Kelley v. 3-M Co.
| Decision Date | 04 October 1982 |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
| Parties | Patricia Ann KELLEY, Appellee, v. 3-M COMPANY, Appellant. |
Jeffrey L. Cleary, Luther, Anderson & Cleary, Chattanooga, for appellant.
William M. Leech, Jr., Atty. Gen., Frank J. Scanlon, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, B. Stewart Jenkins, Chattanooga, for appellee.
The two issues raised by defendant in this worker's compensation case are whether T.C.A. Sec. 50-1023 as amended violates the equal protection clauses of both the Tennessee and United States Constitutions and whether the chancellor abused his discretion in commuting to a lump sum the weekly payments awarded to plaintiff as a result of her permanent partial disability. We uphold the constitutionality of the act as amended and affirm the chancellor's order of the lump sum award.
Plaintiff was a thirty-year-old divorcee with a tenth grade education at the time of her 1980 back injury which occurred while employed by defendant. From a similar injury in 1974, plaintiff had brought a worker's compensation action against the same defendant and received a judgment of fifty percent permanent partial disability of the body as a whole. Within approximately three years plaintiff had rehabilitated herself from this injury.
After a hearing of all the evidence in this case, the chancellor found that as a result of the 1980 injury, plaintiff had a permanent partial disability of seventy-five percent to the body as a whole, entitling plaintiff to weekly compensation.
In a subsequent hearing on motion to commute these payments into a lump sum, plaintiff testified that her award would primarily be used to purchase a mobile home which she would place on a lot to be given her by her brother. Plaintiff, along with her three children, one in need of medical treatment to his back, was living in a two bedroom home with her sick and elderly parents whose only source of income was social security. Moreover, plaintiff intended to use the award to help rehabilitate herself and develop new skills since she was incapable of resuming her position with defendant.
The chancellor found that plaintiff had demonstrated adequate need so as to grant her motion to commute these payments into a lump sum pursuant to T.C.A. Sec. 50-1023, which reads:
In Smith v. Gallatin Nursing Home, 629 S.W.2d 683 (Tenn.1982), the constitutionality of T.C.A. Sec. 50-1023, as amended, was attacked on the basis of due process and vested statutory rights, and this Court upheld the validity of the act. This defendant insists that the statute violates the equal protection clause of both the Tennessee and United States Constitutions.
Prior to the 1979 amendment to T.C.A. Sec. 50-1023, lump sum distributions were permitted only upon agreement of the parties and approval of the trial judge. Valles v. Daniel Construction Co., 589 S.W.2d 911, 913 (Tenn.1979). Defendant contends that since the amendment to T.C.A. Sec. 50-1023 takes away the right of the employer or the employer's insurance company to agree or disagree to any lump sum award, the employee receives a potential windfall because, under T.C.A. Sec. 50-1025, a lump sum payment is final regardless of any change in the employee's incapacity, whereas, periodic payments may be adjusted should plaintiff's incapacity significantly decrease after a six month period. See T.C.A. Sec. 50-1025. Prior to the 1979 amendment, when an employer's insurance company agreed to a lump sum, it voluntarily assumed the risk that plaintiff's incapacity from the on-the-job injury might decrease. Defendant contends that after the 1979 amendment, its insurance company is given no such option. Therefore, when plai...
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