Court Opinion

ID: 9585657
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:02:37.046146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:48.887615
License: Public Domain

*781Sognier, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority cites the evidence given by Doctors Fulghum and Haddle as “any evidence” of a connection between appellee’s heat stroke and his subsequent mental incapacitation. The October 28, 1981 psychological report by Dr. Fulghum in the record states that appellee “SUFFERED TWO STOKES [sic] THIS PAST SUMMER, WHEN HE WAS HOSPITALIZED TWICE FOR DEPRESSION AND/OR HYPERTENSION. DR. ADAMS THINKS TWO ARE RELATED. (I AGREEE [sic])” However, in Dr. Fulghum’s letter of June 4, 1982 he stated, “(2) I do not think it is possible to differentiate whether Mr. Williams is incapacitated because of depression or hypertension. My experience has been that when you adequately treat a patient for hypertension, they get depressed. When a person gets depressed, they frequently become agitated and that aggrevates [sic] their hypertension. The two problems are integrally related. (3) I know nothing about Mr. William’s [sic] problems with heat exhaustion.” In deposition, the Dr. Adams mentioned in the October 28th letter testified in agreement with Dr. Fulghum that “the hypertension and the depression-anxiety [are] interrelated to the degree that I don’t think we can control the hypertension until we can control the other.” Thus, it is clear that the relationship to which Dr. Fulghum was referring was that between the depression and the hypertension, not, as the majority states, between appellee’s strokes and his depression.
Similarly, Dr. Haddle’s brief psychological evaluation of appellee fails to relate appellee’s work-related heat stroke with the anxiety and depression appellee now suffers. Instead, it is appellee’s current inability to perform as a provider which the doctor emphasizes as an underlying cause for the severe crisis appellee is undergoing.
Although the “any evidence” rule is the standard used in workers’ compensation cases, I find nothing in the record as a whole or in the above medical testimony to show a causal connection between appellee’s work-related heat stroke and the reactive depression appellee now suffers. Regardless of where the sympathy of this court may lie, if there is absolutely no evidence to support an award, we cannot uphold it. OCGA § 34-9-105 (c); Hall v. West Point Pepperell, 133 Ga. App. 24, 26 (209 SE2d 659) (1974). Therefore, I would reverse the superior court’s judgment affirming the award of the State Board of Workers’ Compensation.
I am authorized to state that Judge Birdsong and Judge Pope join in this dissent.