## Facts

- Linda Smith worked for Hastings Irrigation Pipe Company and suffered a serious work-related injury that resulted in the loss of several fingers.
- Smith’s prior work experience included jobs such as file clerk, waitress, and salesclerk, which required regular use of both hands and arms.
- After the injury, Smith had lasting functional limits and pain, and she could no longer perform jobs that required constant use of both hands and arms.
- Smith attempted to return to work on January 9, 1984, but testified that she experienced severe pain, including hot, burning sensations in her hand that felt like hot needles going up into her arm, and she had difficulty performing assigned duties without help from coworkers.
- Smith began taking community-college classes aimed at preparing her for managerial-type duties in retail horticulture, work less dependent on two fully functioning hands.
- Smith sought workers’ compensation benefits. The Nebraska Workmen’s Compensation Court awarded compensation, including medical expenses and temporary total disability benefits during treatment.
- The compensation court also found Smith entitled to vocational-rehabilitation services to prepare her for employment consistent with her post-injury limitations.
- Hastings appealed, challenging the award of vocational-rehabilitation services (and, in substance, the findings supporting the need for rehabilitation and the loss of earning power determination).

## Issues

1. Whether sufficient competent evidence supported the Workmen’s Compensation Court’s finding that Smith sustained a compensable loss of earning power due to her injury.
2. Whether the compensation court properly awarded vocational-rehabilitation services, including community-college training, as reasonably necessary to return Smith, as nearly as possible, to suitable gainful employment.

## Decision

- The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the Workmen’s Compensation Court’s award.
- The court held that the record contained sufficient competent evidence to support the finding that Smith suffered a compensable loss of earning power, given her permanent hand impairment, pain, and inability to return to two-handed occupations from her work history.
- The court upheld the vocational-rehabilitation award, concluding that retraining aimed at managerial-type work in retail horticulture was supported by the evidence as reasonably necessary to restore Smith to suitable employment consistent with her limitations.
- The court applied the workers’ compensation appellate standard of review and declined to reweigh the evidence where the compensation court’s factual findings were supported by competent evidence and were not clearly wrong.

## Legal Principles

- On appeal in a Nebraska workers’ compensation case, the compensation court’s factual findings will not be set aside if supported by sufficient competent evidence; the reviewing court does not retry facts and will disturb findings only if clearly wrong.
- “Loss of earning power” concerns reduced earning capacity in the labor market, not merely the existence of some ability to work or the amount of post-injury wages; relevant considerations include permanent physical limits, pain, prior training and experience, and access to work the employee can perform.
- Nebraska workers’ compensation law permits an award of vocational-rehabilitation services when they are reasonably necessary to return the injured worker, as nearly as possible, to suitable gainful employment in light of the worker’s post-injury condition.
- A worker need not prove total unemployability to receive vocational rehabilitation; rehabilitation may be warranted when the injury prevents return to the worker’s prior line of work and retraining is a reasonable means of improving the worker’s employment prospects within medical restrictions.

## Conclusion

Smith v. Hastings Irrigation Pipe Co. affirmed an award of vocational-rehabilitation services where a worker who lost several fingers could no longer perform two-handed work reflected in her job history, and the evidence supported both a compensable loss of earning power and the need for community-college retraining to reach suitable employment.


Smith v. Hastings Irrigation Pipe Co., 386 N.W.2d 9 (1986)