Case Title: State ex rel. Wiley v. Whirlpool Corp.

Citation: 2003-Ohio-5100

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2003-10-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as State ex rel. Wiley v. Whirlpool Corp., 100 Ohio St.3d 110, 2003-Ohio-5100.] 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. WILEY, APPELLANT, v. WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION ET AL., 
APPELLEES. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Wiley v. Whirlpool Corp., 100 Ohio St.3d 110, 2003-Ohio-
5100.] 
Workers’ compensation — Mandamus sought to compel Industrial Commission 
to grant relator’s request for temporary total disability compensation — 
Court of appeals’ denial of writ affirmed. 
(No. 2003-0087 — Submitted September 17, 2003 — Decided October 15, 2003.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 02AP-340, 2002-
Ohio-6558. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶1} 
Appellant-claimant Janice H. Wiley was injured in a work-related 
accident on July 16, 1993, while employed by Whirlpool Corporation.  She quit 
Whirlpool on January 3, 1995, under disputed circumstances that are now relevant 
because of her request for temporary total disability compensation (“TTC”) 
starting as of the day after her departure from Whirlpool.  The Industrial 
Commission ultimately denied compensation after finding that neither claimant’s 
actions nor the medical evidence substantiated her claim that her departure was 
injury-induced. 
{¶2} 
Her claim has been allowed for, among other things, reflex 
sympathetic dystrophy.  The record is sketchy as to treatment dates and time 
missed from work prior to her departure from Whirlpool.  Claimant apparently 
missed intermittent work days throughout 1994 due to her allowed condition.  A 
physician’s report mentions “22 or 23” stellate ganglion block procedures in 
1994. 
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{¶3} 
There is evidence of these procedures on February 3, February 28, 
and March 7, 1994.  From April 1, 1994, through December 4, 1994, there is no 
evidence that claimant’s attending physician, Dr. Gerald R. Yarnell, saw her.  
There is evidence only of intermittent telephone conversations.  During these 
calls, claimant generally related a pain level at or below four on a scale of one to 
ten.  A particularly painful episode, however, was recorded on July 25, 1994, after 
a long shift at work. 
{¶4} 
Nothing in Dr. Yarnell’s 1994 records expressly recommended that 
she quit Whirlpool.  Dr. Yarnell indicated in March that he hoped that Whirlpool 
would “be able to find her a job that does not require repetitive activities with her 
left upper extremity and also does not include pulling or lifting with the left upper 
extremity.”  An entry the next month noted that claimant had reported that she 
was struggling physically to do her job.  In a later deposition, however, Dr. 
Yarnell did not recall ever telling claimant that she should leave Whirlpool 
because of her condition. 
{¶5} 
In late December 1994, Whirlpool closed for the holidays.  Upon 
the plant’s reopening on January 3, 1995, claimant told Whirlpool she was 
quitting, effective immediately.  No reason was given on the form claimant 
signed.  A January 16, 1995 consultation form from Dr. Yarnell indicated that 
another stellate ganglion block had been administered that day and related 
claimant’s statement that she had left her job because of pain.  A report of Dr. 
Stephen S. Wunder, however, stated that she told him she had quit in order to care 
for her children.  Claimant’s affidavit indicated that she left to relocate nearer to 
her family.  She claimed that relocation was motivated by her need for family 
assistance in caring for the children due to her injury-related disability. 
{¶6} 
Claimant’s treatment after her departure is unclear.  After the 
January 16, 1995 ganglion block, there is no evidence that she saw Dr. Yarnell 
January Term, 2003 
3 
again until December 11, 1995.  From that point there is evidence of only two 
more visits—on January 25, 1997, and February 6, 1998. 
{¶7} 
On April 26, 1996, claimant moved appellee Industrial 
Commission of Ohio to allow a psychiatric condition and order payment of TTC 
from January 4, 1995, forward.  Later commission orders addressed the issue of 
the psychiatric condition, but not TTC.  Finally, on September 1, 1998, the 
commission considered claimant’s TTC request.  Among other submitted 
evidence were two C-84 physician’s reports from Dr. Yarnell dated January 25, 
1997, and February 6, 1998, that certified claimant as continuously disabled since 
January 3, 1995. 
{¶8} 
A commission majority did not find that these forms supported 
either the claimed disability or claimant’s allegation that her departure from 
Whirlpool was injury-induced.  As to the former: 
{¶9} 
“The Industrial Commission finds that there is no credible medical 
evidence on file to support the payment of temporary total compensation from 
01/04/95 and to continue.  The Industrial Commission notes that most of the 
claimant’s contact with Dr. Yarnell, six months prior to and six months following 
her resignation, was made by telephone.  In addition, the Physician Statement of 
Temporary Total Disability was not completed by Dr. Yarnell until 02/06/98, 
three years after the alleged start date of the claimant’s disability.” 
{¶10} On the question of voluntary versus involuntary separation, the 
commission found: 
{¶11} “[T]he claimant voluntarily abandoned her employment on 
01/03/95, when she resigned from her job at Whirlpool Corporation.  Pursuant to 
the claimant’s testimony at this hearing, she returned to work on 12/23/94, after 
being released to do so by her physician of record.  The claimant testified that the 
company was shut down from Christmas until the new year and that her first day 
back to work was 01/03/95.  The 01/03/95 action slip, as signed by the claimant, 
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indicates a voluntary resignation, with no mention of pain from her injury as the 
reason for her separation from employment or medical documentation of the 
same.” 
{¶12} A dissenting commissioner voted to grant TTC.  He felt that Dr. 
Yarnell’s January 16, 1995 office notes and treatment supported claimant’s 
assertion that she left Whirlpool because of her RSD.  The dissenter did not, 
however, address the majority’s finding that Dr. Yarnell’s C-84s were insufficient 
to support a finding of temporary total disability over the relevant period. 
{¶13} Claimant petitioned the Court of Appeals for Franklin County for a 
writ of mandamus ordering the commission to grant her request for TTC.  Finding 
the commission’s decision to be supported by evidence, the court denied the writ 
of mandamus.  This cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right. 
{¶14} A claimant’s separation from employment is classified as either 
voluntary or involuntary.  See State ex rel. Rockwell Internatl. v. Indus. Comm. 
(1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 44, 531 N.E.2d 678.  The latter includes an injury-induced 
departure and does not affect TTC eligibility.  A voluntary departure, on the other 
hand, for years precluded TTC payment.  That changed three years ago with our 
decision in State ex rel. Baker v. Indus. Comm. (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 376, 732 
N.E.2d 355.  In accordance with Baker, State ex rel. McCoy v. Dedicated 
Transport, Inc., 97 Ohio St.3d 25, 2002-Ohio-5305, 776 N.E.2d 51, held that a 
claimant who voluntarily leaves a position of employment—regardless of the 
circumstances—retains eligibility for TTC “if he or she reenters the work force 
and, due to the original industrial injury, becomes temporarily and totally disabled 
while working at his or her new job.”  McCoy at syllabus. 
{¶15} In the case at bar, there is no evidence that claimant obtained other 
employment after leaving Whirlpool.  Thus, any potential entitlement to TTC 
hinges on whether claimant’s departure was involuntary.  Contending that her 
decision to quit was motivated by injury, claimant asserts a right to TTC.  The 
January Term, 2003 
5 
commission did not agree, and the court of appeals, upon consideration of the 
evidence, found no abuse of discretion.  Our review compels the same conclusion, 
and, accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals. 
{¶16} The commission is the exclusive evaluator of weight and 
credibility of the evidence.  State ex rel. LTV Steel Co. v. Indus. Comm. (2000), 88 
Ohio St.3d 284, 725 N.E.2d 639.  Here, the commission found no injury-induced 
departure based on (1) the lack of any reference to her injury on claimant’s 
departure form, and (2) the lack of credible evidence substantiating a causal 
relationship between injury and departure. 
{¶17} Claimant contends that there is evidence of record that supports her 
position, in particular, her affidavit and Dr. Yarnell’s two C-84s.  This evidence, 
however, is immaterial so long as the commission’s decision is also supported by 
evidence, which it is.  The commission’s evidentiary prerogative entitled it to 
favor claimant’s contemporaneous departure form over her later affidavit.  It also 
permitted the commission to discredit Dr. Yarnell’s belated C-84s in light of 
evidence nearer to claimant’s resignation date that neither indicated a medically 
advised departure nor had the doctor-patient contact to support one. 
{¶18} Accordingly, we find no abuse of discretion and affirm the 
judgment of the court of appeals. 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR and O’DONNELL, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Stephen E. Mindzak Law Offices, L.L.C., and Stephen E. Mindzak, for 
appellant. 
 
Roetzel & Andress, Douglas E. Spiker and Eric S. Bravo, for appellee 
Whirlpool Corporation. 
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Jim Petro, Attorney General, and Gerald H. Waterman, Assistant Attorney 
General, for appellee Industrial Commission. 
__________________