## Facts

- Duane Olson was injured in a workplace accident on January 23, 1962 while employed by Manion’s Inc. in Kalispell, Montana.
- At the time of injury, Olson earned $2.60 per hour.
- Olson’s claim was accepted under Montana’s workers’ compensation system, and he received temporary total disability benefits.
- In 1967, the Montana Industrial Accident Board awarded Olson benefits for permanent partial disability under a statute that measured compensation as a percentage of the difference between (a) wages received at the time of injury and (b) the wages the employee “is able to earn thereafter.”
- During later proceedings, Olson sought to introduce evidence bearing on his post-injury earning capacity in the then-current labor market.
- Olson offered proof that by 1972 the same job he held at Manion’s would have paid $4.60 per hour, while he was earning $3.80 per hour working for another employer.
- The Board refused to admit or consider Olson’s wage-progression and parity/inflation evidence, treating it as having no legal effect under the permanent partial disability statute.
- In 1972, the district court affirmed the Board’s decision and its refusal to admit the earning-capacity evidence.
- Olson appealed to the Montana Supreme Court, arguing that the statute required consideration of what he was able to earn after the injury, not a mechanical comparison of nominal wage rates across different years.

## Issues

1. Whether Montana’s permanent partial disability statute required the Board to admit and consider evidence bearing on an injured worker’s post-injury earning capacity, including changes in wage levels over time, when determining “the amount of wages the employee is able to earn thereafter.”

## Decision

- The Montana Supreme Court reversed the district court’s judgment affirming the Board.
- The Court held the statute’s wage-differential language called for a real determination of the employee’s earning ability after the injury, and evidence offered on that subject could not be excluded as legally ineffective.
- The Court remanded for further proceedings consistent with its interpretation, requiring consideration of the excluded earning-capacity evidence.

## Legal Principles

- When statutory language is plain and direct, courts apply it as written rather than rewriting it through administrative or judicial interpretation.
- Under a permanent partial disability statute that measures compensation by the difference between pre-injury wages and what the employee is able to earn after the injury, the fact-finder must assess post-injury earning ability, not merely compare nominal wage rates from different years.
- Evidence that helps show what the worker could have earned but for the injury—such as wage progression in the pre-injury job and post-injury wages in the current labor market—may be considered in deciding what the employee is “able to earn thereafter.”
- A compensation tribunal errs when it treats evidence offered to prove impaired earning capacity (including inflation/parity effects reflected in wage changes) as having no legal effect under a statute that turns on the employee’s ability to earn after the injury.

## Conclusion

Olson v. Manion’s Inc. holds that Montana’s wage-differential statute for permanent partial disability requires admitting and weighing evidence of the worker’s post-injury earning ability, including wage progression and labor-market changes, and the Board and district court erred by excluding such evidence as legally irrelevant.


Olson v. Manion's Inc., 510 P.2d 6 (1973)