Snyder Oil Co. v. Embree

• Decision Date: 15 November 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92SC437,92SC437
• Citation: 862 P.2d 259
• Parties: SNYDER OIL COMPANY and Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority, Petitioners, v. Frank EMBREE; The Industrial Claim Appeals Office of the State of Colorado; and Director, Division of Labor, Respondents.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 259

862 P.2d 259

SNYDER OIL COMPANY and Colorado Compensation Insurance

Authority, Petitioners, v. Frank EMBREE; The Industrial Claim Appeals Office of the

State of Colorado; and Director, Division of

Labor, Respondents.

No. 92SC437.

Supreme Court of Colorado,

En Banc.

Nov. 15, 1993.

Michael J. Steiner, Denver, for petitioners Colorado Compensation Ins. Authority and Snyder Oil Co.

Rebecca Koppes, Greeley, for respondent Frank Embree.

Justice KIRSHBAUM delivered the Opinion of the Court.

In Snyder Oil v. Embree, 839 P.2d 494 (Colo.App.1992), the Colorado Court of Appeals held that section 8-42-110(3), 3B C.R.S. (1990 Supp.), of the Colorado Workers' Compensation Act ¹ did not limit the liability of petitioners Snyder Oil Company and its insurer, the Colorado Compensation Insurance Authority, for permanent partial disability suffered by a disabled employee respondent Frank E. Embree, at Embree's preinjury rate of pay. The court of appeals concluded that the statute was inapplicable because Embree's work-related injury resulted in a decrease in remuneration he previously received from concurrent employers. Having granted Snyder Oil's petition for certiorari, we reverse and remand to the court of appeals with directions.

I

In February 1988, while employed as a pumper by Snyder Oil, Embree slipped on a stairway of a production tank made slick with oil and ice and sustained injuries to his hip and left shoulder. Shortly thereafter, while again performing work for Snyder Oil, Embree re-injured his left shoulder while loading a flat tire onto the bed of a pickup truck.

Embree subsequently filed a workers' compensation claim with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. See § 8-53-101, 3B C.R.S. (1986) (repealed 1990). Snyder Oil admitted liability for temporary total disability in the amount of $3,937.14 and for permanent partial disability in the amount of $3,120. Snyder Oil based its admission of liability for permanent partial disability on section 8-42-110(3), which statute provides as follows:

(3) In any case where an employer reemploys or continues the disabled employee at work in the employment of the employer at the employee's preinjury rate of pay and extends to the employee the usual wage adjustments, the employee's permanent partial disability award shall be limited to permanent medical impairment or a payment under section 8-42-107, whichever is less. This subsection (3) shall not apply if the director finds that due to the injury the employee is permanently unable to perform the duties offered by the employer. If, during the two years following the date of return to work or reemployment, the injured employee, as a result of said employee's permanent disability due to the injury, is dismissed from employment or resigns from employment with the employer, said employee may petition the director for a redetermination of the original permanent partial disability award, and, upon a proper showing of the employee's limitations in the labor market, the director shall order an appropriate award of permanent partial disability.

§ 8-42-110(3), 3B C.R.S. (1990 Supp.). Embree contested Snyder Oil's admission of liability and subsequently requested a hearing before an administrative law judge concerning permanent disability benefits and disfigurement.

At the September 1989 hearing, Embree testified that while he was employed at Snyder Oil he was also a self-employed dairy farmer. Embree stated that because his injuries prevented him from performing irrigation and other activities requiring heavy lifting necessary to maintain the farm, he had suffered some loss in revenue. At the conclusion of the hearing, the administrative law judge found that Embree returned to his employment with Snyder Oil in July of 1988 at the same rate of pay he had received from Snyder Oil prior to his injury; that he suffered a functional impairment of nine percent of the whole body as a working unit; and that he was not able to work as a dairy farmer. The administrative law judge found that Embree was able to return to only one of the two occupations he held at the time of his injury.

The administrative law judge determined that in order for Snyder Oil to qualify for the liability limitations established by section 8-42-110(3), it would have had to reemploy Embree at a rate of pay equivalent to the sums he previously received from both occupations. The administrative law judge concluded that because Snyder Oil had reemployed Embree at a rate of pay equal only to the salary level he was receiving from the company when he was injured, section 8-42-110(3) was not applicable and Snyder Oil was liable for permanent partial disability benefits in the amount of $16,286.40. Upon review, the Industrial Claim Appeals Office affirmed.

Snyder Oil appealed the decision to the court of appeals. The court affirmed, concluding that section 8-42-110(3) is not applicable unless upon reemployment the claimant receives remuneration equal to the total of his or her preinjury pay from all sources. Noting that its decision might result in added cost to employers, the court reasoned that its construction of the statute furthered the legislative policy of providing an incentive for employers to continue to employ their disabled employees at preinjury rates of pay.

II

Snyder Oil argues that section 8-42-110(3) is applicable to limit an employer's liability when, as here, an injured employee is reemployed at the rate of pay paid to that employee by the employer prior to the injury. We agree.

Well established principles of statutory construction guide the resolution of the issue presented. Statutes are to be construed in such manner as to further the legislative intent for which they were enacted. Civil Serv. Comm'n v. Pinder, 812 P.2d 645, 648 (Colo.1991). To discern the intent of the General Assembly, we first examine the language of the statute. Farmers Group, Inc. v. Williams, 805 P.2d 419, 422 (Colo.1991). Words and phrases should be given effect according to their plain and ordinary meaning unless the result is absurd. Colorado Dep't of Social Servs. v. Board of City Comm'rs, 697 P.2d 1, 18 (Colo.1985). Where the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, we need not resort to interpretative rules of statutory construction. Van Waters & Rogers, Inc. v. Keelan, 840 P.2d 1070, 1076 (Colo.1992).

Section 8-42-110(3) provides benefits for an employer liable for permanent partial disability benefits to an employee injured while working for that employer. It applies only to an employer who reemploys an injured employee "at the employee's preinjury rate of pay" and extends "the usual wage adjustments" to the employee. Read as a whole, and giving full meaning to the plain language thereof, the words "rate of pay" and "usual wage adjustments" are limited to the payment arrangements between the injured employee and the employer who is liable for payment of disability benefits because the injury-producing work was performed for that employer.

We recently considered the meaning and purpose of section 8-42-110(3) in Fulton v. King Soopers, 823 P.2d 709 (Colo.1992). In that case the claimant, a member of a union, was injured during his employment at King Soopers. Two months after the injury, the claimant returned to work at his preinjury rate of pay. However, as a result of his injury the claimant was not elevated to the position of a journeyman mechanic by the union until approximately three months later than would have been the case had he not been injured.

King Soopers asserted that the limitations on employer liability for workers' compensation benefits established by section 8-42-110(3) were available to it. The claimant argued that because his elevation to journeyman status was a usual wage adjustment and because King Soopers did not pay him a higher wage until he actually obtained the higher job classification, King Soopers did not extend to him the usual wage adjustments required by the statute and was therefore not eligible to benefit from its provisions.

We rejected the claimant's construction of section 8-42-110(3). We noted that in enacting that statute, the General Assembly attempted to provide an incentive for employers to rehire disabled employees which in turn would benefit both employers and employees. Fulton, 823 P.2d at 715. See Boice v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 800 P.2d 1339, 1341 (Colo.App.1990). We stated that employers would benefit because they would save on their liability for permanent partial disability and would save the expense of training new employees. Fulton, 823 P.2d at 715. We also observed that employees would benefit because they would retain a job that might otherwise be difficult to obtain on the open market. Id.

We found, however, that the incentive created by the statute would be rendered meaningless "if the acts required to trigger the statutory limitation were outside the control of the employer." Id. at 714. We suggested that if employers through their conduct were unable to control the applicability of the statutory limitation, they would be deterred from taking advantage of the reemployment provisions, contrary to the legislative intent and to the detriment of both employers and partially disabled employees. Id. at 714-15. We thus concluded that because the decision to upgrade the claimant to journeyman mechanic was the responsibility of the union, not King Soopers, a construction of the statute that prevented King Soopers from qualifying for its benefits would contravene the legislative intent.

In this case, Snyder Oil sought to take advantage of the reemployment incentive of section 8-42-110(3) by reemploying Embree at the wage rate paid by Snyder Oil to Embree prior to his injury. The court of appeals held that section 8-42-110(3) did not apply to Snyder Oil on the ground that for purposes of the statute an employee's preinjury rate of pay includes sums the employee received from...