Title: YOCUM v. GREENBRIAR NURSING HOME
Citation: 130 P.3d 213, 2005 OK 27
Docket Number: 
State: Oklahoma
Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Date: April 12, 2005

YOCUM v. GREENBRIAR NURSING HOME Annotate this Case YOCUM v. GREENBRIAR NURSING HOME 2005 OK 27 130 P.3d 213 Case Number: 100282 Decided: 04/12/2005 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA VICKI (ROOT) YOCUM, Petitioner, v. GREENBRIAR NURSING HOME, FIRE AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY OF CONNECTICUT, and THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT, Respondents. ON CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIV. I ¶0 In a proceeding brought before the Workers' Compensation Court, the trial judge denied the claimant's quest for pain management and psychological overlay treatment award. The decision was adopted by a three-judge review panel. The Court of Civil Appeals vacated the panel's order and remanded the claim with directions to give the independent medical examiners' opinions "prima facie effect" and then afford the employer an opportunity to rebut these opinions. On certiorari granted upon the employer's petition, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED AND THE CLAIM IS REMANDED TO THE DIVISION OF THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS WHENCE IT CAME FOR RECONSIDERATION OF ALL ISSUES IN A MANNER NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THIS COURT'S PRONOUNCEMENT Walt Brune, Walt Brune, P.C., Ponca City, Oklahoma, and Fred L. Boettcher, Boettcher Law Offices, Inc., Ponca City, Oklahoma, for Petitioner OPALA, J. ¶1 The court's certiorari grant stands confined to the single issue whether the Court of Civil Appeals (COCA) erred in its construction of the independent medical examiner (IME) statutory regime, I THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION ¶2 Claimant's (Yocum or claimant) compensable condition stood adjudicated in August 2001 as that of a temporarily totally disabled person from an injury to her neck, back and left shoulder (on 2 February 2000) while working for Greenbriar Nursing Home (Greenbriar or employer). She was found to be in need of further medical treatment. Claimant's physician recommended she undergo a psychological evaluation as well as procedures for pain management. Employer's medical expert reached a contrary conclusion. According to his report (dated 11 March 2002) claimant was neither in need of medical care and maintenance nor of treatment for psychological overlay. The report states that claimant's complaints of anxiety are caused by a pre-existing condition, not by the February 2 injury. The trial judge then ordered four independent medical evaluations to assess claimant's need, if any, for further treatment. These four reports recommended pain management and psychological overlay treatment. On consideration of the entire medical evidence, the trial judge denied the request for treatment, resting his decision on the ground he was "not persuaded . . . that she has psychological problems caused by the injuries." A three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court (WCC) adopted the trial judge's order. Claimant then sought review of the adverse panel decision in the Court of Civil Appeals (COCA). ¶3 COCA vacated the panel's order and remanded the claim for further proceedings before the trial judge. Its decision, which rests on a theory chosen sua sponte for resolution of a first-impression issue, ¶4 On certiorari granted upon the employer's petition, we now vacate COCA's opinion and, for the reasons to be stated, remand the claim to the appellate tribunal for reconsideration of all the issues before it in a manner not inconsistent with today's pronouncement. II THE CERTIORARI ARGUMENTS ¶5 Employer argues that COCA's elevation of the IME-report assessments (to a higher level of probative value than that accorded other medical opinions) is an impermissible expansion of the statute-ascribed role for court-appointed physicians, which goes far beyond the dimensions contemplated (or intended) by the legislative text. By prescribing a different weight to be given IME opinions, COCA distorts, if not indeed discards, the long-established any-competent-evidence standard for review of the panel's factual resolutions ¶6 Claimant, on the other hand, argues the Legislature must have intended for IME opinions to serve as a tie-breaker between dueling "party-sponsored" physicians. She urges us to give legitimacy to the legislative scheme by crafting either (a) a presumption in favor of unanimous IME opinions or (b) a prima facie standard for unanimous IME opinions. According to claimant, a contrary construction will rob core meaning from intended IME utilization. She claims the medical opinion upon which the trial tribunal based its decision lacks probative value when considered in light of all the medical proof as a whole which bears on the medical causation issue. In other words, claimant urges us to review the enactment authorizing the use of IME reports as a legislative call for replacement of the any-competent-evidence standard by the clear-weight-of-the-evidence gauge. III THE STATUTORY WORKERS' COMPENSATION REGIME A. The Institutional Design For A Workers' Compensation Law's Intra-Court Appeal and Its Distinction From the Standard of Review That Governs In The Extra-Court Appellate Process ¶7 A resolution of the sole issue on certiorari requires an explanation of the well- and long-established statute-based (a) distinction between an intra-court appeal and an extra-court proceeding for review in the appellate courts ¶8 Upon the statute-authorized intra-court appeal, a three-judge panel of the same tribunal may reexamine a trial judge's findings of disputed fact and conclusions of law ( ¶9 The goal of any inquiry into the meaning of a statutory enactment is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature. B. The Use Of The Independent Medical Examiner System - ¶11 There is neither legislative mandate for departing from the long-established any-competent-evidence standard of review nor for according an IME-report assessment an elevated (or lowered) rank for probative value. Unlike the administratively managed workers' compensation regimes of Massachusetts23 and Louisiana,24 which statutorily mandate that IME opinions be treated as "prima facie" proof, the terms of 85 O.S.2001 §17(D) allocate no predetermined weight or probative value to the medical opinions of court-appointed physicians. The only intent divinable from the provisions of §17(D), when their text is, as it must be, considered together with the terms of 85 O.S.2001 §§3.6(A)25 and 26(B),26 is that the legal effect and probative value of an IME-report's evaluation of one's impairment or disability are the same as those of any other admitted evidence in the case.27 IV STATE FUNDAMENTAL LAW PROHIBITS LEGISLATIVE ENCROACHMENT BY STATUTORY MANDATE THAT WOULD COMPEL A COURT TO ADJUDICATE A FACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH A PREDETERMINED FORMULA WHICH ROBS THE JUDICIARY OF ITS DECISIONAL FREEDOM FOR EVALUATION OF EVIDENCE ¶13 The separation-of-powers doctrine interdicts legislative intrusion upon the functions assigned to the judiciary by the constitution. ¶15 Even if we assumed that sapping the judiciary of its exclusive fact-finding control were constitutionally permissible, a legislative intrusion upon that control may not be inferred from a silent, ambiguous or doubtful statutory text. V THE CLAIM SHOULD BE REMANDED TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS FOR ITS RECONSIDERATION OF THE ISSUES RAISED IN EMPLOYER'S PETITION FOR REVIEW ¶16 COCA's pronouncement, which vacated the claim's denial on a theory chosen sua sponte, declined to reach for review the critical issue - whether there is competent evidence to support the panel's order. Today's resolution vacates COCA's opinion and reinstates the viability of the yet-unresolved issues that stand tendered by the claimant's petition for review. VI SUMMARY ¶17 The probative value of an IME's opinion on the extent of impairment or disability is evidence to be considered on a footing equal to all other proof in the case. There is no basis in compensation law for authority to drain the judicial process of its very essence by encroaching on the trial tribunal's freedom to rate compensable harm at any point that stands within the range of adduced competent evidence. Legislation that either directly or obliquely predetermines an adjudicative fact impermissibly invades the judiciary's exclusive constitutional prerogative of fact-finding. The body of public law that governs workers' compensation benefits is entirely statutory. We are without power to restructure its basic system of judicature. The authority to do so lies within the exclusive domain of the Legislature. Because COCA declined to review the dispositive issue - whether there is competent evidence to support the panel's order - the claim is remanded for that court's disposition of claimant's quest for review of the panel's decision. ¶18 On certiorari granted upon the employer's petition, the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion is vacated and the claim is remanded to the division of the Court of Civil Appeals whence it came for reconsideration of all issues in a manner not inconsistent with this court's pronouncement. ¶19 WINCHESTER, V.C.J., LAVENDER, HARGRAVE, OPALA and TAYLOR, JJ., concur; ¶20 WATT, C.J., KAUGER and EDMONDSON, JJ., concur in result; ¶21 COLBERT, J., dissents. FOOT