Case Name: Marcella J. BATES v. COUNTRYBROOK LIVING CENTER and National Union Fire Insurance Company
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1992-08-26
Citations: 609 So. 2d 1247
Docket Number: No. 90-CC-0829
Parties: Marcella J. BATES v. COUNTRYBROOK LIVING CENTER and National Union Fire Insurance Company.
Judges: HAWKINS and DAN M. LEE, P.JJ., and PRATHER and PITTMAN, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 609
Pages: 1247–1251

Head Matter:
Marcella J. BATES v. COUNTRYBROOK LIVING CENTER and National Union Fire Insurance Company.
No. 90-CC-0829.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Aug. 26, 1992.
Charles E. Miller, Angela Taylor Miller, Miller & Miller, Brookhaven, for appellant.
Clifford B. Ammons, Watkins & Eager, Jackson, for appellee.

Opinion:
ROY NOBLE LEE, Chief Justice,
for the Court:
Marcella Bates, the claimant, sought compensation benefits from Countrybrook Living Center, employer, and National Union Fire Insurance Company, carrier, for a psychological injury unaccompanied by physical trauma. The Administrative Law Judge awarded benefits, but the Commission reversed the order, finding that claimant failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that her injuries were caused by her employment. The circuit court affirmed the Commission. Claimant has appealed to this Court.
FACTS
On November, 1986, claimant attended a regular meeting of all the nurses at the nursing home. The purpose of these regularly scheduled, state mandated meetings was to provide in-service training. However, at this meeting, the supervisor, Ms. Pepper, used the time to discuss various problems that had been occurring in the nursing home. Eighteen patients' feeding tubes had been removed and some had to be taken to the emergency room to have them surgically reinserted. Also, someone had mixed up the medication cards, which could have caused a patient to receive the wrong medicine.
When the group meeting ended, the supervisor scheduled individual meetings with each nurse. After investigating these occurrences, the supervisor and the director of nurses suspected that claimant had committed the acts. They admitted that they had no proof other than circumstantial evidence. When claimant came in for her meeting, the supervisor told her that she had decided to terminate her. The claimant denied the charges and the supervisor decided that there was reasonable doubt about who committed the acts, and, therefore, she destroyed the notes from the meeting and stated that she would pretend that it never happened. She withdrew her threat to fire claimant and told her that she was "still employed in good standing." The supervisor conducted individual meetings with all of the other nurses, but admitted that she never threatened to fire any of the others.
The nursing home social worker was also present at the meeting to take notes. She described the supervisor as very positive and concerned about the home and stated that the supervisor was not angry, threatening or overtly mean. She confirmed that after the supervisor heard claimant's denial of the charges she tore up the notes at the supervisor's request.
After the meeting, all of the trouble stopped at the home. Three weeks subsequent to the meeting with the supervisor, claimant became a full time employee. Bates left the nursing home in July 1987.
Claimant saw several doctors for psychological help after the incident with her supervisor. Dr. Summers saw her in July 1987. His report noted that she had been in good health until two years prior, or sometime in 1985. His report also listed a host of stress related symptoms that plagued her: insomnia, poor appetite, depression, and crying spells, among others.
Dr. Ritter also saw Bates. In his opinion, she had been ill "for quite a time." He also described the cause of her illness as biochemical rather than work-related. Claimant also saw Dr. Hearne, a clinical psychologist and another psychiatrist, Dr. Wright, who believed that Bates' problems were work-related.
After hearing all of the evidence, the Commission denied benefits, finding that Bates' problems were "a psychoneurotic condition or emotional disturbance due to causes other than her employment by the Countrybrook Living Center."
ISSUE
Whether the claimant failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence any causal relation between her employment and any alleged psychological or psychiatric disability and whether the Workers' Compensation Commission had substantial evidence to deny benefits.
On November 14, 1989, the Workers' Compensation Commission entered an order finding that claimant's psychiatric condition did not result from the November 7, 1986, meeting with the Nursing Home Administrator, Ms. Barbara Pepper, and that claimant failed to prove that she sustained an accidental injury as contemplated by Miss.Code Ann. § 71-3-3(b) (Supp.1987). Further, the Mississippi Workers' Compensation Commission found that claimant's disability was not due to any injury arising out of and in the course of her employment with the Countrybrook Living Center, but was attributable to a psychoneurotic condition or emotional disturbance due to causes other than her employment by the Country-brook Living Center.
A mental injury, unaccompanied by physical trauma, must be shown to have been caused by something more than the ordinary incidents of employment. Fought v. Stuart C. Irby Co., 523 So.2d 314 (Miss.1988); Brown & Root Const. Co. v. Duckworth, 475 So.2d 813 (Miss.1985); Smith and Sanders, Inc. v. Peery, 473 So.2d 423 (Miss.1985); V. Dunn, Mississippi Workmen's Compensation Commission, § 114 (Supp.1990).
On November 7, 1986, all nurses were required to attend the in-service meeting and each nurse, including claimant, was questioned by Ms. Pepper on an individual basis. The personal interview with nurses followed after the general meeting of all nursing personnel. The Commission found that this type management policy is reasonable, necessary and accepted for a public health facility to exercise in light of the difficulty experienced at Countrybrook Living Center. Management had the right, as well as the responsibility and duty, to investigate and discuss with nursing personnel the serious incidents of removal of na- sogastric tubes and gastrostomy tubes from patients, wrongful mixing of medication cards, as well as the sabotage of medication buggies.
In Fought v. Stuart C. Irby, Co., 523 So.2d 314 (Miss.1988), Fought sought benefits for disability resulting from mental or psychological injury when she was reprimanded at work after being called into the supervisor's office and told that the supervisor was not satisfied with her work initiative. She was also told that her absences were a problem. Fought claimed that she suffered a severe psychological reaction to this criticism. She described meetings with her supervisor as an attempt to intimidate her and contended that it was harassment to force her to resign. This Court held that, when a claimant seeks compensation benefits for disability resulting from a mental or psychological injury, the claimant has the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence the connection between the employment and the injury and that the mental injury must have been caused by something more than the ordinary incidents of employment. Id. at 317. The Court stated that, "harassments" or stresses to which [the claimant] was subjected may reasonably have been regarded [as] nothing more than the ordinary incidents of employment, and not untoward events or unusual occurrences. Id. at 318. Benefits were denied.
In the case at bar, Dr. Robert Ritter indicated claimant had a 10-12 year history of personality disorders and that the cause of her illness was biochemical rather than work-related. Dr. Timothy Summers found claimant to have suffered psychological disorders for two years prior to November 7, 1987, and he released claimant to return to work without any restrictions. Dr. Alan Hearne, a clinical psychologist, although thinking claimant's illness was work-related, released her to return to work with the recommendation of a shift change which the employer granted. Dr. Maude Wright diagnosed claimant as having severe post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression with some psychotic symptoms. The Commission found that Dr. Wright's examination of claimant was performed on November 14, 1988, two years from the date of the nursing home confrontation and further found that Dr. Wright's testimony was unconvincing when compared to other medical experts who had examined and treated claimant.
We are of the opinion that claimant failed to show by clear and convincing evidence that her mental condition was causally connected to her employment; that the event occurring on November 7, 1986, was not an untoward event; and that the finding and order óf the Workers' Compensation Commission is supported by substantial evidence. Therefore, the judgment of the lower court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
HAWKINS and DAN M. LEE, P.JJ., and PRATHER and PITTMAN, JJ., concur.
McRAE, J., dissents by separate written opinion joined by ROBERTSON, SULLIVAN and BANKS, JJ.
. A total of eighteen tubes were pulled. Claimant had either been on duty or had just left or come on shift when they were discovered. She was the only nurse present at all the times these incidents took place.