 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Crocker v. Crocker12/10/1991
ced - one for permanent total disability and another for permanent partial disability. A permanently and totally disabled worker is one who lacks the capacity to earn any wages and is hence eligible for wage replacement. Permanent partial disability, on the other hand, means permanent impairment. "Permanent impairment" is defined as "any anatomical or functional abnormality or loss after reasonable medical treatment has been achieved, which abnormality or loss the physician considers to be capable of being evaluated at the time the rating is made. * * *" (Emphasis added.) This definition "not only abandons the old theory of ordinary manual or mechanical labor, but also sets up a new and more specific means of evaluating permanent partial disability by directly equating it to permanent impairment." (Emphasis added.) "Impairment" clearly stands for loss of physical function. Permanent partial disability benefits provide recompense for the worker's lost corporal function and not for foregone income.
In contrast to the impairment regime, the purpose of temporary or permanent total disability compensation is to replace the incapacitated worker's lost earnings. Only the latter payments can be reached for division as marital assets. They clearly are intended as a loss-of-earnings form of payout. The same is also true of temporary partial disability benefits. This compensation form, like that for temporary total disability, is not only based on lost wages; its very purpose is to provide recompense for loss of income "during the continuance" of the disability period. As distinguished from all other payout classes, permanent partial disability contemplates recompense for lost physical fitness, though the amount paid the worker is measured by a percentage of wages he (or she) would have earned but for the covered injury .
Unlike today's opinion, I would treat an award for permanent partial disability as separate property of the married awardee to whom it is a form of recovery for his (or her) impaired body function. Benefits for temporary and permanent total disability and for temporary partial disability are for lost income. Payments that fall under these latter categories should hence be legally available for spousal division.
The husband in this divorce case settled his workers' compensation claim by joint petition. The record does not disclose the nature of his impaired physical condition. To the extent that the lump-sum settlement may be found to include compensation for permanent partial disability, it should be severed on remand from the rest of the award and set apart to the husband as his separate, non-marital asset.
For the reasons stated, I would not classify permanent partial disability as replacement of earnings but as recompense for lost bodily function. The concept is too closely associated with "impaired corporal fitness" to be transmogrified by judicial fiat into a marital asset.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 Oklahoma Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|