Court Opinion

ID: 9666427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:14:43.713501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:28.673892
License: Public Domain

John B. Robbins, Judge, concurring. Our court sought to certify this appeal to the Supreme Court because of a perceived inconsistency in the decisions of the Court of Appeals and because of the constitutional issues raised by the claimant. Certification was attempted notwithstanding the appeal was from an order of the Workers’ Compensation Commission and such appeals have historically been decided initially by the Court of Appeals. This was so even if the appeal was postured as a second or subsequent appeal of a case previously decided by the Supreme Court. See Houston Contracting Co. v. Young, 271 Ark. 455, 609 S.W.2d 895 (1980) (holding the second or subsequent appeal rule inapplicable to appeals from the Workers’ Compensation Commission). However, this past year the Supreme Court accepted two appeals directly from the Commission. Nucor Corp. v. Rhine, 366 Ark. 550, 237 S.W.3d 52 (2006); Johnson v. Bonds Fertilizer, Inc., 365 Ark. 133, 226 S.W.3d 753 (2006). I thought that the adoption of a new judicial article in the Arkansas Constitution may have been viewed by the Supreme Court as altering the former practice of requiring Workers’ Compensation Commission appeals to pass through the Court of Appeals before review by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denied certification. Consequently, our panel decided this appeal, and I agree with the rationale of the majority’s decision affirming the Commission’s conclusion that appellant failed to prove by objective evidence that he suffered an organic brain injury. While I cannot say there is no merit to appellant’s constitutional arguments, I am constrained to concur and affirm inasmuch as other panels of our court previously rejected identical arguments.