Case Title: State ex rel. Barnes v. Indus. Comm.

Citation: 2007-Ohio-4557

Docket Number: 20061404

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2007-09-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Barnes v. Indus. Comm., 114 Ohio St.3d 444, 2007-Ohio-4557.] 
 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. BARNES, APPELLANT, v. INDUSTRIAL  
COMMISSION OF OHIO ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Barnes v. Indus. Comm., 
 114 Ohio St.3d 444, 2007-Ohio-4557.] 
Workers’ compensation — Evidence of new and changed circumstances — 
Presumption of regularity of proceedings before the Industrial 
Commission — Judgment reversed and writ granted. 
(No. 2006-1404 — Submitted June 5, 2007 — Decided September 19, 2007.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County,  
No. 05AP-298, 2006-Ohio-3082 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellant, Jeffrey L. Barnes, was declared to have attained 
maximum medical improvement in 2002. Two years later, after a new mode of 
treatment and an exacerbation of the allowed conditions, he sought renewed 
temporary total disability compensation.  Appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio 
denied his request without addressing either of these factors.  We must determine 
whether the commission abused its discretion in so doing. 
Case Background 
{¶ 2} Barnes injured his back at work on May 26, 2000, and a workers’ 
compensation claim was allowed for “sprain lumbosacral; disc degeneration at 
L3-4 and L4-5; central disc protrusion at L4-SI.”  He began receiving temporary 
total disability compensation shortly thereafter. 
{¶ 3} The parties do not dispute that in late 2001, the Bureau of 
Workers’ Compensation granted Barnes’s request for epidural steroid injections.  
For reasons unknown, Barnes delayed those injections. 
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{¶ 4} On March 18, 2002, Barnes’s employer, Three Little Pigs, Ltd., 
d.b.a. Hoggy’s, moved to terminate temporary total disability compensation based 
on maximum medical improvement.  The commission granted that motion: 
{¶ 5} “This finding was made in reliance upon the 02/12/2002 report of 
Dr. Zellers and the examination and addendum reports from Dr. Season.  The 
Staff Hearing Officer has considered the claimant’s argument that both of those 
reports were conditioned upon the claimant not undergoing specific named further 
treatment.  In light of the fact that the claimant has not undergone either the 
epidural injections or the rehabilitation and work hardening programs discussed in 
those two reports, notwithstanding the past significant amount of time, the Staff 
Hearing Officer finds that these reports plainly and properly support the finding of 
maximum medical improvement, and constitute the weight of the evidence.  It is 
particularly noteworthy that although epidural injections were approved as long 
ago as 11/06/2001, they have not yet been done.”  That order became final. 
{¶ 6} In March 2003, Barnes saw Dr. Charles B. May because of 
continuing low back pain.  Dr. May recommended that Barnes see a 
neurosurgeon.  On June 23, Barnes met with Dr. Robert A. Dixon, who performed 
a diskogram that revealed a 50 percent “loss of disk height” and “grade II 
tearing.”  Dr. Dixon recommended a PLDD (pericutaneous laser disc 
decompression) procedure, which the bureau approved on September 19, 2003.  
That procedure was successfully performed and was followed by an IDET 
(intradiscal electrothermal therapy) annuloplasty on November 4, 2003.  A 
physical-medicine rehabilitation program was to complement those procedures. 
{¶ 7} Dr. Dixon recommended that Barnes change jobs because of the 
heavy lifting, bending, and twisting that his former position involved, and Barnes 
began seeking work consistent with the physical restrictions he was given. In 
April 2004, while looking for work, Barnes experienced sudden radiating right-
leg pain that caused his leg to buckle and him to fall.  Immediately, Barnes 
January Term, 2007 
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experienced increased severe back pain.  He was re-examined by Dr. May on 
April 28, 2004,  and went to the emergency room the next day because of 
increasing back pain. 
{¶ 8} On June 8, 2004, Barnes moved to have temporary total disability 
compensation reinstated from April 20, 2004, forward. A district hearing officer 
denied that request on September 10, 2004: 
{¶ 9} “Temporary total compensation was terminated by the orders of 
05/31/2002 and 07/22/2002 on the basis of maximum medical improvement.  
Both orders listed the lack of treatment as a factor.  Epidural injection had been 
authorized, but the injured worker did not undergo such in 2002.  In 2003 
treatment became more active.  However, the hearing officer does not feel that the 
renewed treatment changes the status of the injured worker’s extent of disability 
as found by the 05/31/2002 and 07/22/2002 orders.” 
{¶ 10} A staff hearing officer affirmed: 
{¶ 11} “[T]here are no new and changed circumstances since the previous 
finding of the Staff Hearing Officer on 07/22/2002 that the injured worker has 
reached maximum medical improvement.  The injured worker argues that since 
that finding of maximum medical improvement on 07/22/2002, the injured worker 
has undergone epidural injections and has been enrolled in vocational 
rehabilitation.  However, the Staff Hearing Officer is not persuaded by this 
argument.  The Staff Hearing Officer order on 07/22/2002 indicates that the 
epidural injections had been approved prior to his finding of maximum medical 
improvement, but that the injured worker had yet to undergo those epidural 
injections as of 07/22/2002.  That order terminating temporary total compensation 
for the reason of maximum medical improvement also indicated that rehabilitation 
had been recommended, but that the injured worker had not yet undergone these 
services.  The fact that the injured worker later undergoes the recommended 
treatment does not persuade the Staff Hearing Officer today that the injured 
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worker has again become temporarily and totally disabled.”   Further appeal was 
refused. 
{¶ 12} Barnes filed a complaint in mandamus in the Court of Appeals for 
Franklin County, alleging that the commission had abused its discretion in 
refusing to reinstate temporary total disability compensation.  Barnes argued that 
the commission had failed to discuss either the more active treatment that he had 
commenced in 2003 or the April exacerbation as new and changed circumstances 
warranting renewed compensation.  He asked for a writ of mandamus ordering the 
commission to reinstate temporary total disability as of April 20, 2004, or that the 
cause be returned for further consideration.  The court of appeals denied the writ 
after concluding that the lack of discussion established that Barnes had never 
raised these points administratively. 
{¶ 13} Barnes now appeals to this court as of right. 
Legal Analysis 
{¶ 14} Maximum medical improvement is “a treatment plateau (static or 
well-stabilized) at which no fundamental functional or physiological change can 
be expected within reasonable medical probability in spite of continuing medical 
or rehabilitative procedures.  An injured worker may need supportive treatment to 
maintain this level of function.”  Ohio Adm.Code 4121-3-32(A)(1).  R.C. 
4123.56(A) designates maximum medical improvement as one of four statutory 
bases for denying temporary total disability compensation. 
{¶ 15} The litigants do not challenge the initial maximum-medical- 
improvement declaration or the principle that temporary total disability 
compensation can be reinstated, notwithstanding that declaration, if  new and 
changed circumstances demand.  See State ex rel. Bing v. Indus. Comm.  (1991), 
61 Ohio St.3d 424, 426, 575 N.E.2d 177.  We have recognized that a temporary 
worsening, or flare-up, of a claimant’s condition can warrant renewed temporary 
total disability compensation as the claimant struggles to return to the former 
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baseline.  Id. at 427.  A mere increase in treatment or change in  the treatment 
method does not, however, automatically compel renewed temporary total 
compensation. Increased or different treatment does not automatically establish 
that the claimant’s condition has worsened. 
{¶ 16} The commission appears to have denied Barnes’s request for 
renewed compensation on that basis, but no commission order mentions his 
documented exacerbation of his condition in late April 2004.  Because it is 
unclear whether the commission was aware of this incident or inadvertently 
overlooked evidence of it, we grant Barnes’s request for a return of his case to the 
commission for further consideration and an amended order. 
{¶ 17} The court of appeals denied the writ after finding no express 
indication in either hearing-officer order that Barnes had raised administratively 
the issue of exacerbation (and renewed treatment) as a new and changed 
circumstance.  The court reasoned that because the commission speaks 
exclusively through its orders, State ex rel. Yellow Freight Sys., Inc. v. Indus. 
Comm. (1994), 71 Ohio St.3d 139, 142, 642 N.E.2d 378, the lack of reference to 
the exacerbation meant that Barnes had never raised it.  State ex rel. Barnes v. 
Indus. Comm., Franklin App. No. 05AP-298, 2006-Ohio-3082, ¶ 9. 
{¶ 18} We decline to adopt this reasoning because it conflicts with other 
key evidentiary cases and concepts.  For example, in the seminal case of State ex 
rel. Stephenson v. Indus. Comm. (1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 167, 173, 31 OBR 369, 
509 N.E.2d 946, an order denying permanent total disability that made no 
reference to the claimant’s nonmedical disability factors was returned to the 
commission “for consideration of said factors, if previous consideration had not 
been given, and an amended order stating the commission’s findings after such 
consideration.”  We did not assume that the lack of reference demonstrated that 
claimant had not raised her nonmedical factors at hearing. 
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{¶ 19} We reached the same result in another case, State ex rel. Fultz v. 
Indus. Comm. (1994), 69 Ohio St.3d 327, 631 N.E.2d 1057.  There, the 
commission’s failure to include two key reports in a list of evidence considered at 
a permanent total disability hearing prompted the conclusion that the commission 
had either inadvertently or intentionally ignored these documents.  It was not 
assumed that the claimant did not submit and discuss those reports at hearing.  Id. 
at 329. 
{¶ 20} The court of appeals’ rationale puts all litigants in an untenable 
position, since the commission is required to list in its order only the evidence that 
it has relied upon.  State ex rel. Mitchell v. Robbins & Myers, Inc. (1983), 6 Ohio 
St.3d 481, 483-484, 6 OBR 531, 453 N.E.2d 721.  The commission need not list 
all of the evidence considered.  Fultz, 69 Ohio St.3d at 329, 631 N.E.2d 1057.  
Thus, the failure to list a particular piece of evidence cannot be interpreted as 
proof that the evidence was not submitted.  This logic applies equally to the larger 
question of issues raised.  In many cases, a commission’s given finding can moot 
the consideration and discussion of other issues.  For example, a finding that a 
claimant was disabled at the time of an employment separation moots any 
discussion of the voluntariness or involuntariness of departure.  Consequently, 
reference to the departure issue may not appear in the commission’s order, but its 
absence does not mean that the claimant did not also argue at hearing that the 
separation was involuntary. 
{¶ 21} Finally, as Barnes persuasively points out, any presumption of 
regularity that might attach to the commission’s deliberations in this case is 
undermined by the fact that the commission orders at issue did not even properly 
identify the issue before it.  The issue was captioned a “request to terminate 
temporary total,”   which was a misstatement.  The issue was to reinstate, not 
terminate, compensation.  These circumstances cast doubt on whether the 
commission’s order was a definitive declaration of what transpired at the  hearing. 
January Term, 2007 
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{¶ 22} Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is reversed, and 
the commission is ordered to consider the claim further and issue an amended 
order. 
Judgment reversed 
and writ granted. 
 
MOYER, C.J., PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER and CUPP, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
Philip J. Fulton Law Office, Philip J. Fulton, and William A. Thorman III, 
for appellant. 
Marc Dann, Attorney General, and Derrick L. Knapp, Assistant Attorney 
General, for appellee Industrial Commission. 
______________________