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Crowley v. City and County of Honolulu9/9/2002
Employer-Appellant, self-insured, City and County of Honolulu, Wastewater Management, nka Department of Environmental Services (Employer), appeals the February 14, 2000 decision and order of the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board (LIRAB), and the LIRAB's March 22, 2000 order denying Employer's motion for partial reconsideration of the decision and order. We affirm.
The LIRAB rendered its February 14, 2000 decision and order upon Claimant-Appellee Brian T. Crowley's (Crowley) appeals of the decisions of the Director of Labor and Industrial Relations (Director) on Crowley's two workers' compensation claims for, respectively, lower back injuries suffered in two successive work incidents. The first claim (Case No. AB 97-631) arose out of a January 17, 1995 incident at work. Crowley suffered a compensable injury to his lower back as he yanked on a heavy hose in order to untangle it. On September 18, 1997, the Director decided that Crowley did not suffer any permanent partial disability (PPD) as a result of the January 1995 work injury. The second claim (Case No. AB 97-632) arose out of an April 19, 1996 compensable injury to Crowley's lower back, sustained when he attempted to empty a mop bucket into a sink. In a September 18, 1997 decision, the Director determined that Crowley had sustained 10% PPD of the whole person as a result of the April 1996 work injury.
In a February 14, 2000 decision and order issuing out of the consolidated hearing of Crowley's appeals in Case Nos. AB 97-631 and AB 97-632, the LIRAB modified the Director's decisions by concluding that Crowley sustained 14% PPD of the whole person as a result of the April 1996 injury and 2% PPD of the whole person as a result of the January 1995 injury.
The statute at issue in this appeal, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 386-33(a)(1) (Supp. 2001), provides:
Where prior to any injury an employee suffers from a previous permanent partial disability already existing prior to the injury for which compensation is claimed, and the disability resulting from the injury combines with the previous disability, whether the previous permanent partial disability was incurred during past or present periods of employment, to result in a greater permanent partial disability or in permanent total disability or in death, then weekly benefits shall be paid as follows:
In cases where the disability resulting from the injury combines with the previous disability to result in greater permanent partial disability the employer shall pay the employee compensation for the employee's actual permanent partial disability but for not more than one hundred four weeks; the balance if any of compensation payable to the employee for the employee's actual permanent partial disability shall thereafter be paid out of the special compensation fund; provided that in successive injury cases where the claimant's entire permanent partial disability is due to more than one compensable injury, the amount of the award for the subsequent injury shall be offset by the amount awarded for the prior compensable injury[.] (Enumeration omitted, emphasis supplied.)
While Employer does not controvert the findings in the LIRAB decision and order, it does contest the LIRAB's calculation of Crowley's PPD benefits, insofar as the LIRAB concluded that pursuant to HRS § 386-33(a)(1), compensation for Crowley's PPD award should be calculated as the monetary value of 14% PPD of the whole person ($21,665.28) less the monetary value of the 2% PPD award ($3,063.84), for a total of $18,601.44. Employer asserts that
the [LIRAB's] interpretation of HRS [§] 386-33(a)(1) is inconsistent with the long-standing construction given t
Page 1 2 3 4 Hawaii Personal Injury Attorneys
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