## Facts

- Jack Jones worked for Udah Crenshaw and Paul A. Wortham in a farm and construction operation, performing varied outdoor labor, including septic-tank work, farm tasks, and occasional work around the home.
- Jones’s employment was irregular: he did not work in bad weather, and he was sent home when no work was available.
- In the 52 weeks before the injury, Jones received pay for only 38 weeks; in only a few weeks did his pay reflect up to a 40-hour week.
- Jones was illiterate and kept no wage or hour records; the employers’ records consisted primarily of cancelled checks, with no withholding or Social Security deductions.
- An accountant reconstructed Jones’s earnings from the cancelled checks, using minimum wage as a proxy to estimate hours and identify weeks worked.
- The parties stipulated that Jones suffered a compensable workplace accident on April 9, 1980, and that he was permanently and totally disabled.
- The trial court calculated Jones’s average weekly wage by dividing total wages by 52 weeks and credited the employers for temporary total disability (TTD) payments against the permanent total disability (PTD) award.
- Jones appealed both the wage calculation method and the credit/offset of TTD against PTD.

## Issues

1. Whether an intermittent/part-time worker’s average weekly wage should be calculated by dividing total wages by 52 weeks or by the number of weeks actually worked.
2. Whether TTD payments may be credited against, or deducted from, a PTD award.
3. Whether gratuitous payments characterized as personal gifts may be treated as “wages” in computing the average weekly wage.

## Decision

- The court reversed the trial court and remanded.
- It held the average weekly wage was miscalculated; the correct divisor was the 38 weeks actually worked, not 52.
- It held the trial court erred by crediting TTD payments against PTD; both benefits may be awarded, subject to the statutory maximum overall liability.
- It affirmed that personal gifts are not “wages” for purposes of the average weekly wage calculation.

## Legal Principles

- For intermittent or part-time employment, average weekly wage is computed by dividing total wages by the number of weeks actually worked, rather than including nonworking weeks that would artificially reduce the wage base.
- Temporary total disability and permanent total disability benefits compensate different periods and may both be recovered; prior TTD payments are not an offset against PTD, though total liability remains limited by statute.
- Gratuitous payments (e.g., personal gifts) are excluded from “wages” when calculating average weekly wage.

## Conclusion

The Tennessee Supreme Court required that an intermittent worker’s average weekly wage reflect only weeks actually worked and held that TTD payments cannot be used to reduce a PTD award, remanding for recomputation of benefits consistent with those rules.


Jones v. Crenshaw, 645 S.W.2d 238 (Tenn. 1983)