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Crowley v. City and County of Honolulu9/9/2002
and should be afforded liberal construction in favor of the employee, to fulfill the humanitarian purposes for which it was enacted. Indeed, since the supreme court's first look at Hawaii's then new workers' compensation statute in 1916, analyses in these kinds of case have been grounded ln the humanitarian purposes premise. Korsak, 94 Hawaii at 306-7, 12 P.3d 1247-48 (brackets, citations and internal quotation marks and block quote format omitted).
Both the legislature's intent in passing the 1995 amendments, and its general purpose in creating our workers' compensation law, indicate that the LIRAB was right in compensating Crowley in the manner that it did. In the typical successive injuries case, the employee suffers his or her respective injuries in different years. As Employer's counsel informed us at oral argument, each year, a different maximum compensation rate, in dollar terms, is set for all compensable injuries suffered during that year, and this maximum compensation rate is used in calculating a claimant's PPD award. The percentage method of offset computation touted by Employer does not take into consideration the fact that PPD compensation for a claimant's earlier work injury may be based on a lower maximum compensation rate than that applicable to the later work injury. Employer's percentage method makes the latter, in effect, applicable across the board. This results in the PPD compensation attributable to the earlier injury, the subtrahend, being artificially higher or inflated, while the PPD compensation attributable to the later injury, the minuend, remains correct, but constant. The remainder, hence, is lower in dollar terms than it should be.
The percentage method of offset computation would do more than prevent double recovery by claimants in successive work injury situations, in many cases it would have the net effect of penalizing a claimant by offsetting an amount higher than would otherwise be paid in PPD compensation for the earlier injury, thus awarding inadequate ultimate compensation for successive work injuries. By the same token, in the off chance that the maximum compensation rate for the later injury is lower than that applicable to the earlier injury, the claimant would enjoy a windfall. In neither event would both the legislature's intent in passing the 1995 amendments, and its general purpose in creating our workers' compensation law, be fulfilled. Only under the LIRAB's method of calculation are the two happily harmonized, in that the claimant is awarded the compensation to which he or she is entitled -- no more, no less.
Accordingly, we affirm the LIRAB's February 14, 2000 decision and order, and the LIRAB's March 22, 2000 order denying Employer's motion for partial reconsideration of the decision and order.
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