After completing his first year of school, Mr. Bauder wrote to the manager of the Sitka Alaska Airlines station and asked for summer work. He was hired as a temporary, part-time ramp agen
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Alaska Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|