Court Opinion

ID: 9622494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:18:31.779291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:27:43.124985
License: Public Domain

JAMES M. SMART, JR., Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. In Bennett I, we remanded the matter to the Commission to consider “all of the pertinent issues” prescribed by section 287.020, including “substantial factor” and “proximate cause.” The mandate directed the Commission to consider the nature of the claimant’s job duties and the relationship between the job and the walking in question in this case. See Bennett v. Columbia Health Care, 80 S.W.3d 524, 531-32 (Mo.App.2002). The opinion noted that the ALJ and the Commission did not discuss any of the medical testimony. The court directed the Commission to specifically determine whether the injury was merely the natural progression of the preexisting degeneration of the knee. Id. at 532.
In remanding Bennett I, we failed to note that the Commission, in addition to finding that the claimant’s activities in walking and climbing stairs in the course of her employment were activities of everyday life to which the average person is “equally exposed outside of and unrelated to the employment in normal non-employment life,” found that the injury “did not arise out of employment.” The Commission thus found inferentially that the job duties were not causally related to the injury in any way recognized as compen-sable under the statute. We mistakenly concluded, however, that because the Commission was not explicit as to all issues mentioned in section 287.020, the Commis*94sion had failed to consider anything beyond the fact that the injury occurred while walking. Therefore, we remanded for the Commission to consider whether the activities of the employment were a “substantial factor” in causing her injury, ia, whether her work duties placed a peculiar or unusual stress on the claimant’s knees.
In remanding this case, this court was concerned only about the principle that the mere fact that an injury occurred while walking (an activity of daily life) is not per se dispositive. Id. at 531. We were not attempting to shift the burden of proof to the employer. Our hindsight shows, however, that in remanding the case we only caused confusion for the Commission and the litigants because the Commission thought it was already clear that it had considered all the pertinent evidence, including the medical evidence, at the hearing. The claimant, in fact, had failed in Bennett I to present evidence of any kind that the job duties placed any unusual stress on her knee. The Commission had accordingly ruled that the injury did not arise out of the claimant’s employment. The evidence showed that the claimant, a person with pre-existing cartilage damage and degenerative arthritis in her knee, aggravated her knee injury while merely walking at work. The evidence thus showed that the walking at work was at most a “triggering or precipitating” factor, which is insufficient under section 287.020 to create compensability.
On remand, the Commission, obviously believing that we were, in effect, shifting the burden to the employer rather than leaving it with the claimant, did in fact shift the burden, and accordingly reached a different result. The Commission misinterpreted the mandate because of confusion as to the purpose of the remand. In retrospect, it is apparent we should have affirmed the original ruling. I would concede our error in failing to affirm the first time around, and would reverse the new judgment and remand for reinstatement of the original judgment.