Ranatza v. Higgins Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 June 1945
• Docket Number: 37710.
• Citation: 23 So.2d 45,208 La. 198
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: RANATZA v. HIGGINS INDUSTRIES, Inc.

23 So.2d 45

208 La. 198

RANATZA v. HIGGINS INDUSTRIES, Inc.

No. 37710.

Supreme Court of Louisiana

June 5, 1945

Rehearing Denied June 29, 1945.

Certiorari to Court of Appeal, Orleans.

Stanley A. Baron, of New Orleans, for plaintiff and appellee.

Montgomery Fenner & Brown, of New Orleans, for appellant and defendant.

O'NIELL Chief Justice.

This is a suit for compensation for an injury alleged to have produced permanent total disability to do work of any reasonable character. The suit is brought under paragraph (b) of subsection 1 of section 8 of the Employers' Liability Act, Act No. 20 of 1914, as amended by Act No. 242 of 1928 p. 357.

While the plaintiff was employed as a carpenter at the defendant's shipbuilding plant in New Orleans, on April 25, 1942, he suffered an injury to his right arm, which caused total disability to do the work of a carpenter or to do any work of that kind. The plaintiff has had no training or skill in any other trade except that of a carpenter, which trade he had practiced for 12 years at the time of the accident. His wages then averaged $62.50 per week. Hence he sued for the maximum of $20 per week for the period of his disability, not to exceed 400 weeks, for permanent total disability. The district court gave judgment accordingly, and the court of appeals affirmed the judgment. 18 So.2d 202.

About six months after the accident, the plaintiff obtained employment with the Louisiana Transit Company, as a bus driver over a route of only a few miles, between the station at Carrollton Avenue and Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans, and the terminus at Kenner, Louisiana. The plaintiff's duties included also certain light work about the garage, such as changing the oil, cleaning or changing spark plugs, and otherwise helping in the servicing of the busses. For all of these services, including the driving of the bus, the plaintiff received at the beginning of his employment only small wages about $9 a week, for working only a few hours per day, and thereafter he received $110 per month for about six months and $135 for the remaining eight months, up to the date of the trial of the case. During the whole period of fourteen months he received bonuses amounting to $235. Our calculation is that his earnings averaged $30 per week for the period of approximately sixty weeks, from the time he went to work for the Transit Company to the time of the trial of this case. The defendant therefore contends that the plaintiff is only partially disabled, and hence that he should be compensated according to paragraph (c) of subsection 1 of section 8 of the statute, which provides that for injuries producing partial disability to do work of any reasonable character the injured employee shall receive, during the period of his disability, not exceeding 300 weeks, 65% of the difference between the wages which he was earning at the time of the accident and the wages which he is able to earn after the accident. This of course is subject to the maximum rate of $20 per week.

If the disability, in this instance, should be classified as partial disability, as contended by the defendant, instead of being classified as total disability, as allowed by the district court and the court of appeal, the change in the classification would make no difference in the rate of compensation, because the difference between...