This is a workmen’s compensation case. The appeal is by the employer from an order of the circuit court affirming the opinion and award of the South Carolina Industrial Conimission, which affirmed and adopted the opinion and award of the hearing commissioner directing the payment of weekly compensation to claimant.
*109 The employer challenges the opinion and award of the Commission upon the two-fold ground that it requires the payment of compensation without a supporting finding of fact that the claimant suffered a disability, as defined by Section 72-10, Code of 1962, and without any substantial evidence on which such a finding could be based.
Claimant, age 65, was employed by Algernon Blair, Inc., as foreman of a cement finishing crew. While at work on July 20, 1965, he fell from a low scaffold, sustaining a mild conсussion and a sprained neck. He was discharged by his employer on July 30, 1965. In the meantime, according to his testimony, he had suffered periodic pain and dizziness but had lost neither time from work noy wages. He testifiеd that he knew of no reason for his discharge, and none was assigned by his employer. The only other testimony on this point was that his discharge was for unsatisfactory service antedating and not connected with his injury.
“Disability” is defined by Section 72-10, id., as “incapacity because of injury to earn the wages which the employee was receiving at the time of injury in the same or any other employment.” Under Section 72-152, id., compensatiоn fo,r partial disability is based upon a percentage of the difference between the average weekly wages earned by the employee before the injury and “the average wеekly wages which he is able to earn thereafter, * *
The Commission found that claimant’s average wage at the time of his injury was $100.00 per week, but it did not declare the extent of his incapacity, if any, to earn such wages аfter the injury. No,r did it determine the average weekly wages which claimant was able to earn after his injury. Instead of making these essential findings, the Commission adopted the expedient of ordering the employer to pay compensation at the maximum weekly rate for total disability, taking “credit for the periods of time claimant worked and earned wages.”
It is the duty of the Commission to make specific findings uрon which a claimant’s entitlement to compensation may rest and upon which the amount of
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compensation, due him may be calculated by one of the statutory formulae. We have held that awards without such specific findings do not comply with the requirements of the act and are illegal.
Dameron v. Spartan Mills,
211 S. C. 217,
The medical testimony does not indicate a coynpensable disability. Claimant’s own physicians thought that because of his complaints of dizziness, he should not climb scaffolds or ladders, but that hе was, in the words of the first of these witnesses, “perfectly able to, work on the ground.” 1 The report of the employer’s medical expert recognized that Shealy was uncomfortable at times but expressed the view that he was not incapacitated.
While claimant described his symptoms of pain and discomfort rather dramatically, he did not testify that he was unable to work. He refused to so, statе in answer to counsel’s rather leading questions, “Q. Have you been able to work since then? A. Yes, sir. I’ve worked a couple of different *111 days, a couple of different times.” Then, after claimant had dеscribed three cement finishing jobs of short duratiop which he had undertaken and completed, the following question was asked and answered: “Q. Have you been able to do any work besides that since thе accident? Yes, sir. I worked two days — I don’t (know) the name of the company up here on — at Roosevelt Village.” Claimant was then asked whether that was all he had “done since the accident.” In response he stated that he had done a job for Hancock Buick Co. for the agreed price of $720.00, out of which he paid the cost of material and labor.
Claimant testified to a total of six or sеven cement finishing jo.bs which he had undertaken in various capacities and completed between the date of his discharge and the date of the hearing on April 27, 1966. He applied for only two оf these jobs; his services were solicited for the others. His pay rate on these jobs was not less than that he received prio,r to his injury. He testified that he suffered pain and discomfort in performing one of these jobs, but he did not so testify as to any of the others. None of his employers or associates testified that he complained of or exhibited any physical handicap or discomfort whilе at work on these jobs. In fact, a number of them testified to the contrary. One cement finisher, who engaged claimant to help him on several jobs, testified that he did not even know that claimant had been injured until he was interviewed by the employer’s attorney in preparation for the hearing. Another finisher worked “side by side” with claimant for ten hours on one day and eight hours on the next, usually in a kneeling positiоn, without hearing any complaint from him. When this witness testified that he had more offers of cement work than he could fulfill, he was asked by the commissioner why he did not send some of the offerors to, see claimаnt. His reply was, “Well, the fact about it I didn’t know that he was out of work. I haven’t seen him since the last day he worked with me.”
When claimant was asked on cross-examination whether he had applied for wo,rk, he replied that he did so “all the *112 time.” However, he admitted that he had applied for only two of the six or seven jobs on which he had been employed •since his discharge. He made only two other references to any effort to, obtain employment. After describing his discomforting symptoms he testified, “I went out for a couple of jobs and they turned me down. As a matter of fact, when a man my age you can’t get nothing to do' no,how unless it a job they do' for themselves.” And again he stated that while working on Forest Drive, he went across the street and asked about a job with a construction cqmpany. “And the man lоoked at me and said, ‘We don’t need nobody.’ ” Quite clearly this meager testimony has no tendency to establish that claimant’s failure to secure work in either instance resulted from any injury prqduced physiсal impairment.
The record shows that cement finishing is not claimant’s only trade. He was employed as an automobile mechanic by Central Chevrolet Co., Inc., for some time prior to 1950, when he quit this employment tq resume cement finishing. There is no evidence that he has sought employment at this trade since his injury.
Under the terms of the act, an award of compensation must be based upon the claimant’s
“incapacity
bеcause of injury to earn the wages which (he) was receiving at the time of injury in the same or any other employment.” Section 72-10, Code of 1962. The object of the act is to relieve an injured workman frоm the loss or impairment of his
capacity
to earn wages. “(T)he fact that after the injury the employee has not worked and has therefore earned no wages is not in itself determinative of the extent qf loss of his еarning capacity.”
Bowen v. Chiquola Mfg. Co.,
238 S. C. 322, 328,
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All of the medical testimony and the evidence as to claimant’s post-injury activities demonstrate his physical ability to' work at ground level, albeit with ocсasional discomfort according to his testimony. He is not entitled to compensation unless his periods of unemployment were attributable to an injury produced limitation on, or impairment of, his cаpacity to work. The burden of proving causation rested upon claimant. This burden co,uld be met only by evidence that claimant had made reasonable efforts to obtain employment and hаd failed because of an injury produced handicap.
Coleman v. Quality Concrete Products, Inc.,
245 S. C. 625,
Unlike in Coleman, the efforts of this claimant to obtain employment were intermittent and lackadaisical, rather than diligent. More conclusively, there is no evidence to, support an inference that an injury produced physical impairment was the causе of claimant’s failure to secure employment.
For the reasons stated, so much of the judgment appealed from as sustained the award of compensation to claimant must be reversed. There has been no appeal from so; much of the judgment as sustained the award of medical benefits, and that part of the award is not affected by our judgment.
Reversed.
Notes
All of the testimony on the point is that ground level cement finishing work is available in the Columbia area where claimant lives.