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Rodriguez v. Monfort11/9/2001
1. Workers' Compensation: Appeal and Error. Under the provisions of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-185 (Cum. Supp. 2000), an appellate court may modify, reverse, or set aside a Workers' Compensation Court decision only when (1) the compensation court acted without or in excess of its powers; (2) the judgment, order, or award was procured by fraud; (3) there is not sufficient competent evidence in the record to warrant the making of the order, judgment, or award; or (4) the findings of fact by the compensation court do not support the order or award.
2. ____: ____. In determining whether to affirm, modify, reverse, or set aside a judgment of the Workers' Compensation Court review panel, a higher appellate court reviews the findings of fact of the trial court which conducted the original hearing; the findings of fact of the trial court will not be disturbed on appeal unless clearly wrong.
3. Statutes. Statutory interpretation presents a question of law.
4. Workers' Compensation: Appeal and Error. An appellate court is obligated in workers' compensation cases to make its own determinations as to questions of law.
5. Statutes: Appeal and Error. When construing a statute, an appellate court must look to the statute's purpose and give to the statute a reasonable construction which best achieves that purpose, rather than a construction which would defeat it.
6. ____: ____. In the absence of anything to the contrary, statutory language is to be given its plain and ordinary meaning; an appellate court will not resort to interpretation to ascertain the meaning of statutory words which are plain, direct, and unambiguous.
7. Statutes. A court must attempt to give effect to all parts of a statute, and if it can be avoided, no word, clause, or sentence will be rejected as superfluous or meaningless; it is not within the province of a court to read anything plain, direct, and unambiguous out of a statute.
8. Workers' Compensation: Presumptions. The plain language of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-162.01(3) (Cum. Supp. 2000) requires both the submission of a plan by the vocational rehabilitation counselor and approval of that plan by a Workers' Compensation Court vocational rehabilitation specialist in order for the plan to benefit from the rebuttable presumption of correctness set forth in § 48-162.01(3).
9. ____: ____. Having declined to evaluate an injured workers' loss of earning capacity, a vocational rehabilitation counselor has not provided a loss of earning capacity opinion from which to afford a rebuttable presumption of correctness.
Petition for further review from the Nebraska Court of Appeals, Hannon, Carlson, and Moore, Judges, on appeal thereto from the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court. Judgment of Court of Appeals reversed, and cause remanded with directions.
NATURE OF CASE
Jose Mauricio Rodriguez, appellant, filed a petition with the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court seeking workers' compensation benefits for injuries allegedly arising out of and in the course of his employment with Monfort, Inc. Following trial, the workers' compensation trial court entered an award in favor of Rodriguez, granting him, inter alia, vocational rehabilitation benefits as a result of his injuries. Monfort appealed the award to the review panel of the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court. Monfort claimed that the court-appointed vocational rehabilitation counselor had opined that Rodriguez did not need vocational rehabilitation benefits and that the trial court had failed to afford the "opinions" of the court-appointed vocational rehabilitation counselor a rebuttable presumption of correctness. The
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