Title: Regis v. Daimlerchrysler Corporation

State: delaware

Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
CASSANDRA REGIS,  
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  No. 413, 2004 
 
 
Appellant,  
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  Court Below:  Superior Court 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
)  of the State of Delaware in 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  and for New Castle County 
DAIMLERCHRYSLER   
 
) 
CORPORATION,  
 
 
)  C.A. No. 03A-06-002 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
 
 
Appellee. 
 
 
) 
 
Submitted:  January 26, 2005 
Decided:  February 14, 2005 
 
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND, and RIDGELY, Justices. 
 
O R D E R 
 
 
This 14th day of February 2005, on consideration of the parties’ briefs, it 
appears to the Court that: 
 
1. 
Cassandra Regis appeals a judgment of the Superior Court upholding 
a decision of the Industrial Accident Board in favor of her employer, Appellee 
Daimler Chrysler Corporation.  The Board denied Regis’s petition for both total 
disability benefits and reimbursement of medical expenses, finding that Regis’s on-
the-job fall did not cause her injuries.  Because the record demonstrates that the 
Board weighed equally competing sets of testimony, we find that the record 
provides substantial evidence to support the IAB’s conclusion that Regis did not 
suffer a compensable accident.  Accordingly, we affirm.  
 
2
 
2. 
In June 2001, Regis fell while working in an automotive spraybooth at 
Chrysler’s Newark plant, injuring her tailbone, head, and back.  Before the Board, 
Regis claimed that she lodged her right foot in the booth’s belt housing and her left 
foot on a nearby grate after overspraying the housing.  Regis asserted that she fell 
while attempting to extricate her feet, which she maintained were stuck to the 
housing and the floor.  After complaining of severe pain, Regis’s supervisors sent 
her to Christiana Hospital for treatment. 
3. 
At the hospital, doctors ordered a variety of tests, which revealed 
Regis suffered from bursitis, a partial tear to the shoulder tendon, and an upper 
motor-neuron lesion.  By deposition, Regis’s medical expert testified that the 
lesion had caused permanent disfigurement to her left hand.  The expert maintained 
that these injuries rendered Regis totally disabled.   
4. 
On cross-examination, however, Regis’s expert admitted that he based 
his opinion in part on Regis’s complaints and acknowledged that, because of a 
prior injury, he could not be sure that the spraybooth accident caused Regis’s 
injuries.  Chrysler’s medical experts, moreover, testified that Regis’s injuries were 
likely psychological and that she was not totally disabled.  Chrysler bolstered this 
testimony by showing a post-accident surveillance videotape that demonstrated 
Regis using her left hand in a variety of situations that require a normal range of 
motion. 
 
3
 
5. 
On appeal from the Superior Court’s review of an IAB decision, 
“[t]his Court, replicating the role of the Superior Court, reviews de novo legal 
issues decided by the Board and reviews factual findings to determine whether 
they are supported by substantial evidence.”1  Substantial evidence is defined as 
“such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a 
conclusion.”2  Credibility determinations are “exclusively reserved for the 
Industrial Accident Board.”3 
 
6. 
In its decision, the IAB found that the spraybooth accident did not 
cause Regis’s injuries.  In particular, the IAB credited the testimony of Wolfgang 
Vincent, a disabilities program manager at Chrysler.  Vincent testified that because 
vehicles cover the housing while workers apply the paint, the housing is one of the 
cleanest spots in the spraybooth.  He therefore questioned how Regis could trap her 
feet in the housing, regardless of the quantity of paint she applied.  After noting 
that Regis was not responsible for painting underneath the cars, the Board credited 
Vincent’s testimony and discounted Regis’s.    
                                                 
1  
Keeler v. Metal Masters Foodservice Equip. Co., Inc., 712 A.2d 1004, 1005 (Del. 1998), 
quoting  Oceanport Indus., Inc. v. Wilmington Stevedores, Inc., 636 A.2d 892, 899 (Del. 1994). 
2  
Id. 
3  
Breeding v. Contractors-One-Inc., 549 A.2d 1102, 1106 (Del. 1988); see also Downes v. 
State, 1993 Del. LEXIS 144, at *4. 
 
4
 
7. 
The IAB also found that Regis was not injured to the extent she 
claimed.  In reaching this decision, the IAB accepted the testimony of Chrysler’s 
medical expert over that of Regis’s medical expert.  It is well settled in Delaware 
that the IAB may reject a medical expert’s testimony where that testimony is 
primarily based on what the claimant subjectively told the expert.4  The IAB’s 
finding is further bolstered by the videotape that showed Regis performing 
multiple tasks with her allegedly injured left hand.   
 
8. 
Because the record reflects that the Board properly exercised its 
factfinding prerogative by examining and weighing two inconsistent, competing 
sets of testimony, we find that the record provides substantial evidence to support 
the IAB’s findings.  On this record, we find that the Superior Court did not err by 
upholding the Board’s decision. 
 
NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior 
Court is AFFIRMED. 
BY THE COURT: 
/s/ Myron T. Steele 
Chief Justice 
                                                 
4  
See, e.g., Breeding, 549 A.2d at 1104 (“When an expert’s opinion . . . is based in large 
part upon the patient’s recital of subjective complaints and the trier of fact finds the underlying 
facts to be different, the trier is free to reject the expert’s conclusion.”) (citation omitted).