Title: ARMSTRONG v. UNIT DRILLING
Citation: 2002 OK 17, 43 P.3d 383, 73OBJ899
Docket Number: 
State: Oklahoma
Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Date: March 12, 2002

ARMSTRONG v. UNIT DRILLING Annotate this Case ARMSTRONG v. UNIT DRILLING 2002 OK 17 43 P.3d 383 73 OBJ 899 Case Number: 95999 Decided: 03/12/2002 Mandate Issued: 04/04/2002 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA GARY ARMSTRONG, Petitioner v. UNIT DRILLING, LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE and THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT , Respondents CERTIORARI TO THE OKLAHOMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIVISION NO. 1 ¶0 The Court of Civil Appeals, Division 1, affirmed an order of the Workers' Compensation Court that had denied the request of Petitioner, Gary Armstrong, that Respondents, Unit Drilling and Liberty Mutual, be required to continue to pay for Armstrong's prescription medications. Following the entry of an order by the Workers' Compensation Court in 1993 that had found Armstrong to have been permanently and totally disabled as the result of a work related chest injury and heart attack, Respondents paid for Armstrong's prescription medications for the next six years but stopped paying for [43 P.3d 384] them in 1999. We granted certiorari on November 26, 2001. CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED, COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION VACATED, ORDER OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT REVERSED AND MATTER REMANDED TO THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION. Eddie L. Carr, Jack D. Crews, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Petitioner James B. Cassody, Paul V. McGivern, Jr..McGIVERN, GILLIARD & CURTHOYS, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Respondents. OPINION Watt, Vice Chief Justice, FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND ¶1 In 1993 the Workers' Compensation Court, Hon. Terry Pendell, entered an order finding that Petitioner, Gary Armstrong, had sustained an accidental personal injury to his chest and had suffered a heart attack. The court held that Armstrong was totally and permanently disabled as a result of his injury and ordered, THAT respondent and insurance carrier shall pay all reasonable medical expenses incurred by claimant as a result of said injury. Respondents, Unit Drilling and Liberty Mutual, appealed the trial court's ruling to a three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court, which affirmed the trial court's order. ¶2 It is undisputed that Armstrong sought continuing medical maintenance at the 1993 hearing of his claim. Further, for six years after the entry of the 1993 Workers' Compensation Court's order, Respondents paid for Armstrong's prescription drugs. In 1999 Respondents ceased paying for Armstrong's prescriptions and in 2000 Armstrong filed a request with the Workers' Compensation Court for an order requiring Respondents to continue to pay for his prescriptions. ¶3 On March 2, 2001, the Workers' Compensation Court, Hon. James Filosa, denied Armstrong's request that Respondents be required to continue paying for Armstrong's prescriptions. The court so ruled on the following grounds: THAT, although the claimant requested continuing medical maintenance at the last hearing on permanency, the trial judge failed to make a finding on that issue. The order as written became final without appeal. The respondent's payment for prescription medications for a significant period of time thereafter was gratuitous in nature and without legal effect or requirement. THAT the claimant has not established or sought a change of condition for the worse in the claim/matter alleged herein and thus is without standing to request continuing medical maintenance to maintain the status quo of permanency previously adjudicated by the Court on DECEMBER 29, 1993, at which the Court was silent on this issue. Armstrong appealed and the Court of Civil Appeals, Division 1, affirmed the trial court. We granted certiorari on November 26, 2001. ISSUES I. ¶4 Did the trial court err when it held that Respondents' continuing payment of Armstrong's expenses was "gratuitous"? II. ¶5 Did the trial court err when it held that Armstrong was required to prove his condition had worsened as a prerequisite [43 P.3d 385] to establishing his right to an order from the Workers' Compensation Court requiring Respondents to continue paying for Armstrong's prescriptions? ¶6 We hold that the trial court erred in holding that Respondents' payment of Armstrong's prescription bills was "gratuitous." We also hold that the trial court erred in holding that Armstrong was required to prove a change of condition as a prerequisite to establishing his right to continued payment of his prescription drug costs. DISCUSSION ¶7 Respondents resist Armstrong's argument that they should continue to pay Armstrong's prescription bills on the ground that the silence of the Workers' Compensation Court's 1993 order with respect to the payment of future prescription costs bars Armstrong from now seeking payment of prescription costs and that their continued payment of these costs for six years was "voluntary." We disagree. ¶8 At the 1993 hearing, Armstrong expressly requested that Respondents be ordered to pay his continuing prescription costs and Respondents did pay those costs for the next six years. Further, the transcript of the 1993 hearing reveals that Respondents did not expressly resist Armstrong's claim for continuing prescription costs. Instead, Respondents focused their defense on their claim that Armstrong's heart attack was not causally related to his on-the-job injury a claim that the trial court expressly rejected. These factors convince us that Armstrong is entitled to an order requiring Respondents to continue to pay those of Armstrong's prescription costs that they paid between 1993 and 1999. ¶9 Respondents contend that Schulemberger v. Drummond, Recurrence of temporary disability is not required for an order directing the employer's provision of day-to-day maintenance care. The law authorizes that type of health services without a need for showing a postaward change of conditions. ¶10 Our holding in Bill Hodges Truck was based on our conclusion that the medical service sought by the claimant, an organ transplant, was not the sort of service the law authorizes to be awarded without a showing of a change of condition. ¶11 Respondents' argument that they paid Armstrong's continuing prescription costs "voluntarily" is unconvincing. It seems clear to us that Respondents paid those costs [43 P.3d 386] because they had interpreted the 1993 Workers' Compensation Court order as having required them to do so. In this connection, it seems especially unfair to hold that Armstrong's failure to appeal the 1993 order deprives him of his right to enforce his right to continuing medical expense payment when Respondents were paying those costs at the time the 1993 order became final. Thus, Respondents will not be heard to resist the interpretation of the 1993 order that they themselves were placing on it when it became final. ¶12 We conclude that the parties, and apparently the original trial judge, interpreted the 1993 order as requiring Respondents to pay Armstrong's continuing prescription expenses. Under these circumstances we hold that the failure to include language in the order was "a facially apparent mistake" as that term is used in Rule 39(A), Rules of the Workers' Compensation Court. ¶13 We further direct, however, that only those medications Respondents paid for during the six years following the 1993 order are covered here. Any additional medications are expressly not covered by this opinion. Armstrong would be required to establish that his condition had changed for the worse and that the change was causally related to his original on-the-job injury as a prerequisite to establishing a right to an order requiring payment for additional medications. Bill Hodges Truck, ¶14 CERTIORARI PREVIOUSLY GRANTED, COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION VACATED, ORDER OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT REVERSED AND MATTER REMANDED TO THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION. ¶15 WATT, V.C.J., LAVENDER, KAUGER, SUMMERS, BOUDREAU, and WINCHESTER, JJ. - concur. ¶16 HARGRAVE, C.J. - concurs in result. ¶17 HODGES, J. - concurs in part, dissents in part. ¶18 OPALA, J. - dissents. FOOT