Trzoniec v. General Controls Co.

• Decision Date: 14 February 1966
• Docket Number: No. 3239,3239
• Citation: 100 R.I. 448,216 A.2d 886
• Parties: Stanley TRZONIEC v. GENERAL CONTROLS CO. Eq.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 886

216 A.2d 886

100 R.I. 448

Stanley TRZONIEC v. GENERAL CONTROLS CO.

Eq. No. 3239.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Feb. 14, 1966.

Robert C. Hogan, Providence, for petitioner.

Worrell and Hodge, Eldridge H. Henning, Jr., Providence, for respondent.

JOSLIN, Justice.

This is an appeal from a decree of the workmen's compensation commission denying and dismissing the employee's original petition for total disability compensation and for an 'Acknowledgement of acceptance of liability on employer's behalf, by Employers Mutual of Wassau, as Workmens Comp. Liability Carrier.

The material facts are not in dispute. On November 20, 1960 petitioner, a foreman whose weekly salary was $159 and who had been in respondent's employ for thirty-two years, sustained a compensable injury which totally incapaciated him from engaging in any work from the date of his injury until early in January 1961 when he resumed his regular duties. The respondent paid petitioner his regular salary during that period of disability and in addition paid his hospital and medical expenses. While hospitalized his statement was taken by an adjuster employed by respondent's insurer who advised him that compensation benefits would not be paid because he was 'on salary with the company * * *.' No claim for disability benefits was made until the filing of this petition on September 8, 1964 only a few weeks following the termination of petitioner's employment with respondent.

There is neither direct evidence nor any finding by the commission relating to the reasons which motivated respondent to continue petitioner on the payroll for the duration of his incapacity. In these circumstances and in order not to deny the parties the benefits of any reasonable inference which may naturally and logically arise from the undisputed testimony, we have examined the record with a view to ascertaining what probabilities may reasonably flow from the undisputed facts, Stiness v. Brennan, 51 R.I. 284, 154 A. 122, Valente v. Bourne Mills, 77 R.I. 274, 75 A.2d 191, and we conclude that respondent intended the wage payments as a gratuity in recognition and appreciation of thirty-two years of continuous service by a key employee. Having drawn the inference, it has the same effect and is as much in the case as if it had been established by testimonial evidence. Valent v. Bourne Mills, supra.

We come now to the question of whether a grateful employer's payment of regular weekly wages to an employee during his incapacity for work bars recovery of weekly disability benefits.

The answer lies in how we construct the term 'earning capacity' as used in the rule first adopted in Weber v. American Silk Spinning Co., 38 R.I. 309, 95 A. 603, and ever since consistently followed. Under the Weber rule compensation is awarded only for injuries resulting in a loss or an impairment of earning capacity. The statement of the rule, however, does not assist in determining what we mean by earning capacity. Professor Larson says it is a 'theoretical concept.' 2 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, § 57.20, [100 R.I. 451] p. 4. Definitionally, it connotes an ability or a power to earn rather than wages actually received, United Engineering Co. v. Pillsbury, D.C., 92 F.Supp. 898, 901; and in Dorfman v. Rosenthal Ackerman Millinery Co., 64 R.I. 498, 13 A.2d 268, we recognized the Pillsbury definition when we said that an injured worker may have income other than from earnings, and that the profits taken from a business which he conducts or in which he has an interest are not in themselves evidence of his earning power. Moreover, in Dorfman we relied on Federico's Case, 283 Mass. 430, 186 N.E. 599, 88 A.L.R. 630, where the court equated the product of an ability to earn with the monetary result accruing from a reasonable use of a worker's mental and physical powers.

Within these concepts of what constitutes earning capacity it is our judgment that an employee concededly so disabled as to be unable to engage in any gainful employment has neither an ability nor a power to earn. His right to weekly disability benefits should not be denied because he is employed by a sympathetic employer who continues to pay his salary, not with the intention that the payments be in lieu of compensation but intending them as a voluntary gesture of gratitude for past services rendered. 2 Larson, supra, § 57.34, p. 16; Allen v. Industrial Commission, 87 Ariz. 56, 347 P.2d 710, aff'd 92 Ariz. 357, 377 P.2d 201; O'Neal v. Multi-Purpose Mfg. Co., 243 Miss. 775, 140 So.2d...