Case Title: POM, Inc. v. Taylor

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: arkansas

Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Date: 1996-07-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
POM, INC., and Commercial Union Insurance v.
Carl Ray TAYLOR and Second Injury Fund

96-342                                             ___ S.W.2d ___

                    Supreme Court of Arkansas
                 Opinion delivered July 15, 1996


1.   Workers' compensation -- test used to determine whether Second
     Injury Fund must compensate injured worker. -- For the Second
     Injury Fund to be required to share liability for an injured
     worker, the employee must have suffered a compensable injury,
     at his present place of employment; second, prior to that
     injury the employee must have had a permanent partial
     disability or impairment; third, the disability or impairment
     must have combined with the recent compensable injury to
     produce the current disability status.

2.   Workers' compensation -- use of wage-loss evidence in
     determining Second Injury Fund Liability -- ability to work
     may be used to corroborate medical evidence. -- Where there is
     medical evidence that the two injuries combined to produce the
     current disability rating, contradictory evidence that the
     claimant was able to return to the same type of labor after
     his first injury is not determinative of the Second Injury
     Fund's liability; however, while the ability to work and lack
     of wage loss cannot be used alone to contradict the medical
     evidence, it may be used to corroborate it when combined with
     other evidence, e.g., medical testimony, that the claimant was
     cured after his first injury.

3.   Workers' compensation -- substantial evidence supported
     Commission's decision -- Second injury Fund not liable. -- The
     evidence from appellee's records that he was for all practical
     purposes "cured" after his first surgery, combined with the
     fact that he returned to work without limitations for some six
     years, was substantial evidence from which the Workers'
     Compensation Commission could have concluded that the Second
     Injury Fund was not responsible for any part of appellee's
     second claim; it was permissible for the Workers' Compensation
     Commission to consider appellee's lack of wage-loss disability
     as some corroboration of that medical testimony; when there is
     any substantial evidence to support the Commission's decision,
     the appellate court will affirm.


     Appeal from the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission;
affirmed.
     Bailey, Trimble, Capps, Lowe, Sellars, & Thomas, by:  Chester
C. Lowe, Jr., for appellant.
     David L. Pake, for appellees.

     David Newbern, Justice.  
     July 15, 1995   *ADVREP*SC4*


POM, INC., and                          96-342
COMMERCIAL UNION INSURANCE              Opinion Delivered:
          
          Appellant

     v.                                 Petition for Review from
                                        the Court of Appeals

CARL RAY TAYLOR and                     Affirmed  
SECOND INJURY FUND


                     David Newbern, Justice.
                                
     This is another in a series of workers' compensation cases
dealing with the proof necessary to establish Second Injury Fund
liability.  In 1989, Carl Ray Taylor suffered a compensable injury
requiring surgery to the L-4 -- L-5 area of his back while he was
employed by the appellant, POM, Inc.  He had suffered a work-
related injury in the same area of his back in 1983.  The second
injury also required surgery.  After his second injury he was
assigned a disability rating of 25%.
     Arkansas Code Ann.  11-9-525(a)(1) and (2) (Repl. 1996)
provides that the Second Injury Fund is established and designed to
insure that an employer employing a handicapped worker will not, in
the event such worker suffers an injury on the job, be held liable
for a greater disability or impairment than actually occurred while
the worker was in the employer's employment.  The Fund pays the
worker the difference between the employer's liability and the
balance of his disability or impairment which results from all
disabilities or impairments combined.  Mid-State Const. Co. v.
Second Injury Fund,  295 Ark. 1,