Court Opinion

ID: 9756461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:29:44.233391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:23.048481
License: Public Domain

JOHN F. STROUD, Jr., Judge, dissenting. I agree with the Commission that the issue of causation in this case turned on the credibility of appellant’s history as given to medical personnel, but I disagree with the majority’s application of the evidence addressing that issue. The Commission found that appellant provided an inconsistent history with regard to the onset of her carpal tunnel problems. Noting that no evidence corroborated appellant’s two-and-a-half year history of pain and treatment as related to Dr. Hixson and noting that appellant’s history as related to the doctor was the only evidence supporting her causation opinion, the Commission assigned little or no weight to the doctor’s opinion of a temporal connection between appellant’s driving the wrecked truck and developing carpal tunnel syndrome. It was undisputed that appellant drove the previously wrecked truck for several months in 1995, last driving it in October. Medical records and testimony show that appellant told Dr. Hurst that the tingling in her right and left arms started in August 1996, which would have been ten months after the injury; she later told her physical therapist that her carpal tunnel complaints began in February 1995; in December 1997 she told Dr. Marcia Hixson that the problems had begun two and one-half years earlier. This evidence supports the Commission’s finding that appellant provided an inconsistent history with regard to the onset of her carpal tunnel problems. Dr. Hixson attributed appellant’s carpal tunnel syndrome to driving the truck, based upon appellant’s relating that her hands tingled after holding onto the wheel, and that she had taken non-steroid medication and had worn splints for the condition. As mentioned above, the Commission assigned little or no weight to Dr. Hixson’s causation opinion but found credible the evidence that appellant did not develop carpal tunnel syndrome until ten months after last, driving the wrecked truck. Weight and credibility of testimony are matters exclusively within the province of the Commission. Stephens Truck Lines v. Millican, 58 Ark. App. 275, 950 S.W.2d 472 (1997). Following our standard of review, we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commission’s findings, and if reasonable minds could reach the Commission’s conclusion, we must affirm its decision. McMillan v. U.S. Motors, 59 Ark. App. 85, 953 S.W.2d 907 (1997). Accordingly, I would affirm the Commission’s denial of the claim because I find a substantial basis for their decision. Jennings and Crabtree, JJ., and Hays, S.J., join in this dissent.