Court Opinion

ID: 9645814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:36:09.778499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:31.866455
License: Public Domain

Judith Rogers, Judge, dissenting. I agree with that portion of the majority opinion that appellee should continue to receive temporary total disability for his physical injury until Dr. Grimes feels that appellee has reached the end of his healing period. However, I strongly disagree that there is substantial evidence to support the finding that appellee’s psychological problems bear a causal relationship to his work-related injury. While it is true that it is the function of the Commission, and not the appellate courts, to act as the fact finder in workers’ compensation cases, see Ark. Code Ann. § 11-9-711(b)(3) (1987), it is also true that it is the duty of the appellate court to reverse the Commission’s decision when convinced that fair-minded persons, with the same facts before them, could not have reached the conclusion arrived at by the Commission. Franklin Collier Farms v. Chappel, 18 Ark. App. 200, 712 S.W.2d 334 (1986). The reviewing court must set aside the Commission’s decision when it cannot conscientiously find from a review of the entire record that the evidence supporting the decision is substantial; in this context, substantial evidence has been defined as more than a mere scintilla, and means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. College Club Dairy v. Carr, 25 Ark. App. 215, 756 S.W.2d 128 (1988). The medical and psychiatric history of the appellee is important to an understanding of his present condition. Appellee testified that he came to Arkansas for the Veteran Administration’s drug and alcohol treatment program. His employment history reveals an inability to get along with coworkers and supervisors; long-standing drug and alcohol addiction; psychiatric hospitalizations; and incidents of violence. He has been diagnosed as having a borderline personality disorder. Individuals who have this disorder are noted for feelings of entitlement. In addition, these persons “tend to experience complicated or incomplete recovery from illness [and] . . . may consciously or unconsciously create challenging, vague, undiagnosable illnesses, such as chronic viral infections or chronic pain.” In summary, treatment of individuals with BPD tends to be rather difficult and challenging, as it is often complicated by noncompliance and/or active interference with professional care, poor impulse control and mood instability, and an uncertain response to both psychotherapy and the use of psychotropic agents.1  I agree with the dissent of Commissioner Tatum that the claimant has failed to meet his burden of proof that his preexisting psychiatric condition was aggravated by his compensa-ble injury. In affirming, the majority emphasizes the Commission’s reliance on the testimony of Dr. Frank Slavik that appellee had partially adjusted simply because he had been able to hold down a job for a two month period. I note this period was of short duration and I do not think that, given appellee’s intermittent work history, his long years of substance abuse, and his previous psychiatric history, that reasonable minds could conclude that he had made an adjustment in this short period. Appellee had never held a job for more than three months since February of 1986. Given appellee’s long-standing problem, it does not seem reasonable to consider a two-month length of employment as representing an “adjustment period;” therefore, the entire premise on which this argument is predicated appears to be unjustified. Furthermore, the maladaptive behaviors described as resulting from this injury are consistent with his previous mode of functioning and there is no indication that the present behaviors represent a significant deterioration of his psychological condition. The workers’ compensation system was designed in some small measure to compensate injured victims, pay their medical costs and rehabilitate them for future gainful employment. This court has previously reversed commission findings when it is obvious that the law is not being applied to achieve these ends. We should not hesitate to reverse a decision that is not supported by substantial evidence.   Borderline Personality Disorder: Office Diagnosis and Management by Randy A. Sansone and Lori A. Sansone, il v44 American Family Physician, July 1991, p. 194(4).