Court Opinion

ID: 9701290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:14:23.980826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:22.116053
License: Public Domain

Josephine Linker Hart, Judge, dissenting. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the Commission’s opinion displays a substantial basis for the denial of relief. Rather, I agree with the opinion of the dissenting commissioner who, after thoroughly analyzing the medical evidence, concluded that even though appellant was a poor historian, he did prove that he sustained a compensable injury. Appellant testified that in late December of 1998 his back began hurting after helping co-workers lift fans weighing 700 pounds. After work that day, he told his wife about his back. Although appellant did not recall speaking to his co-worker, Richard Alonzo, about his back, Alonzo remembered that he had been working with appellant lifting the fans when a supervisor reassigned appellant to other work. Further, Alonzo stated that he saw appellant hold his back and heard appellant say to him, “I think I pulled something.” The issue was complicated when appellant was first examined by Dr. Christi Williams on December 31, 1998, and she determined that he suffered from a kidney infection. However, appellant’s back pain persisted after the kidney infection had been treated. Thereafter, numerous tests were performed on appellant’s lumbar spine to determine the cause of his pain. Dr. Hart reported on August 18, 2000, that although appellant “had preexisting degenerative disc disease, the history of specific back injury in December of 1998 . . . was the onset or precipitating and major cause of his continued back, buttock, and lower extremity pain . . . and disability, based on subjective and objective findings.” Further, Dr. Hart stated with reasonable medical certainty that the “discography demonstrated multiple levels of disc disruption, well documented, secondary to his on-the-job injury.” Although Dr. Hart acknowledged that appellant had degenerative changes, he opined that appellant did not have annular tears prior to the injury because “annular tears are extremely painful, and they can make you dysfunctional.” When discussing the annular tears in the four different discs, Dr. Hart stated that he was sure that the L3-4 area had “dealt him a big blow in his back problems because there’s a large bulging disc.” Moreover, Dr. Hart opined that tears in the annular disc do not always result in immediate pain and that it was common for patients to describe a pop in their backs and the pain to continually get worse with time. Dr. Hart ultimately opined in his testimony that regardless of appellant’s preexisting degenerative disc condition, the on-the-job lifting incident was the major cause of his current disability condition and treatment. The findings of the ALJ, as adopted by the Commission, stated: While Dr. Hart has objectively proven to the satisfaction of this examiner that the Claimant has 4 annular tears which are the cause of Claimant’s back pain, he can only speculate as to the origin of the annular tears by relying on “assumptions” that have been furnished to him by the Claimant himself. The Claimant’s age, work experience in hard manual labor, diabetes, arthritis, and degenerative disc disease have all been dismissed in relying solely upon Claimant’s relation of facts and, as such, Dr. Hart has utilized “assumptions” and speculation to express his opinion as to a causal connection between the annular tears and an on the job injury. There is nothing in the evidence to establish that appellant has been diagnosed with diabetes. In fact, the medical evidence specifically provides that appellant does not have diabetes. Furthermore, the findings of the Commission are based on Dr. Hart’s reliance on appellant’s recitation of the fact that he was lifting heavy equipment at the time of the injury. In adopting the findings of the ALJ, the Commission disregarded Dr. Hart’s testimony because he was not able to opine as to when appellant’s condition originated and because he relied on appellant’s own statements in order to relate the condition to his employment. This disregard of Dr. Hart’s testimony, however, was arbitrary because Dr. Hart based his testimony on the common-sense observation that appellant’s complaints of back pain began following a day of very heavy work and that he was pain free before that day and thereafter, he was in pain with multiple problems. In Edens v. Superior Marble & Glass, 346 Ark. 487, 492, 58 S.W.3d 369, 373 (2001), our supreme court addressed Arkansas Code Annotated section ll-9-102(4)(A)(i), which defines “com-pensable injury,” and stated: A strict construction of the statute does not require, as a prerequisite to compensability, that the claimant identify the precise time and numerical date upon which an accidental injury occurred. Instead, the statute only requires that the claimant prove that the occurrence of the injury is capable of being identified. The inability of the claimant to specify the date might be considered by the Commission in weighing the credibility of the evidence, but the statute does not require that the exact date be identified. Therefore, we reverse the Commission’s decision to the extent that it was based on Mr. Eden’s inability to provide an exact date of the injury, and remand for the Commission to consider the compensability of Mr. Eden’s claim in a manner consistent with our interpretation of section 11 -9-102(4) (A) (i). Furthermore, in Edens, the supreme court stated that the “Commission may not arbitrarily disregard the testimony of any witness, nor may the Commission arbitrarily disregard other evidence submitted in support of a claim.” Id. at 492-93, 58 S.W.3d at 373. Here, the evidence established that appellant did suffer from degenerative disc disease; however, the main source of his complaints occurred after the December 1998 on-the-job injury. Although the Commission has discretion to accept or reject medical testimony, it must be noted that Dr. Hart’s analysis and diagnosis were not refuted by any of the other treating physicians. Because the Commission was presented with no other evidence to refute Dr. Hart’s testimony, it must be concluded that the Commission arbitrarily disregarded his medical testimony as to the cause of appellant’s injury. Here, the medical evidence presented established that the Commission’s opinion did, not display a substantial basis for the denial of relief. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.