By Ray King
A divided Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a decision by the Arkansas Worker’s Compensation Commission that denied a wage loss award to Leroy Calhoun, who worked for the Area Agency on Aging for Southeast Arkansas (AAA) before he was injured in a traffic accident on Jan. 13, 2016.
Calhoun drove a van as part of the meals on wheels program and received a fractured neck and other injuries. After surgery and multiple treatments, a doctor cleared Calhoun to return to work but said that work had to be done sitting down and said he could not carry objects or drive a vehicle. The doctor also said Calhoun had a 24-percent permanent partial impairment rating to his entire body. That report came out in February 2017.
At the time of the accident, Calhoun was earning an average of $190.49 weekly and was not guaranteed any set hours.
Over the next three months, the insurance carrier for AAA and a nurse who worked for AAA sent letters to Calhoun saying they had light duty work available for him but in testimony before an administrative law judge for the Worker’s Compensation Commission, the nurse said she did not discuss details about the job’s requirements or anticipated weekly wages.
After that hearing, the judge ruled that Calhoun proved he was entitled to a 60-percent wage loss award in addition to the 24-percent disability award, ruling that AAA had not made a bona fide job offer to Calhoun. That ruling was appealed to the full commission which reversed the decision of the judge. The commission said AAA had made a bona fide job offer and said Calhoun would be paid as much if not more than he previously earned.
In the Supreme Court ruling, Associate Justice Courtney Rae Hudson said the court must ask the question of whether or not Calhoun received a bona fide offer to work and to be paid at a wage that equaled or exceeded what he was making before the accident.
Hudson wrote that because the AAA never introduced any evidence pertaining to the number of hours Calhoun would work, there was no proof that he would receive as much or more than what he previously earned.
The ruling sends the case back to the Worker’s Compensation Commission.
