Title: State ex rel. Gonzales v. Morgan

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
State ex rel. Gonzales v. Morgan, Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-6047.] 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2011-OHIO-6047 
THE STATE EX REL. GONZALES, APPELLANT, v. MORGAN; INDUSTRIAL 
COMMISSION OF OHIO, APPELLEE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as State ex rel. Gonzales v. Morgan,  
Slip Opinion No. 2011-Ohio-6047.] 
Workers’ compensation—Permanent total disability—Nonmedical vocational 
factors—Failure to participate in educational rehabilitation. 
(No. 2010-0964—Submitted September 20, 2011—Decided December 1, 2011.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County,  
No. 09AP-752, 2010-Ohio-1959. 
__________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Appellee, Industrial Commission of Ohio, denied appellant’s, 
Trevor Gonzales’s, application for permanent total disability compensation 
(“PTD”) in an order that emphasized his refusal to participate in vocational 
rehabilitation.  Gonzales challenges that decision. 
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{¶ 2} Gonzales never returned to any type of employment after his 2003 
industrial injury, and he filed for PTD six years later.  The commission considered 
Gonzales’s application and concluded that he was physically capable of sedentary 
employment.  It then considered Gonzales’s nonmedical disability factors as 
required by State ex rel. Stephenson v. Indus. Comm.  (1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 167, 
31 OBR 369, 509 N.E.2d 946.  The commission found that Gonzales’s age did not 
prohibit reemployment and felt that his “varied work history is a positive factor 
that highlights his ability to learn new jobs skills and to work in different work 
environments.” 
{¶ 3} The bulk of the commission’s analysis, however, focused on 
Gonzales’s illiteracy.  The commission acknowledged that this deficiency 
impaired his ability to perform sedentary employment but concluded: 
{¶ 4} “[T]his factor is greatly outweighed by the fact that the Injured 
Worker has not participated in any type of rehabilitation program to negate his 
ability to not [sic] read, write, or do basic math very well.  The evidence in the 
claim file notes that two letters were sent to the Injured Worker on 01/05/2004 
and 03/12/2004 which found that the Injured Worker was not feasible [sic] to 
participate in a vocational rehabilitation program based upon his decision to not 
participate in such a program or his failure to contact and return phone calls in 
regards to participating in a rehabilitation program.  Therefore, based upon the 
Injured Worker’s failure to undergo appropriate and reasonable vocational 
rehabilitation to increase his residual functional capacity and/or obtain new 
marketable employment skills and to improve upon his ability to write, read, or do 
math is the basis for the denial of his * * * permanent total disability application.  
The Injured Worker has presented no evidence that he is unable to participate in 
any type of vocational rehabilitation program.” 
{¶ 5} Gonzales filed a complaint in mandamus in the Court of Appeals 
for Franklin County, alleging that the commission had abused its discretion in 
January Term, 2011 
3 
 
denying PTD.  The court of appeals, speaking through its magistrate, disagreed.  
It cited the commission’s exclusive authority to evaluate vocational evidence and 
stressed that Gonzales had refused vocational rehabilitation “when there was no 
evidence that he would not benefit from such services.” 2010-Ohio-1959, ¶ 23.  
Ultimately, the court of appeals concluded that the commission did not abuse its 
discretion in deciding to “hold relator accountable for this failure.” 
{¶ 6} Gonzales now appeals to this court as a matter of right. 
{¶ 7} Contrary to Gonzales’s suggestion, illiterate persons are neither 
unemployable nor, once injured, inherently permanently and totally disabled.  
Gonzales himself demonstrates the fallacy of the former by having worked for 
decades without the ability to read or write.  As to the latter, many illiterate 
claimants successfully transition to other postinjury employment, often helped by 
their successful completion of vocational retraining and remedial education. 
{¶ 8} We have discussed vocational rehabilitation in depth on two 
occasions.  In State ex rel. Wilson v. Indus. Comm. (1997), 80 Ohio St.3d 250, 
685 N.E.2d 774,  the commission’s rehabilitation division assessed the 
rehabilitation potential of a PTD applicant and recommended, among other things, 
remedial education classes.  An individualized program was prepared, but the 
claimant refused to participate.  This refusal was one of the reasons why PTD was 
later denied, and the claimant challenged that decision. 
{¶ 9} We upheld that decision.  We affirmed that in a PTD analysis, “the 
relevant vocational inquiry is ‘whether the claimant may return to the job market 
by using past employment skills or those skills which may be reasonably 
developed.’ ”  (Emphasis added.)  Id. at 253, quoting State ex rel. Speelman v. 
Indus. Comm. (1992), 73 Ohio App.3d 757, 762, 598 N.E.2d 192. 
{¶ 10} Continuing, we wrote: 
{¶ 11} “The commission found that claimant’s age afforded him the 
opportunity to improve the educational deficits on which he so heavily relies in 
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asserting that he is incapable of sustained remunerative employment.  Reduction 
or elimination of these deficits, in turn, would facilitate the acquisition of new 
skills.  We not only sustain the commission’s reasoning, but feel compelled to add 
an observation of our own. 
{¶ 12} “Not only does claimant have the opportunity to improve his re-
employment potential, he has had this opportunity for the sixteen years he has not 
worked since his injury.  Despite the fact that claimant was only age thirty-seven 
when injured, there is no evidence that claimant ever made an effort to pursue 
remedial education or obtain his G.E.D.  The record does reflect that claimant did 
not respond when contacted by the commission’s Rehabilitation Division about 
establishing a rehabilitation plan. 
{¶ 13} “We 
view 
permanent 
total 
disability 
compensation 
as 
compensation of last resort, to be awarded only when all reasonable avenues of 
accomplishing a return to sustained remunerative employment have failed.  Thus, 
it is not unreasonable to expect a claimant to participate in return-to- work efforts 
to the best of his or her abilities or to take the initiative to improve reemployment 
potential.  While extenuating circumstances can excuse a claimant’s 
nonparticipation in reeducation or retraining efforts, claimants should no longer 
assume that a participatory role, or lack thereof, will go unscrutinized.”  Id. at 
253-254. 
{¶ 14} In 2010, we had another opportunity to comment on the role of 
rehabilitation in State ex rel. Nissin Brake Ohio, Inc. v. Indus. Comm., 127 Ohio 
St.3d 385, 2010-Ohio-6135, 939 N.E.2d 1242.  There, the employer challenged an 
award of PTD to a claimant who began a vocational rehabilitation program but 
could not finish it due to health problems unrelated to her industrial injury.  The 
employer argued that because nonallowed medical conditions prevented the 
claimant from completing a rehabilitation program designed to enhance her 
January Term, 2011 
5 
 
employment prospects, those conditions were impermissibly contributing to her 
disability and foreclosed compensation. 
{¶ 15} We acknowledged that under certain circumstances, Nissin’s 
position could have merit.  We began by distinguishing between medically 
oriented and vocationally oriented rehabilitation programs: 
{¶ 16} “If a claimant is unable to participate in a medically oriented 
rehabilitation program due to nonindustrial health problems, Nissin could have a 
legitimate argument if the anticipated level of physical improvement is 
compatible with the claimant’s Stephenson profile.  If, for example, the goal of 
rehabilitation is to improve a person’s pain tolerance to the point of permitting 
sedentary employment, failure to complete that program—regardless of the 
reason—seems relevant only if he/she is a viable candidate for that type of work.  
Even in the best of times economically, an elderly claimant with a fifth-grade 
education and a history of heavy labor is probably not a realistic candidate for a 
desk job.  On the other hand, a person with clerical skills and experience is, and in 
that case, the failure to complete a program that would permit sedentary 
employment may be material to a permanent total disability analysis. 
{¶ 17} “With vocationally or educationally directed programs, the 
opposite analysis can be used:  is the claimant medically able to perform the type 
of work that the program is intended to facilitate?  If the medical evidence 
indicates that the claimant is physically incapable of all work, the acquisition of a 
GED, for example, is meaningless from an employment standpoint.  A failure to 
complete that program should therefore be irrelevant to permanent total disability 
analysis, both from a logical and legal standpoint.  Work skills and education are, 
after all, enumerated Stephenson factors, and if the commission finds it 
unnecessary to consider those factors, a claimant’s failure to complete a 
Stephenson-oriented rehabilitation program does not bar a finding of permanent 
total disability.”  Id. at ¶17-18. 
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{¶ 18} Analyzing the employer’s arguments under the second theory, we 
upheld the PTD award.  We found that because there was evidence supporting the 
commission’s finding that the claimant’s allowed conditions prevented sustained 
remunerative work, her failure to complete rehabilitation—regardless of the 
reason—did not foreclose PTD. 
{¶ 19} There are two immediate distinctions between Nissin Brake and 
the case at bar.  First, Trevor Gonzales is medically capable of sustained 
remunerative employment, so his rehabilitation potential is germane to the 
analysis.  Second, this case does not involve a claimant who began a rehabilitation 
program but was then prevented from finishing due to circumstances beyond the 
claimant’s control.  To the contrary, Gonzales refused even to respond to 
preliminary inquiries from rehabilitation services. 
{¶ 20} The judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed. 
Judgment affirmed. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’DONNELL, 
LANZINGER, CUPP, and MCGEE BROWN, JJ., concur. 
___________________ 
Weisser & Wolf and Lisa M. Clark, for appellant. 
Michael DeWine, Attorney General, and Allan K. Showalter, Assistant 
Attorney General, for appellee. 
______________________