Case Title: Tate v. Colling Production Service

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1986-10-10T00:00:00Z

Document:
Tate v. Colling Production Service1986 WY 184726 P.2d 100Case Number: 86-170Decided: 10/10/1986Supreme Court of Wyoming
Donald K. TATE, Appellant 
(Employee/Plaintiff),

v.

COLLING PRODUCTION 
SERVICE, Appellee (Employer/Defendant).

Appeal from District 
Court, NatronaCounty, Harry E. Leimback, 
J.

Burton W. Guetz, 
Casper, for appellant.

James R. 
McCarty, Casper, 
for appellee.

Before THOMAS, C.J., and BROWN, CARDINE, URBIGKIT 
and MACY, JJ.

URBIGKIT, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     Claimant Donald Tate 
applied for Worker's Compensation benefits for a knee injury claimed to have 
occurred during pipeline construction activities. The trial-court denial on a 
controverted "accident" issue presents a factual conflict for appellate 
review.

[¶2.]     The claimant, a 
pipeline construction laborer, testified that he sustained a knee injury on 
September 6, 1985, while engaged in carrying a piece of pipe, by bumping his 
knee on a protruding trench pipe which caused the claimed injuries for which 
medical expenses and disability benefits should have been payable. Employer, 
Colling Production Service, objected by denial that a jobsite accident or injury 
occurred, and affirmatively contended that the knee problem was a pre-existing, 
non-job-related medical condition.

[¶3.]     Based on the 
conflicting evidence, the trial court denied benefits, and the issue now 
presented is sufficiency of that evidence to sustain the 
decision.

[¶4.]     Factually, the case is 
unusual and unlikely to recur, and therefore only a brief review of the facts 
will be given. Tate, a company employee for a couple of years, had a history of 
knee problems, was consequently favored in work requirements, and went to an 
Instacare facility as an emergency patient, a couple of days before the 
accident, to secure medical attention for his knee as a non-job-related physical 
difficulty. 

[¶5.]     In conjunction with 
this earlier medical care, the singular evidentiary conflict involved comment or 
report, or lack thereof, of any "accident incident" on the date claimed, with 
the employer and co-worker essentially contradicting the claimant's statements 
as to information afforded that he had in fact injured his knee on that day. 
This conflict was particularly significant since Colling testified that he had 
actually discussed the condition of the knee with Tate prior to leaving the 
jobsite on the claimed accident date, and nothing was said to him about any 
incident involving additional injury. If the testimony of witnesses for the 
employer was believed within the conflict context, strong factual support for 
the trial court's final decision exists in the evidentiary 
record.

[¶6.]     In review after the 
close of evidence, the trial court related to the 
litigants:

"* * * [W]e start out 
with a couple of legal principles, and one is that the Act should be liberally 
construed in favor of the workman when possible; and secondly, that 
nevertheless, the workman has to prove, has the burden of proof of the injury of 
compensability.

* * * * * 
*

"I find it too 
coincidental that an injury occurred September 6th in view of the difficulties 
that had happened earlier in September, and it seems to me that what he was 
complaining of, in view of the testimony that I have heard, was an infection 
early in September that was not diagnosed, but only diagnosed on the 8th or 
10th.

"As in all factual 
situations, a determination has to be made. I find the evidence preponderates in 
favor of the Defendant-employer, that the Employee has failed to meet his burden 
of proof, and I must therefore deny the claim."

[¶7.]     We have only recently 
reiterated the two rules as noted by the trial court for compensation decision 
and added the third rule that the decision will be sustained if supported by 
substantial evidence. See Hampton v. All Field Service, Inc., 726 P.2d 98 
(Wyo. 
1986).

[¶8.]     Finding this to be a 
factual-conflict case, with conflicting evidence, and sufficient supporting 
evidence demonstrated by the record, we affirm.