# Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. Fishel

> Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · November 29, 1982 · 694 F.2d 327

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8916122

## Case

- **Full name:** NEWPORT NEWS SHIPBUILDING AND DRY DOCK COMPANY v. Chester FISHEL, Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
- **Decided:** November 29, 1982
- **Citations:** 694 F.2d 327
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Widener
- **Judges:** Ervin, Hall, Widener
- **Cited by:** 18 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8916122

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining the last employer rule but finding instead that the aggravation rule was applicable to the given facts

## Opinion text

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result.
The majority opinion correctly finds that payment for the injury, if made at all, must be made under § 908(f) of the statute and that a literal reading of that section would require Newport News to compensate the claimant for 104 weeks, which is 41.5 weeks *331 more than the claimant would be entitled to for his entire partial hearing loss.
I join with the majority in declining to read the statute to get such a strained result.
At that point, however, I would simply approve the award of 62.5 weeks as the lesser of the two periods (the statute is based on reducing the period of awards to prorate rather than the amount of each payment).
I think it is an unjustifiable reaching out both by the Board and by the majority to apply “the aggravation rule.” Other cases will doubtless come along in which it is necessary to decide whether or not “the aggravation rule” applies. Because I do not think that it is necessary here, I concur in the result only for the reasons I have stated.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8916122. Public record. Not legal advice.