On July 31, 2026, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals handed down a decision that every injured worker in this state should understand. The court in Roderick Harris v. Lineage Logistics, No. CL-2025-1033, affirmed a result that might strike you as backwards (and you wouldn’t be alone): A trial judge found that claimant Roderick Harris was permanently and totally disabled, but he still walked away with nothing more than the fixed number of weeks the statute assigns to a finger.
If you’ve been hurt on the job in Alabama, this case sets forth a concept that workers’ compensation lawyers explain to our clients—in Alabama workers’ compensation, the body part that’s injured often matters more than how disabled you actually are.
What happened to Roderick Harris?
Roderick Harris worked for cold-storage company Lineage Logistics. He was exposed to extreme cold at work, which resulted in a partial amputation of the index and middle fingers on his right hand, and the index finger on his left. None of the parties disputed that the injury happened at work.
At trial, Harris made his case for permanent total disability. The trial court agreed on the facts; it found that he had proven permanent total disability. But, the court then held that his compensation was nonetheless limited to the amounts listed in Alabama’s injury schedule (Ala. Code § 25-5-57(a)(3)).
On appeal, Harris argued the trial court had the sequence wrong. His position was that a judge should first decide whether an employee is permanently and totally disabled under § 25-5-57(a)(4), and only to reach the schedule under subsection (a)(3) if the answer is no. He argued that the Act “clearly treats permanent partial disability and permanent total disability differently.”
The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. It did not say Harris’s argument was unreasonable; it said it wasn’t free to accept it.
The rule that controlled the outcome for Harris
The Alabama schedule assigns a set number of weeks to specific body parts. The loss of a finger is 43 weeks; loss of a second finger is 31 weeks. Losing the first phalange of a finger counts as losing half the finger, at half the compensation. Those numbers don’t move based on your age, your trade, your education, or the likelihood of you ever being hired to work again.
And there’s precedent for this. In Leach Manufacturing Co. v. Puckett, 284 Ala. 209, 224 So. 2d 242 (1969), the Alabama Supreme Court held that where an injury produces no impairment beyond the scheduled member itself, “the payment of the specified sum is intended to fully compensate the injured employee for the injury sustained.”
The Supreme Court refined this rule in Ex parte Drummond Co., 837 So. 2d 831 (Ala. 2002). This landmark decision replaced Bell v. Driskill, 282 Ala. 640, 213 So. 2d 806 (1968). Under the new precedent, “If the effects of the loss of the member extend to other parts of the body and interfere with their efficiency, the schedule allowed for the lost member is not exclusive.”
The Harris court finding was the same as in Drummond; in that case, the worker’s knee swelling and pain (which were confined to the knee) were not enough to get out of the schedule—neither was Harris’s injury.
What does the Harris case mean for your injury?
1. A finding that you cannot work is not, itself, a ticket outside the schedule.
In the Harris case, the trial court believed he was totally disabled, but it didn’t change the outcome.
2. The evidence that matters is medical, and it must be developed early.
Getting outside the schedule requires proof that the injury’s effects reach beyond the injured member. Nerve damage that travels up the arm, chronic regional pain syndrome, a shoulder or back condition that compensates for the loss, or a documented psychological condition that arises from the injury isn’t enough. The proof must be presented by the treating physician and evaluating experts, and it must be in the record before trial—it cannot be added on appeal.
3. The financial stakes in Alabama are steeper than almost any other state.
Alabama caps weekly permanent partial disability benefits at $220 under Ala. Code § 25-5-68. This figure has not changed since 1987. A scheduled award is a permanent partial award; a claimant confined to the schedule is confined to the lowest such cap in the nation.
Is the schedule the end of the conversation?
Maybe… but maybe not.
If you have a scheduled-member injury, don’t assume the schedule is the end-all, be-all for your claim—but it could be. The distinction turns on medical evidence that most injured workers don’t know how to gather. If you’ve lost a finger, hand, foot, arm, leg, eye, or your hearing on the job—and especially if you’re experiencing pain, numbness, or problems that have spread beyond the injured body part—have your workers’ comp claim evaluated before you accept a scheduled figure.