Opinion ID: 1044018
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reconsideration of Workers' Compensation Awards

Text: The Workers' Compensation Law limits the permanent partial disability benefits that an injured employee may receive if the pre-injury employer returns the employee to work at a wage equal to or greater than the wage the employee was receiving at the time of the injury. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(1)(A). For injuries occurring on or after July 1, 2004, an employee returned to work may receive maximum permanent partial disability benefits of one and one-half times the employee's medical impairment rating. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(1)(A). An employee may seek reconsideration of permanent partial disability benefits if the employer no longer employs the employee at a wage equal to or greater than the pre-injury wage within four hundred weeks from the employee's return to work. Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(1)(B)(i); but see Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(1)(B)(iii). A court may award an employee meeting these qualifications additional permanent partial disability benefits greater than one and one-half times the employee's medical impairment rating. An award of permanent partial disability benefits, however, cannot exceed six times the employee's impairment rating. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(2)(A); see Nichols v. Jack Cooper Transp. Co., 318 S.W.3d 354, 361 n. 1 (Tenn.2010). Section 50-6-241(d)(1)(B)(iv) provides, Any new settlement or award regarding additional permanent partial disability benefits ... shall be based on the medical impairment rating that was the basis of the previous settlement or award. The settlement between J.W. Aluminum and Mr. Lazar, however, does not reflect the medical impairment rating that was the basis for the award. To the contrary, the parties agreed that no agreement has been reached with respect to either Dr. Smith's or Dr. Chung's rating being the rating accepted for the purposes of settlement in this case. On appeal, therefore, we must determine the proper application of section 50-6-241(d)(1)(B)(iv) to a settlement in which the parties have failed to agree on the applicable medical impairment rating. The construction of a statute and its application to the facts of a case are questions of law, which we review de novo. State v. Marshall, 319 S.W.3d 558, 561 (Tenn.2010). Our role in statutory interpretation is to give a statute the full effect of the General Assembly's intent without unduly restricting or expanding the statute's intended scope. Id. If the statute's language is unambiguous, we find the General Assembly's intent in the plain and ordinary meaning of the language. Id. In addition, a settlement is a contract and therefore subject to the rules governing the interpretation of contracts. See Barnes v. Barnes, 193 S.W.3d 495, 498 (Tenn.2006); Johnson v. Johnson, 37 S.W.3d 892, 896 (Tenn.2001). We ascertain the parties' intent based on the natural and ordinary meaning of the contractual language. Guiliano v. Cleo, Inc., 995 S.W.2d 88, 95 (Tenn.1999). Interpretation of a settlement is a matter of law subject to a de novo review. Barnes, 193 S.W.3d at 498. Based on the language of Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-241, the reconsideration of the employee's permanent partial disability is not limited to the previous award, but it must be based on the medical impairment rating on which the original award was based. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(1)(B)(iv); cf. Brewer v. Lincoln Brass Works, Inc., 991 S.W.2d 226, 229 (Tenn.1999) (holding that an employee seeking benefits for a new impairment must file a new workers' compensation claim rather than attempt to enlarge a previous award). A trial court may not consider additional evidence of an employee's impairment rating when a complaint for reconsideration of benefits is filed. Cf. 8 Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, Larson's Workers' Compensation Laws § 131.03[2][a] (Rev. ed. 2009) (In short, no matter who brings the reopening proceeding, neither party can raise original issues such as ... degree of disability at the time of the first award.). We therefore conclude that if a settlement in the original claim does not specify an impairment rating, a trial court may, as the trial court did in this case, extrapolate the impairment rating from the parties' underlying settlement. We agree with the chancery court that J.W. Aluminum and Mr. Lazar impliedly agreed upon a rating of 8.27% medical impairment from the original award of 12.4% permanent partial disability. The settlement included a provision acknowledging that the maximum permanent partial disability award that Employee may receive is one and one-half (1.5) times the medical impairment rating. Accordingly, the settlement implies that Mr. Lazar received the maximum award available to him pursuant to the statute. [1] Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(1)(A). Moreover, the trial court's computation of 8.27% medical impairment is consistent with the parties' intent to use neither Dr. Smith's rating nor Dr. Chung's rating for purposes of the settlement of 12.4% permanent partial disability. [2] The chancery court also declined to use the MIR registry physician's impairment rating obtained by J.W. Aluminum subsequent to the original settlement. Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-204(d)(5) governs the use of the MIR registry. The statute's only prerequisite to the use of the MIR registry is a dispute as to the degree of medical impairment. Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-204(d)(5). By its terms, section 50-6-204(d)(5) does not preclude the use of an impairment rating of an MIR registry physician in a reconsideration action. Nonetheless, we conclude that the use of an impairment rating obtained from an MIR registry physician subsequent to the original award or settlement of a workers' compensation claim is inconsistent with the reconsideration of an award. When an award is subject to reconsideration, the trial court is bound by the medical impairment rating that was the basis of the original award or settlement. Tenn.Code Ann. § 50-6-241(d)(1)(B)(iv). The chancery court therefore properly declined to apply the MIR registry physician's impairment rating obtained after the original settlement. [3]