Title: State ex rel. Griffith v. Indus. Comm.

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as State ex rel. Griffith v. Indus. Comm., 87 Ohio St.3d 154, 1999-Ohio-310.] 
 
 
 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. GRIFFITH, APPELLANT, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF OHIO ET 
AL., APPELLEES. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Griffith v. Indus. Comm. (1999), 87 Ohio St.3d 154.] 
Workers’ compensation — Mandamus to compel Industrial Commission to grant 
relator’s application for temporary total disability compensation — Denial 
of writ affirmed. 
(No. 97-2432 — Submitted October 12, 1999 — Decided November 10, 1999.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 96APD11-1543. 
__________________ 
 
Stewart Jaffy & Associates Co., L.P.A., Stewart R. Jaffy and Marc J. Jaffy, 
for appellant. 
 
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, and Cheryl J. Nester, Assistant 
Attorney General, for appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio. 
 
Critchfield, Critchfield & Johnston, Ltd., and Susan E. Baker, for appellee 
Rubbermaid, Inc. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  Minnie Griffith, appellant, sought a writ of mandamus to 
compel appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio to grant her application for 
temporary total disability compensation (“TTD”) from December 6, 1995 until 
April 14, 1996.  The commission denied her application on the ground that her 
disability had not resulted from the medical conditions allowed for her industrial 
injury.  The Court of Appeals for Franklin County denied the writ, finding that the 
commission had some evidence on which to base this conclusion and, thus, had not 
abused its discretion in denying TTD.  State ex rel. Burley v. Coil Packing, Inc. 
(1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 18, 31 OBR 70, 508 N.E.2d 936.  Griffith appeals as of 
right. 
 
 
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Griffith sustained an industrial injury while working for appellee 
Rubbermaid, Inc., a self-insured employer for the purpose of workers’ 
compensation laws.  When she applied for TTD, only two conditions had been 
formally recognized by her employer as compensible in her claim — “contusion 
left knee” and “internal derangement/tear medial meniscus left knee.”  Griffith had 
arthroscopic knee surgery on December 6, 1995, and alleged a period of temporary 
and total disability beginning on that date as a result of her surgery. 
 
Rubbermaid authorized and paid for Griffith’s surgery after her physician 
represented, in a C-161 Request for Authorization Form, that the allowed 
conditions required the arthroscopy.  But according to a hospital report prepared on 
the day of her surgery, Griffith’s physician’s preoperative reason for performing 
the knee surgery was “[d]egenerative arthritis,” not the “[c]ontusion left knee, 
internal derangement/tear medial meniscus” he had represented to Rubbermaid.  
The hospital report also confirmed the physician’s preoperative diagnosis — it 
revealed that his postoperative diagnosis was “the same” as the preoperative 
diagnosis. 
 
The discrepancy between the physician’s two explanations for Griffith’s 
surgery prompted the commission’s findings that the surgery was not treatment for 
her allowed conditions and, therefore, had not caused any disability attributable to 
her industrial injury.  Griffith now challenges that finding with four propositions of 
law.  We are not persuaded by any of her arguments and, therefore, affirm the 
court of appeals’ judgment. 
 
Griffith first argues that since she had had surgery made necessary by 
previously authorized surgery on the part of her body in which her injury had 
caused the allowed medical conditions in her claim, any medical condition that 
subsequently developed in that “allowed body part” as a result of the second 
surgery was also compensable.  She cites Dent v. AT&T Technologies, Inc. (1988), 
 
 
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38 Ohio St.3d 187, 527 N.E.2d 821, and State ex rel. Miller v. Indus. Comm. 
(1994), 71 Ohio St.3d 229, 643 N.E.2d 113, but neither case dispensed with the 
requirement that medical conditions be formally recognized, either through 
certification by a self-insured employer or allowance by the Ohio Bureau of 
Workers’ Compensation (“BWC”), as having been caused by a claimant’s 
industrial injury.  In fact, we specifically rejected this idea in State ex rel. Meridia 
Hillcrest Hosp. v. Indus. Comm. (1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 39, 656 N.E.2d 336. 
 
In Meridia, we distinguished Dent and Miller as cases in which the parties 
were debating whether the claimants either had complied or needed to comply with 
the statute of limitations in R.C. 4123.84, which requires claimants to notify their 
employers of the specific body part injured within two years of the industrial 
injury.  See, also, State ex rel. Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Indus. Comm. (Aug. 9, 1977), 
Franklin App. No. 77AP-276, unreported.  But in ensuring notice to employers and 
cutting off stale claims, Wargetz v. Villa Sancta Anna Home for Aged (1984), 11 
Ohio St.3d 15, 17, 11 OBR 49, 51, 462 N.E.2d 1215, 1217, compliance with R.C. 
4123.84 is a completely different question from whether a medical condition has 
been determined to be compensable as the result of an industrial injury.  And 
where, as here, the notice requirement in R.C. 4123.84 is not at stake, Meridia 
concomitantly establishes that formal allowance is required.  Id., 74 Ohio St.3d at 
42, 656 N.E.2d at 339.  Accordingly, we reject Griffith’s first proposition of law. 
 
Griffith next argues that Rubbermaid certified her arthritic condition as part 
of her claim by authorizing and paying for her knee surgery.  She relies on State ex 
rel. Baker Material Handling Corp. v. Indus. Comm. (1994), 69 Ohio St.3d 202, 
631 N.E.2d 138, and Garrett v. Jeep Corp. (1991), 77 Ohio App.3d 402, 602 
N.E.2d 691; however, the courts in those cases did not find the employers 
responsible for the claimants’ additionally alleged conditions just because the 
employers authorized and paid for medical treatment.  Rather, those employers 
 
 
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were held accountable because they had explicitly acknowledged and certified the 
additional conditions on C-174 forms designed, in part, to inform BWC about 
compensable conditions in their claims.  Baker, 69 Ohio St.3d at 204, 631 N.E.2d 
at 141; Garrett, 77 Ohio App.3d at 406, 602 N.E.2d at 694.  See, also, State ex rel. 
Chrysler Corp. v. Indus. Comm. (1998), 81 Ohio St.3d 158, 159, 689 N.E.2d 951, 
953.  Rubbermaid has made no such explicit concessions.  Thus, we hold that 
Rubbermaid did not allow Griffith’s arthritic condition under Baker or Garrett. 
 
But Griffith also contends, in effect, that this self-insured employer 
implicitly certified Griffith’s medical conditions as compensable.  She maintains 
that Rubbermaid had notice of the additional justification for Griffith’s arthroscopy 
because, just before the surgery, her physician wrote a letter to Rubbermaid 
indicating that she also had developed degenerative arthritis related to her injury.  
The court of appeals could find no authority for attributing an implied certification 
to Rubbermaid, and we have no reason to create such a precedent based on these 
facts. 
 
It is not clear that Rubbermaid relied on the letter in addition to the formal 
request for authorization. But even assuming that Rubbermaid did rely on the 
letter, the letter did not give the notice of a new condition that Griffith attributes to 
it.  The letter advised that while early arthritic changes “appear[ed]” to be present 
in her knee, those changes “would really not [have] chang[ed] the fact that she 
[was] having enough trouble for arthroscopic procedure.”  The court of appeals 
reasonably concluded that even with the accompanying nonallowed arthritic 
condition, this statement suggested that the allowed knee condition, by itself, 
necessitated the planned surgery.  And since the existence of a contributing 
nonallowed condition is not a legitimate reason for refusing to pay for medical 
treatment independently required for an allowed condition, State ex rel. Waddle v. 
Indus. Comm. (1993), 67 Ohio St.3d 452, 457, 619 N.E.2d 1018, 1021, approval of 
 
 
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the surgery in reliance on the letter would not imply acceptance of a new condition.  
The court of appeals correctly found that some evidence supported the 
commission’s denial of TTD.  Accordingly, we also reject Griffith’s second 
proposition of law. 
 
In her third proposition of law, Griffith maintains that the commission had 
no authority to deny TTD for any reason other than that originally advanced by 
Rubbermaid.  Rubbermaid initially rejected Griffith’s TTD application on the 
ground that she had retired from her job voluntarily in February 1995, months 
before the knee surgery as a result of which she claimed to be temporarily and 
totally disabled.  Griffith argues that Rubbermaid waived other defenses to her 
TTD claim, even though Rubbermaid had no documents in its possession at the 
time of the rejection that showed that Griffith’s disability arose from a nonallowed 
condition. 
 
Griffith again relies on Baker, supra, as well as State ex rel. Saunders v. 
Metal Container Corp. (Nov. 29, 1988), Franklin App. No. 87AP-509, unreported, 
1988 WL 129162, affirmed (1990), 52 Ohio St.3d 85, 556 N.E.2d 168, both of 
which confirmed that the commission cannot, over the claimant’s objection, 
change the nature of an allowed condition once certified by a self-insured 
employer.  But neither Baker nor Saunders is controlling here because, as 
discussed, Rubbermaid never formally recognized the compensability of Griffith’s 
arthritic condition.  Moreover, neither of these cases goes so far as to establish that 
a self-insured employer is forever bound by its initial reason for disallowing a 
certain type of compensation, especially where, as here, the employer had no 
realistic way to know that another legitimate defense existed.  Accordingly, 
Griffith’s third proposition of law, too, is rejected. 
 
Finally, Griffith contends that her retirement was involuntary and due to her 
industrial injury, so that her 1995 retirement does not disqualify her from receiving 
 
 
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TTD.  See State ex rel. Rockwell Internatl. v. Indus. Comm. (1988), 40 Ohio St.3d 
44, 531 N.E.2d 678 (claimant who retires from place of employment for reasons 
unrelated to industrial injury has independently prevented return to workplace and 
is not eligible for TTD).  We have already decided that the commission had some 
evidence upon which to deny Griffith TTD on grounds unrelated to retirement and, 
therefore, did not abuse its discretion.  Accordingly, we do not reach the issue 
presented in Griffith’s fourth proposition of law. 
 
For these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals and deny 
the requested writ of mandamus. 
Judgment affirmed 
and writ denied. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.