Case Title: State ex rel. Bercaw v. Sunnybreeze Health Care Corp.

Citation: 2008-Ohio-3922

Docket Number: 20071440

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2008-08-13T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Bercaw v. Sunnybreeze Health Care Corp., 119 Ohio St.3d 284, 2008-
Ohio-3922.] 
 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. BERCAW, APPELLANT, v. SUNNYBREEZE HEALTH CARE 
CORPORATION; INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF OHIO, APPELLEE. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Bercaw v. Sunnybreeze Health Care Corp., 
119 Ohio St.3d 284, 2008-Ohio-3922.] 
Workers’ compensation – Commission may accept report of nonexamining 
physician over examining physician – Given commission’s prerogative in 
evaluating evidence, lack of reference in examining physician’s treatment 
notes to claimant’s disability may form basis for denial of compensation. 
(No. 2007-1440 –Submitted May 6, 2008 – Decided August 13, 2008.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County,  
No. 06AP-891, 2007-Ohio-3519. 
__________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} At issue is appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio’s denial of 
appellant Gloria J. Bercaw’s request for temporary total disability compensation.  
In March 2006, Bercaw submitted a C-84 form from Dr. Brian R. Nobbs that 
certified temporary total disability retroactive to April 8, 2004.  Dr. Nobbs’s 
treatment notes for 2004 and 2005 were also submitted.  The notes showed only 
two treatments in 2004 prior to October, when her claim was additionally allowed 
for a herniated lumbar disc.  After that allowance, treatment intensified.  In 
November and December 2004, for example, Bercaw was receiving chiropractic 
treatments almost every other day.  Although the office notes report that her 
condition varied during this time with fluctuations in pain, range of motion, and 
guarding,   none indicate that Bercaw was unable to work because of her back 
condition. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
{¶ 2} Only five visits for treatment were recorded in 2005.  Once again, 
the contemporaneous office notes do not state that Bercaw was unable to return to 
her former position of employment or was temporarily and totally disabled. 
{¶ 3} On April 1, 2006, Dr. Ayodele Adebayo reviewed Bercaw’s 
medical file at the commission’s request.  Dr. Adebayo’s report stated that he had 
reviewed and accepted the allowed conditions and the findings of all examining 
physicians, and he discussed some of the findings that he thought were 
significant.  He concluded that there was insufficient medical documentation to 
substantiate Bercaw’s claim of temporary total disability from 2004 to 2006. 
{¶ 4} Dr. Adebayo’s report prompted a six-page response from Dr. 
Nobbs.  The report largely recapped Dr. Nobbs’s treatment notes, along with 
repeated references to the fact that Dr. Adebayo had never examined or treated 
Bercaw.  Dr. Nobbs, however, failed to address a key question raised by Bercaw’s 
compensation request:  If she was so consistently disabled throughout 2004 and 
2005, why was there no reference to it in any of Dr. Nobbs’s treatment notes? 
{¶ 5} A district hearing officer denied compensation, and a staff hearing 
officer affirmed, relying on both Dr. Adebayo’s report and a lack of 
contemporaneous evidence of disability over the requested period. 
{¶ 6} Bercaw filed a mandamus petition in the Court of Appeals for 
Franklin County.  The court upheld the commission’s order, prompting Bercaw’s 
appeal to this court as of right. 
{¶ 7} In denying temporary 
total 
disability 
compensation, 
the 
commission found Dr. Adebayo’s report to be more persuasive than Dr. Nobbs’s 
evidence.  The commission has exclusive authority to evaluate the weight and 
credibility of the evidence before it.  State ex rel. Burley v. Coil Packing, Inc. 
(1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 18, 20-21, 31 OBR 70, 508 N.E.2d 936.  The commission 
can, consistent with this authority, accept the report of a nonexamining physician 
over that of a doctor who actually examined or treated the claimant.  Here, the 
January Term, 2008 
3 
commission found that Dr. Nobbs’s disability certification was not persuasive in 
light of the lack of contemporaneous reference to temporary total disability while 
Bercaw was being treated by him in 2004 and 2005.  Given the commission’s 
evidentiary prerogative, the commission did not abuse its discretion in relying on 
Dr. Adebayo’s report. 
{¶ 8} The judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, 
C.J., 
and 
PFEIFER, 
LUNDBERG 
STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR, 
O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, and CUPP, JJ., concur. 
___________________ 
Law Office of James A. Whittaker, L.L.C., Laura I. Murphy, and James A. 
Whittaker, for appellant. 
Nancy Hardin Rogers, Attorney General, and Stephen D. Plymale, Senior 
Assistant Attorney General, for appellee Industrial Commission. 
___________________