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Warren v. Industrial Commission of Arizona1/31/2002
542 P.2d at 1161; see also Arizona Workers' Compensation Handbook § 7.4.3, at 7-25 (Ray Jay Davis et al. eds., 1992). In our opinion, Whyte is broader than this accepted interpretation.
The supreme court does address post-injury inflation. Indeed, some of the language in Whyte seems to equate wage and salary increases related to business booms with inflation. See, e.g., 71 Ariz. at 345, 227 P.2d at 234 (hypothetically describing general increase in wages "also due entirely to further inflationary trends"). However, the court also expressly addresses post-injury increases in the standard of living:
The authorities seem to agree that the employee in common with all others must bear the loss resulting from a business depression. It follows as a necessary corollary thereto that the employee in common with all others is entitled to the enjoyment of benefits resulting from general wage increases due to eras of great prosperity in the nation. Id. at 346, 227 P.2d at 235 (emphasis added).
Because inflationary increases are nominal rather than real, see generally McPeak v. Indus. Comm'n, 154 Ariz. 232, 234, 741 P.2d 699, 701 (App. 1987) (discussing difference between real and nominal wages), the court must have meant that an injured worker is entitled to real post-injury increases, not merely to an adjustment for nominal post-injury increases.
We also may take judicial notice of the unprecedented national and local prosperity in recent years, during which wage and salary levels generally increased yet inflation remained relatively low. However, the salaries of ASU's custodial supervisors stagnated until after claimant's injury, when ASU managed to increase them to within 10% of the medium salary for comparable supervisors in the open labor market.
In our opinion, these increases were unrelated to claimant's individual merit and instead resulted from an era of great national prosperity. Because Whyte allows an injured worker to enjoy such increases, they should have been excluded from claimant's post-injury earning capacity. Cf. Hoffman v. Indus. Comm'n, 14 Ariz. App. 244, 246, 482 P.2d 493, 495 (1971) (excluding post-injury increase in union wage from post-injury earning capacity); Carr v. Indus. Comm'n, 2 Ariz. App. 307, 310, 408 P.2d 411, 414 (1965) (excluding post-injury wage increase from post-injury earning capacity).
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, we conclude that the administrative law judge erred by including claimant's post-injury salary increases and merely discounting the increased salary for inflation between the date of injury and the date claimant returned to work as a custodial supervisor for ASU. We accordingly set aside the award and decision upon review.
JON W. THOMPSON, Judge
CONCURRING:
WILLIAM F. GARBARINO Presiding Judge
SUSAN A. EHRLICH, Judge
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