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TENNESSEE BUREAU OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD

Anthony Hayes ) Docket No. 2018-08-1204

)

v. ) State File No. 56539-2018

)

Elmington Property Management, et al. )

)

)

Appeal from the Court of Workers’ )

Compensation Claims )

Deana C. Seymour, Judge )

Affirmed and Remanded

This interlocutory appeal follows the trial court’s grant of the employer’s motion for 

partial summary judgment in which the employer asserted the employee was unable to 

establish that his alleged neck and back injuries arose primarily out of and in the course 

and scope of his employment. In support of its position, the employer relied on the 

opinion of the authorized physician who had evaluated the employee’s neck and back 

complaints and who had opined that those complaints were not more than fifty percent 

causally related to the employment. The employee did not file a response to the 

employer’s motion for partial summary judgment. The trial court concluded the 

employer had shown that the employee’s proof was insufficient to establish an essential 

element of his claim. The employee has appealed. We affirm the trial court’s order 

granting the employer’s motion for partial summary judgment, deem the appeal to be 

frivolous, exercise our discretion not to award attorneys’ fees and expenses, and remand 

the case.

Judge David F. Hensley delivered the opinion of the Appeals Board in which Presiding 

Judge Timothy W. Conner and Judge Pele I. Godkin joined.

Anthony Hayes, Memphis, Tennessee, employee-appellant, pro se

Stephen P. Miller, Memphis, Tennessee, for the employer-appellee, Elmington Property 

Management

FILED

Nov 10, 2020

02:15 PM(CT)

TENNESSEE

WORKERS' COMPENSATION

APPEALS BOARD
2

Memorandum Opinion1

There have been multiple interlocutory appeals in this case. The current appeal 

was filed by Anthony Hayes (“Employee”) following the trial court’s grant of Elmington 

Property Management’s (“Employer’s”) motion for partial summary judgment. While a 

recitation of the entire history of the litigation is not necessary to address the current 

appeal, we have set out portions of the factual and procedural background for context.

Employee was working in the course and scope of his employment with Employer

in July 2018 when he fell, allegedly injuring his left knee, left arm, right hand, and head. 

His claim for workers’ compensation benefits was accepted as compensable, and he 

began treating with Dr. David Deneka, an orthopedic specialist. In September 2018, Dr. 

Deneka reported that Employee had reached maximum medical improvement for his 

work-related injuries and would retain no permanent medical impairment associated with 

his injuries.

Thereafter, Employee complained that he had not received medical treatment for 

neck and back symptoms he asserted were related to his fall at work. He filed a petition 

seeking additional medical benefits, and, because he had been terminated from his 

employment, he also sought temporary disability benefits. Following an expedited 

hearing, the trial court concluded Employee had offered credible testimony regarding his 

need for additional medical treatment for injuries related to his fall but did not present 

sufficient evidence of his entitlement to temporary disability benefits. The court ordered 

Employer to schedule an appointment with Dr. Deneka but denied Employee’s request 

for temporary disability benefits. Employee appealed the trial court’s denial of his 

request for temporary disability benefits, and we affirmed the trial court’s order and 

remanded the case. See Hayes v. Elmington Prop. Mgmt., No. 2018-08-1204, 2019 TN 

Wrk. Comp. App. Bd. LEXIS 49, at *1-2 (Tenn. Workers’ Comp. App. Bd. Sept. 3, 

2019).

Employee subsequently returned to Dr. Deneka, who indicated he was unable to 

address Employee’s neck and back complaints because he does not treat those body parts

in his medical practice. As a result, Employer provided a panel of physicians from which 

Employee selected Dr. Mark Harriman, a physician at OrthoSouth.

Employee was seen by Dr. Harriman on October 8, 2019. The report of that visit 

reflects the appointment was for an independent medical evaluation at the request of 

Employer’s counsel rather than for treatment. It also reflects that Dr. Harriman obtained 

a history from Employee, examined him, and reviewed numerous medical records. The 

 1 “The Appeals Board may, in an effort to secure a just and speedy determination of matters on appeal and 

with the concurrence of all judges, decide an appeal by an abbreviated order or by memorandum opinion, 

whichever the Appeals Board deems appropriate, in cases that are not legally and/or factually novel or 

complex.” Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-22-.03(1) (2020).
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report noted Employee had a history of “a back injury from a motor vehicle accident 

years ago” and indicated Employee’s story regarding the neck and back complaints he 

related to his employment “had changed considerably.” It stated Employee “said that his 

initial neck and back problems were very minor, and he did not think anything of them 

until they started bothering him when Dr. Deneka returned him back to work.” Further, 

Dr. Harriman’s report stated that he “asked [Employee] again specifically when he had 

started having neck and back problems,” and that Employee “went on to tell him that he 

had a second fall, unrelated to his on the job injury, in September 2018 going home from 

a store,” and that “things got worse then and he sought care for his neck and back through 

the [Veterans Administration].” Two days after Employee’s evaluation by Dr. Harriman, 

the doctor signed an amendment to his report stating, “[s]pecifically, I can state with 

greater than 50% assurance that [Employee’s] complaints of lumbar and cervical neck

pain are not related to his on-the-job injury of July 27, 2018.”

On October 25, 2019, Employee filed a Motion to Compel and for Sanctions in 

which he asserted Dr. Harriman would not treat him and told him the October 8 visit was 

for an evaluation only. On November 4, 2019, the trial court granted Employee’s motion, 

finding that Employer was obligated to provide Employee with a panel of physicians for 

treatment of Employee’s back and neck complaints. The order noted that Employee had 

returned to Dr. Deneka, who “does not treat neck and back issues” and that Employee 

was later evaluated by Dr. Harriman who concluded that Employee’s “neck and back 

complaints were less than fifty percent related to the work injury.” However, the court 

determined that Employer “should have provided [Employee] a panel from which he 

could select a physician to address his head and neck complaints rather than providing 

only an independent medical examiner.” The court ordered Employer to provide a panel 

of physicians to “evaluate [Employee’s] head and neck conditions” within ten days, 

adding that Employer’s failure to do so would “result in referral to the Compliance 

Program for investigation and possible assessment of penalties.”

Three days later, Employer filed a motion requesting the court to reconsider its 

November 4, 2019 order. Employer supported its motion with a document electronically 

signed by Dr. Harriman on November 5, 2019, which stated that “[t]he report on 

[Employee] was improperly titled as an Independent Medical Evaluation,” and that “[i]n 

fact, the report should have been titled as a medical opinion with option to treat should 

treatment be required and related to the alleged work incident.”

On November 20, 2019, the trial court granted Employer’s motion to reconsider, 

concluding that Employer had satisfied its obligation to provide Employee “with a proper 

panel under Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-204 and is not required to provide 

him with another panel.” On December 4, 2019, Employee filed an untimely notice of 

appeal of the court’s November 20 order. As a result, we dismissed the appeal on 

December 5, 2019, and remanded the case. On December 6, 2019, Employee filed a 

“Demand for Reconsideration of Appeal,” citing the Tennessee Rules of Appellate 
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Procedure and the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, neither of which apply to us. 

We treated Employee’s filing as a motion to reconsider the dismissal of the appeal, which 

we denied by order filed on December 9, 2019.

A scheduling order was subsequently filed in the trial court on January 14, 2020, 

setting forth dates for discovery and other procedural matters, including a June 17, 2020 

trial date. On January 22, 2020, Employee filed numerous documents in the trial court 

that included a Sworn Complaint for Shelby County Government, which identified nine 

separate individuals, offices, or other entities alleged to be “violators,” including the trial 

judge. Several documents were filed as “Exhibits” to the Sworn Complaint, including 

Employee’s “Request for Recusal of [the Trial Judge] & Ethical Complaint,” which was 

addressed to the Chief Judge of the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims and to the 

Tennessee Attorney General. The “Exhibits” also included a “Complaint Against Judge 

Under Code of Judicial Conduct” that was purportedly filed with the Tennessee Board of 

Judicial Conduct. Among other numerous allegations in these documents, Employee 

alleged that the trial judge conspired with other members of the Bureau of Workers’ 

Compensation to prevent him from timely receiving the court’s orders, falsified a court 

order, and proceeded with a scheduling hearing over his objection.

The trial court addressed Employee’s motion for recusal in a February 7, 2020 

order. The court determined Employee had presented no evidence of prejudice or bias 

and that there was no reasonable basis to question the judge’s impartiality. In addition, 

the court concluded that Employee had not complied with Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-

02-21-.18(3) (2019), which requires an affidavit to be filed with a motion to recuse 

setting out the factual and legal grounds supporting the recusal. Based upon Employee’s 

failure to present supporting evidence and his failure to file an appropriate affidavit, the 

trial court denied his recusal motion.

Employee appealed the trial court’s February 7 order, asserting that the trial judge 

cited “wrongful codes [and] laws that [do] not apply to the issues being raised to [enable]

[Employer] to continue to discriminate and wrongfully deny[] claimant benefits.” 

Employee asserted, and continues to assert in his voluminous filings, that disqualification 

of the trial judge is automatic and that the orders entered by the trial court are invalid. He 

cited federal law and the laws of other states to support his contentions but provided no 

Tennessee law to support his claims that he was entitled to the automatic recusal or 

disqualification of the trial judge. We affirmed the trial judge’s order denying 

Employee’s motion to recuse on April 16, 2020. See Hayes v. Elmington Prop. Mgmt., 

No. 2018-08-1204, 2020 TN Wrk. Comp. App. Bd. LEXIS 17 (Tenn. Workers’ Comp. 

App. Bd. Apr. 16, 2020).

On April 17, 2020, Employer filed a motion for partial summary judgment that 

sought the dismissal of Employee’s claims for neck and back injuries that allegedly 

resulted from his July 2018 work injury. On April 29, 2020, Employee filed several 
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documents with the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims, including a document 

purportedly submitted to the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking to appeal our April 16, 

2020 decision. On May 8, 2020, Employee filed additional documents with the Court of 

Workers’ Compensation Claims, including a document that appears to be intended, in 

part, to request a continuance of the hearing on Employer’s motion for partial summary 

judgment. The following day, Employee filed more documents in the trial court 

addressing his efforts to disqualify the trial judge. On May 13, 2020, he filed additional 

documents with the trial court, including a notice from the Tennessee Supreme Court

indicating Employee had filed a “TRAP 3 Notice of Appeal” on April 29, 2020.

On May 19, 2020 the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims issued an order 

acknowledging that Employee had filed a notice of appeal of our April 16 decision with 

the Supreme Court. In its order, the trial court stated that “[s]ince [Employee] appealed 

the Appeals Board’s April 16, 2020 decision to the Tennessee Supreme Court on April 

29, 2020, all hearings . . . are continued until the case is remanded to [the trial court].”

Employer subsequently filed a motion in the Supreme Court requesting that 

Employee’s appeal be dismissed. On June 16, 2020, the Supreme Court issued an order 

noting that our April 16, 2020 decision was an interlocutory recusal order and, therefore, 

not reviewable by the Supreme Court. The Court granted Employer’s motion to dismiss 

Employee’s appeal. The following day, Employee filed voluminous documents in the 

Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims, some of which were also filed with the 

Supreme Court. On July 9, 2020, the Supreme Court issued an order noting its earlier 

dismissal of Employee’s appeal in which the Court stated that Employee “subsequently 

issued a ‘demand’ for the Court to take judicial notice” of certain matters, which the 

Supreme Court refused to do, adding that “no appeal is pending with this Court.” On the 

same date the Supreme Court issued its order, Employee filed over 200 pages of 

documents with the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims. Additional documents 

were filed the following day, and, on July 15, 2020, Employee filed more documents in 

the trial court.

On July 24, 2020, the trial court issued an amended scheduling order in which the 

court set various dates for specific procedural matters leading to an October 2020 trial 

date. A telephonic hearing on Employer’s motion for partial summary judgment was set 

for August 21, 2020.2

 However, due to what the trial court described as Employee’s 

“disruptions,” the trial court determined an in-person hearing would be conducted to 

address Employer’s motion. The motion for partial summary judgment was reset for 

hearing September 2. On August 31, 2020, Employee filed another notice of appeal to 

 2 Employee attempted to appeal the notice setting Employer’s motion for partial summary judgment for 

hearing. However, the notice was not an order of the court but was a docketing notice signed by the clerk 

and, therefore, was not appealable to us. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-217(a)(2) (2019) (only orders 

“issued by a workers’ compensation judge” may be appealed to the Appeals Board).
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us, this time identifying, by date, three separate orders that were being appealed. We 

issued an order on September 1, 2020, addressing the documents identified in 

Employee’s notice of appeal, and we dismissed the appeal and remanded the case. 

Employee did not appear at the September 2 hearing on Employer’s motion for 

partial summary judgment, and court personnel were unable to reach him by telephone. 

On September 8, 2020, the trial court issued an order granting Employer’s motion for 

partial summary judgment, concluding that Employer successfully established that 

Employee’s evidence was insufficient to prove an essential element of his claim. 

Because Employee did not respond to Employer’s motion for partial summary judgment

as provided in Rule 56.03 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure and did not appear 

at the hearing, the court found Employee had not presented any evidence to refute 

Employer’s proof and had not identified a genuine issue of material fact. Employee has 

appealed the trial court’s grant of a partial summary judgment dismissing his claims for 

neck and back injuries that allegedly resulted from the July 2018 work injury.

In the present notice of appeal, Employee asserts the trial judge “has been 

disqualified on the records, she violated constitutional due process notice and perpetrated 

a fraud by going against her own [s]cheduling order to render this bogus decision that 

was already on appeal to the Supreme Court.” Further, Employee’s notice of appeal 

asserts there was “[f]raud upon the Courts enacted by the Court.” However, Employee 

failed to identify any appealable issue, failed to identify any legal errors allegedly made 

by the trial court, and failed to provide any explanation of how the court erred by 

conducting the motion hearing. Moreover, Employee has not asserted that he did not 

receive notice of the September 2 hearing or that he was denied an opportunity to 

participate in the hearing.

We note also that Employee did not timely file a brief in support of his appeal. 

See Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-22-.05(2) (2020). Employee’s brief was due on or 

before October 6, 2020.3 Instead, he has filed multiple documents airing various 

grievances with the manner in which the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation conducts its 

business, citing to a variety of other state and federal laws to support his claims of unfair 

 3 Employee filed a request for an extension of time on the basis that the Appeals Board had not provided a 

briefing schedule. However, as noted in the order denying the request for an extension of time, the 

Appeals Board does not determine a briefing schedule in individual cases. Rather, briefs are due as set 

out in Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-217(a)(2) (2019) and Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-

22-.05(2) (2020). On November 6, 2020, Employee filed a “Remonstrance for Reconsideration” of our 

order denying his request for an extension of time. After due consideration, Employee’s request that we 

reconsider our order denying his request for an extension of time is denied. On November 9, 2020, 

Employee filed a motion requesting oral argument, which we also deny. 
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treatment.4 However, none of these documents are identified as a brief and none cite 

applicable Tennessee law in support of Employee’s appeal. “It is not the role of the 

courts, trial or appellate, to research or construct a litigant’s case or arguments for him or 

her.” Sneed v. Bd. of Prof’l Responsibility of the Sup. Ct. of Tenn., 301 S.W.3d 603, 615 

(Tenn. 2010). 

Finally, we find Employee’s appeal to be frivolous. “A frivolous appeal is one 

that . . . had no reasonable chance of succeeding,” Adkins v. Studsvik, Inc., No. E2014-

00444-SC-R3-WC, 2015 Tenn. LEXIS 588, at *30 (Tenn. Workers’ Comp. Panel July 

21, 2015), or one that is devoid of merit or brought solely for delay, Yarbrough v. 

Protective Servs. Co., Inc., No. 2015-08-0574, 2016 TN Wrk. Comp. App. Bd. LEXIS 3, 

at *11 (Tenn. Workers’ Comp. App. Bd. Jan. 25, 2016). “[P]arties should not be required 

to endure the hassle and expense of baseless litigation. Nor should appellate courts be 

required to waste time and resources on appeals that have no realistic chance of success.” 

Id. at *10-11; see also Burnette v. WestRock, No. 2016-01-0670, 2017 TN Wrk. Comp. 

App. Bd. LEXIS 66, at *18 (Tenn. Workers’ Comp. App. Bd. Oct. 31, 2017). However, 

once again we exercise our discretion not to award attorneys’ fees or other expenses for 

Employee’s frivolous appeal. See Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-22-.09(4) (2020).

The decision of the trial court is affirmed, and the case is remanded. Costs on 

appeal have been waived.

 4 As an example, Employee cites the “full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution” in 

support of his contention that we are obligated to abide by California law governing the removal of 

administrative judges.
 

 

 

 TENNESSEE BUREAU OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION 

 WORKERS’ COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD 

Anthony Hayes ) Docket No. 2018-08-1204 

) 

v. ) State File No. 56539-2018 

)

Elmington Property Management, et al. ) 

) 

) 

Appeal from the Court of Workers’ ) 

Compensation Claims ) 

Deana C. Seymour, Judge ) 

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

 

I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of the Appeals Board’s decision in the referenced 

case was sent to the following recipients by the following methods of service on this the 10th day 

of November, 2020. 

Name Certified 

Mail

First Class 

Mail

Via 

Fax

Via 

Email

Sent to: 

Anthony Hayes X X 555 South 3rd Street

Memphis, TN 38101

555 B.B. King Blvd.

Memphis, TN 38101

ah.hayes1@gmail.com

Stephen Miller X smiller@mckuhn.com

mdoherty@mckuhn.com

Deana C. Seymour, Judge X Via Electronic Mail

Kenneth M. Switzer, Chief Judge X Via Electronic Mail

Penny Shrum, Clerk, Court of 

Workers’ Compensation Claims

X penny.patterson-shrum@tn.gov

 

Olivia Yearwood

Clerk, Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board

220 French Landing Dr., Ste. 1-B 

Nashville, TN 37243 

Telephone: 615-253-1606 

Electronic Mail: WCAppeals.Clerk@tn.gov