Phillips v. Old Republic Insurance Co.

*921OPINION

HARBISON, Chief Justice.

In each of these cases an employee was awarded total permanent disability benefits for coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. In each of the cases the employer contends that the trial court erroneously calculated the weekly benefit rate pursuant to T.C.A. § 50-1105. This opinion will deal principally with that issue.

In the case involving Leodis Phillips, however, the employer also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the award. This employee was fifty-two years of age at the time of the trial. He had engaged in underground coal mining for a period of at…