COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Bray, Annunziata and Frank
CITY OF DANVILLE SCHOOL BOARD AND
SCHOOL SYSTEMS OF VIRGINIA
SELF-INSURANCE ASSOCIATION
MEMORANDUM OPINION*
v. Record No. 1312-99-2 PER CURIAM
FEBRUARY 8, 2000
BONNIE LEE WATSON
FROM THE VIRGINIA WORKERS' COMPENSATION COMMISSION
(Andrew R. Blair, on brief), for appellants.
(Bonnie Lee Watson, pro se, on brief).
City of Danville School Board ("School Board") and its
insurer contend that the Workers' Compensation Commission
(commission) erred in calculating Bonnie Lee Watson's
("claimant") average weekly wage ("AWW") as $663.23 by combining
her wages from three dissimilar jobs she worked for employer
during the fifty-two week period immediately preceding her June
22, 1998 compensable injury by accident. Upon reviewing the
record and the briefs of the parties, we conclude that this
appeal is without merit. Accordingly, we summarily affirm the
commission's decision. See Rule 5A:27.
The facts are not in dispute. Claimant was employed
full-time pursuant to a contract with the School Board to
* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, recodifying Code
§ 17-116.010, this opinion is not designated for publication.
perform three distinct jobs. Her annual salary for 1997 was
$19,120.52. During the school year, she worked as a bus driver
at the rate of $11.14 per hour and as a cafeteria worker at the
rate of $10.02 per hour. During the summer, she worked on
"textbook duty" at a rate of $6.32 per hour. During most of the
year, claimant performed at least two of the jobs on a regular
basis. However, during several weeks in the summer, she
performed only the textbook duties.
Claimant received one paycheck each week, regardless of
whether she performed one or two jobs that week. In determining
claimant's overtime pay, the number of hours worked on each of
the jobs was aggregated.
On June 22, 1998, claimant sustained a compensable back
injury while performing the textbook job. She was disabled from
June 23 through August 19, 1998. During the week of her injury,
claimant was performing only one job for the School Board. She
was scheduled to resume her bus driving duties as well as her
textbook duties on August 5, 1998.
The School Board argued before the commission and now
argues on appeal that the commission should have calculated
claimant's AWW based solely upon the wages she earned in the
textbook job because that was the only job she was actually
working at the time of her injury. The School Board contends
that the commission violated the provisions of Code
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§ 65.2-101(1) when it calculated claimant's AWW by combining the
wages she earned in all three jobs she worked for the School
Board. We disagree.
This case is controlled by Dinwiddie County Sch. Bd. v.
Cole, 258 Va. 430, 520 S.E.2d 650 (1999), in which the Supreme
Court held that earnings received from two dissimilar jobs with
the same employer were properly combined to calculate Cole's
average weekly wage. The Supreme Court specifically noted that
"nothing in Code § 65.2-101 prevents the placing of emphasis
upon the relationship between employer and employee rather than
the type of work being performed in determining the average
weekly wage." Id. at 436, 520 S.E.2d at 653.
In this case, as in Cole, the claimant was working "in the
employment" of the School Board when she was injured, regardless
of which specific job she happened to be performing at the
precise time of her injury. Under these circumstances and in
light of the Supreme Court's holding in Cole, the commission did
not err in combining claimant's wages from all three jobs in
which she had worked for the School Board during the fifty-two
week period immediately preceding her injury in order to
calculate her AWW. The School Board's focus upon the phrase "in
which he was working at the time of the injury" contained in
Code § 65.2-101(1) completely ignores the significance of the
phrase immediately thereafter, which states "during the period
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of fifty-two weeks immediately preceding the date of the
injury."
For these reasons, we affirm the commission's decision.
Affirmed.
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