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The issue in this case concerns temporary disability and permanent partial disability benefits under Colorado's Workers' Compensation Act. Temporary disability benefits compensate a worker for lost work while she recovers from work-related injuries. A worker receives temporary benefits until, among other possibilities, she reaches maximum medical improvement. §§ 8-42-105,-106, C.R.S. (2005) (describing temporary total and temporary partial disability benefits).
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Our appellate court decisions recognize that mental impairments can be difficult to ascertain. See Davison v. Indus. Claim Appeals Office, 84 P.3d 1023, 1032 (Colo. 2004) (observing that the General Assembly intended mental impairment provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act to help in eliminating frivolous claims while acting to evaluate and pay bona fide claims); Colo. AFL-CIO v. Donlon, 914 P.2d 396, 403 (Colo. App. 1995) (stating that General Assembly rationally promotes cost efficiency in Workers' Compensation system by circumscribing compensation for injuries that are neither physical nor the result of workplace violence). Given their more imprecise nature, the General Assembly can rationally create a system for mental impairment claims when it seeks to contain costs by limiting the extent to which mental impairment injuries can increase a worker's benefits.
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Mental impairment is compensated separately from both scheduled and nonscheduled physical injuries. Section 8-41-301(2), C.R.S. (2005), was added by the legislature in 1991, the same year as the benefits cap statute, and allows a worker to recover both temporary and permanent disability benefits upon a finding of mental impairment. This court determined that section 8-41-301(2)(b) limited compensation for permanent disability benefits to twelve weeks, but that the same section did not limit temporary disability benefits. City of Thornton v. Replogle, 888 P.2d 782 (Colo. 1995). Mental injuries are accorded their own rating as explained in the AMA Guides. See AMA Guides, at 241. A mental injury rating, like a scheduled injury rating, is convertible to a whole person impairment rating according to the Colorado Code of Regulations on workers' compensation. Rule 12-5, 7 C.C.R. 1101-3 (2005).