Court Opinion

ID: 9583329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:37:40.650134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:57.187338
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Nichols, Judge.
The insurer and employer contend in this motion for rehearing that this court has overlooked and failed to apply the law as found in the decision of Wilson v. Swift & Co., 68 Ga. App. 701 (23 S. E. 2d 261) which they contend would require a different decision.
The case of Phinese v. Ocean Accident &c. Corp., 81 Ga. App. *252394, which this court has cited in the majority opinion, holds that a physician who had not seen the employee claimant prior to the hearing on change of condition could not testify that the claimant’s condition had changed, in the absence of other testimony as to a change in condition. This case cited and followed the cases of Moore v. American Liability &c. Co., 67 Ga. App. 259 (19 S. E. 2d 763), and Gravitt v. Georgia Cas. Co., 158 Ga. 613 (123 S. E. 897), which are older cases than that relied on by the movants, and if there is any conflict between such cases and the case relied on by the movants the older cases of this court and the decision of the Supreme Court, herein cited, must be followed. “Where there is no change in condition, the department cannot rehear the case on its merits and determine under the evidence that the claimant was totally disabled and had been since his injury, and make an award increasing his weekly compensation payments from a fifty percent disability basis to a one hundred percent disability basis, or vice versa.” Fralish v. Royal Indem. Co., 53 Ga. App. 557 (1) (186 S. E. 567). In the present case there was no competent evidence of a change in claimant’s condition.

Rehearing denied.