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Gibbs v. State of Alabama Department of Industrial Realtions7/28/2000
In 1992, Roy A. Gibbs, Sr., while working for Jim Walter Resources, Inc., suffered a work-related injury. He had suffered a previous work-related injury. Because of this second injury, he was determined to be entitled to benefits under the Second Injury Trust Fund (SITF). He received benefit payments from the SITF, until he died in 1998. He died of a cause unrelated to his work-related accidents.
After his father's death, Roy A. Gibbs, Jr., and other dependents filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a continuation of the workers' compensation benefits, claiming they, as dependents, were entitled to receive benefits. The parties filed a stipulation of facts and briefs in support of their arguments. The trial court denied the declaratory judgment, holding that the SITF had no obligation to make benefit payments to the dependents. Gibbs, Jr., and other surviving dependents appealed to this court, claiming that the trial court's order was erroneous. We agree.
The facts are not in dispute; we are to determine only whether the trial court properly applied the law to those facts. A trial court's decisions on legal issues are reviewed de novo and are not entitled to a presumption of correctness on appeal. Stewart v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 686 So. 2d 1225 (Ala. Civ. App. 1996).
The trial court's order states that the parties stipulated to the following facts. The worker was injured while working in the line and scope of his employment with Jim Walter Resources, Inc., on March 28, 1992. He had previously suffered work-related injuries. The worker was found to be qualified for, and entitled to receive, benefits under the SITF. The SITF paid him benefits until he died in July 1998.
Section 25-5-57(a)(5), Ala. Code 1975, reads:
"(5) DEATH FOLLOWING DISABILITY.--If an employee sustains an injury occasioned by an accident arising out of and in the course of his or her employment and, during the period of disability caused thereby, death results proximately therefrom, all payments previously made as compensation for the injury shall be deducted from the compensation, if any, due on account of death. If an employee who sustains a permanent partial or permanent total disability, the degree of which has been agreed upon by the parties or has been ascertained by the court, and death results not proximately therefrom, the employee's surviving spouse or dependent children or both shall be entitled to the balance of the payments which would have been due and payable to the worker , whether or not the decedent employee was receiving compensation for permanent total disability, not exceeding, however, the amount that would have been due the surviving spouse or dependent children or both if death had resulted proximately from an injury on account of which compensation is being paid to an employee."
Because the worker died from causes unrelated to his work-related accident, the second sentence of ยง 25-5-57(a)(5) is controlling.
The statute is clear: When the amount of disability benefits due the worker has been established, if the worker then dies from a cause unrelated to the work-related injury, his dependents are entitled to the benefits that would have been due to the worker. "Essentially, the [dependent] steps into the shoes of the worker, to continue receiving the benefits owed." Chatham Steel Corp. v. Shadinger, [Ms. 2980294, May 21, 1999] __ So. 2d __ (Ala. Civ. App. 1999). However, the dependents cannot recover more benefits than the maximum they would have been entitled to had the worker died from his work-related injury. Section 25-5-60, Ala. Code 1975, provides the maximum amount of benefits allowed in cases in which the wo
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