## Facts

- Verle Trainer (age 54) held two concurrent jobs: a full-time night foreman position at Master Plastics and a part-time machinery repair position at American Uniform & Rental Service.
- At Master Plastics, Trainer supervised operators and the operation of three plastic mold machines, working 4:00 p.m. to midnight and earning $2.20 per hour (about $88 per week).
- At American, Trainer repaired and rebuilt machinery, worked only two weeks before the accident, earned $2.00 per hour, and received $36 for the first week and $65 for the second week.
- On January 17, 1969, Trainer was seriously injured in the course of his employment with American (including concussion, laceration, multiple fractures, and sprains).
- The Judge of Industrial Claims found the employments were concurrent but dissimilar and that the statutory wage-calculation methods in Fla. Stat. § 440.14(1), (2), (4), and (5) could not reasonably and fairly be applied due to Trainer’s short tenure at American.
- Applying § 440.14(3), the judge calculated Trainer’s average weekly wage using his full-time weekly wages from Master Plastics rather than his limited part-time earnings at American.
- The Industrial Relations Commission affirmed; the employer and carrier sought certiorari review in the Florida Supreme Court on an asserted conflict in the application of § 440.14.

## Issues

1. When an employee is injured while working a part-time job but also holds a concurrent, dissimilar full-time job, may Fla. Stat. § 440.14(3) allow the employee’s average weekly wage to be based on full-time wages from the separate full-time employment when §§ 440.14(1), (2), (4), and (5) cannot reasonably and fairly be applied?
2. Does using full-time wages from a different, dissimilar employment impermissibly “combine” dissimilar concurrent wages barred by prior precedent?

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court approved the Industrial Relations Commission’s decision and denied certiorari.
- The Court held that, where the other statutory methods cannot reasonably and fairly be applied, § 440.14(3) permits use of the claimant’s “full-time weekly wages” drawn from the claimant’s actual full-time employment, even if that employment is concurrent, dissimilar, and with a different employer.
- The Court concluded the agency did not improperly combine dissimilar wages; it selected the claimant’s full-time wage as the § 440.14(3) measure.

## Legal Principles

- Fla. Stat. § 440.14(3) functions as a fallback method: if the other statutory methods cannot reasonably and fairly be applied, the full-time weekly wages of the injured employee must be used (subject to statutory exceptions).
- When a claimant has only a brief wage history in the injury employment, §§ 440.14(1) and (2) may be impracticable, making § 440.14(3) the controlling method.
- The bar on combining dissimilar concurrent wages does not prevent using § 440.14(3) to reference the claimant’s actual full-time weekly wages from separate concurrent employment; using that wage as the baseline is not a “combination” of earnings.
- Workers’ compensation wage calculations should, within statutory limits, be applied in a manner that reasonably and fairly reflects the worker’s earning capacity.

## Conclusion

The court upheld calculating average weekly wage under § 440.14(3) using the claimant’s actual full-time weekly earnings from a concurrent, dissimilar full-time job when other statutory methods could not fairly be applied due to the claimant’s short part-time employment history where the injury occurred.


Am. Uniform & Rental Serv. v. Trainer, 262 So. 2d 193 (Fla. 1972)