Beard v. WakeMed , 232 N.C. App. 187 ( 2014 )

NO. COA13-723
NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS
Filed: 4 February 2014
TRACY BEARD,
Employee,
Plaintiff,
North Carolina
v. Industrial Commission
I.C. No. X39221
WAKEMED,
Employer,
SELF-INSURED (KEY RISK MANAGEMENT
SERVICES, Administrator),
Defendants.
Appeal by defendants from Opinion and Award entered 1 February
2013 and order entered 8 April 2013 by the North Carolina
Industrial Commission. Heard in the Court of Appeals 19 November
2013.
O’Malley Tunstall, PLLC, by Joseph P. Tunstall, III, for
plaintiff-appellee.
Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog LLP, by Jaye E. Bingham-Hinch, for
defendants-appellants.
STROUD, Judge.
Defendants appeal opinion and award awarding workers’
compensation benefits to plaintiff and order denying their motion
for reconsideration. For the following reasons, we affirm.
I. Background
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On or about 25 April 2011, defendant entered a Form 19,
“EMPLOYER’S REPORT OF EMPLOYEE’S INJURY OR OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE TO
THE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION” (“report”). The report stated that
plaintiff, a staff nurse, “was pulling a patient in their bed and
felt lower back pain.” On or about 2 May 2011, plaintiff’s
workers’ compensation claim was denied for the following reasons:
- Your injury was not the result of an
accident
- Your injury was not the result of a specific
traumatic incident
- Your injury did not arise out of and in the
course and scope of your employment
- Credibility based on inconsistent
inaccurate and/or contradictory information
- and any other defenses that become known to
the employer/carrier
On 12 May 2011, plaintiff requested that her claim be assigned
for a hearing. On or about 27 May 2011, defendants responded to
plaintiff’s request for a hearing stating “that the plaintiff did
not sustain an injury by accident arising out of and in the course
of her employment and is therefore entitled to no workers’
compensation benefits.” On or about 13 December 2011, the parties
entered into a “PRE-TRIAL AGREEMENT” wherein they all stipulated
that plaintiff was an employee of defendant WakeMed and that she
sustained an injury on 12 April 2011. On 23 May 2012, Deputy
Commissioner Victoria M. Homick of the Industrial Commission
entered an opinion and award ordering defendants to “pay temporary
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total disability compensation[,]” “all past and future medical
expenses incurred or to be incurred as a result of plaintiff’s
compensable injury[,]” “reasonable attorney’s fee[,]” and “costs.”
On 29 May 2012, defendants appealed the Deputy Commissioner’s
opinion and award. On 1 February 2013, the Full Commission of the
Industrial Commission entered an opinion and award again ordering
defendant’s to “pay temporary total disability compensation[,]”
“all past and future medical expenses incurred or to be incurred
as a result of Plaintiff’s compensable injury[,]” “reasonable
attorney’s fee[,]” and “costs.”
On 28 February 2013, defendants filed a “MOTION FOR
RECONSIDERATION” On 7 March 2013, plaintiff objected to
defendants’ motion for reconsideration because, inter alia, it was
not timely filed. On 7 March 2013, defendants contended that their
motion should be heard because it was timely filed. On 8 April
2013, the Full Commission entered an order denying defendants’
motion to reconsider. Defendants appealed both the opinion and
award of the Full Commission and the order denying their motion to
reconsider.
II. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law
Defendants challenge various findings of fact as unsupported
by the competent evidence and several conclusions of law as
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unsupported by the findings of fact.
The standard of review in workers’
compensation cases has been firmly established
by the General Assembly and by numerous
decisions of this Court. Under the Workers’
Compensation Act, the Commission is the sole
judge of the credibility of the witnesses and
the weight to be given their testimony.
Therefore, on appeal from an award of the
Industrial Commission, review is limited to
consideration of whether competent evidence
supports the Commission’s findings of fact and
whether the findings support the Commission’s
conclusions of law. This court’s duty goes no
further than to determine whether the record
contains any evidence tending to support the
finding.
Richardson v. Maxim Healthcare/Allegis Grp., 362 N.C. 657, 660,
669 S.E.2d 582, 584 (2008) (citations, quotation marks, and
brackets omitted).
A. Compensable Injury
Defendants contend that fifteen findings of fact “are not
supported by the evidence of record” and three conclusions of law
“are not supported by findings of fact or the applicable law”
regarding “whether plaintiff sustained a compensable injury by
accident to her back in the form of a specific traumatic incident,
arising out of and in the course of her employment with WakeMed
that aggravated her pre-existing low back condition[.]” (Original
in all caps.) (Quotation marks omitted.) While a cursory glance
of defendant’s brief makes it appear that defendants are
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appropriately challenging the evidence, findings of fact, and
conclusions of law, a thorough reading reveals that defendants are
actually asking this Court to reweigh the evidence before the
Commission in favor of defendants. This we cannot do, as “this
[C]ourt’s duty goes no further than to determine whether the record
contains any evidence tending to support the finding.” Id.
(emphasis added). The fact that the evidence may support a
different finding of fact is irrelevant if there is “any evidence
tending to support” the findings of fact actually made by the
Commission. Id.
Defendants also argue that “the only evidence that plaintiff
did sustain such an injury is plaintiff’s own testimony” and
“plaintiff was not honest[;]” however, the evidence contains
statements by medical professionals regarding the fact that
plaintiff sustained a compensable injury. Furthermore,
plaintiff’s own testimony is evidence which the Commission may
weigh for credibility and if it determines the evidence is credible
it may base findings of fact regarding plaintiff’s compensable
injury upon such evidence; defendant has failed to cite any legal
authority stating otherwise.
Defendants further contend that “the Commission erroneously
ignored all the evidence regarding plaintiff’s failure to disclose
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her back history to WakeMed and her medical providers and made no
findings of fact regarding this evidence or the evidence that
plaintiff was reprimanded for failing to assist a co-worker on a
problematic procedure[.]” Yet the fact that the Commission may
not have made a finding of fact regarding every piece of evidence
presented does not mean that the Commission “ignored” that
evidence, but only that it did not determine that a finding of
fact regarding such evidence was necessary to support its
determination. Quoting and citing appropriate law regarding the
Commission’s duty to make all the material findings of fact
necessary to support the conclusions of law is not actually an
argument to this Court as to why specific findings of fact are
necessary in this case. Defendants have failed to demonstrate
that the Commission ignored any material evidence upon which a
finding must be made.
Defendants also challenge the “medical evidence” before the
Commission because “there is no medical evidence that plaintiff
sustained an injury at the time she alleges” as the deposed doctors
were basing their opinions “on plaintiff’s subjective history[.]”
Defendants have pointed to no legal authority that doctors may not
rely on “plaintiff’s subjective history” both in diagnosing and
treating her; indeed, defendants seem to imply that all “subjective
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history” should be disregarded. But a doctor’s medical
determination is not rendered incompetent because it is based upon
a patient’s subjective reports of her history and symptoms as a
part of a medical evaluation. See Yingling v. Bank of America,
___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 741 S.E.2d 395, 406 (2013) (“Especially
when treating pain patients, a physician’s diagnosis often depends
on the patient’s subjective complaints, and this does not render
the physician’s opinion incompetent as a matter of law.” (citation,
quotation marks, and brackets omitted)). Defendants have made no
legal arguments showing that the doctors’ depositions should not
be included as competent evidence before the Commission simply
because the doctors relied in part upon plaintiff’s subjective
history in both diagnosing and treating plaintiff, and we can think
of none. As such, the Commission was allowed to weigh the
evidence, including the depositions, as it saw fit and make the
appropriate and essential findings of fact based upon them. See
id. Based on the foregoing reasons, the arguments regarding the
findings of fact and conclusions of law are overruled. We will
not reweigh the evidence before the Commission, so there is no
valid legal argument for this Court to consider from defendants
regarding any of the challenged findings of fact or conclusions of
law as to plaintiff’s compensable injury.
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B. Disability
Defendants also contend that five findings of fact “are not
supported by the competent evidence of record” and three
conclusions of law “are not supported by the findings of fact or
applicable law. Defendants’ challenge to the five findings of
fact and three conclusions of law center around one issue:
defendants argue that the Commission erred in concluding that
“plaintiff met her burden of proof pursuant to the second prong of
Russell v. Lowes Product Distrib., 108 N.C. App. 762, 425 S.E.2d
454 (1993)[.]”
Russell provides,
The burden is on the employee to show
that he is unable to earn the same wages he
had earned before the injury, either in the
same employment or in other employment. The
employee may meet this burden in one of four
ways [including] . . . (2) the production of
evidence that he is capable of some work, but
that he has, after a reasonable effort on his
part, been unsuccessful in his effort to
obtain employment[.]
Russell v. Lowes Product Distribution, 108 N.C. App. 762, 765-66,
425 S.E.2d 454, 457 (1993) (citation omitted).
Defendants direct our attention to statements Dr. Daniel
Albright made during his deposition which could be construed as
evidence that plaintiff should not be under work restrictions.
But Dr. Alright did place a 20 pound lifting restriction on
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plaintiff, at the very least to relieve her of the anxiety she had
about returning to work because of the “exacerbation of her
previous low back condition” caused by her “on-the-job injury[.]”
Thus, the Commission had to weigh and consider Dr. Albright’s
statements along with the other evidence and based upon this could
properly find that
Dr. Albright diagnosed Plaintiff with a low
back strain and recommended physical therapy
and work conditioning. Dr. Albright released
Plaintiff to return to work with restrictions
of no lifting over twenty pounds. . . . Dr.
Albright opined, to a reasonable degree of
medical certainty, that the April 12, 2011
work incident exacerbated a pre-existing low
back condition.
Furthermore, plaintiff’s husband testified that it had been “very
difficult for her” to find work due to her back pain, and plaintiff
spent “four or five hours a day looking” for jobs and sending
resumes to prospective employers. Plaintiff also testified that
she had attempted to return to work taking a part-time position
and eventually moving to a full-time position which she had held
until a week or two before her hearing before the Industrial
Commission but ultimately voluntarily left because she “had a lot
of back pain” and “would come at the end of the day and it was
hard for [her] to move.” We believe that the evidence and the
Commission’s findings of fact regarding the evidence support the
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conclusion that “Plaintiff has proven disability under the second
prong of Russell, through evidence that she made reasonable efforts
to find work but has been unsuccessful in obtaining employment.”
Accordingly, this argument is overruled.
III. Motion for Reconsideration
Defendants also contend the Commission erred in denying their
motion to reconsider which they argue “contain[ed] a Motion to
Consider and Admit . . . Newly Discovered Evidence[.]” Defendants’
motion is entitled “DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF FULL
COMMISSION’S OPINION AND AWARD” and includes 30 numbered
paragraphs. Defendants contend that two of these paragraphs
contain their motion to consider and admit newly discovered
evidence. The alleged “newly discovered evidence” is information
that plaintiff obtained another job after the hearing before the
Commission; this is not “newly discovered evidence” since this
evidence did not exist at the time of the hearing. See Parks v.
Green, 153 N.C. App. 405, 412, 571 S.E.2d 14, 19 (2002). “The
newly discovered evidence must have been in existence at the time
of the trial. This limitation on newly discovered evidence has
been justified on the firm policy ground that, if the situation
were otherwise, litigation would never come to an end.” Id.
(citation and quotation marks omitted).
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Defendants’ brief addresses only the denial of the motion to
consider and admit newly discovered evidence and does not present
any argument regarding the denial of the motion to the extent that
it might be considered as a motion for reconsideration. In any
event, both motions are reviewed for abuse of discretion. See
generally Cummins v. BCCI Const. Enters., 149 N.C. App. 180, 185,
560 S.E.2d 369, 373 (“the Commission did not manifestly abuse its
discretion by denying defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration”),
disc. review denied, 356 N.C. 611, 574 S.E.2d 678 (2002); Owens v.
Mineral Co., 10 N.C. App. 84, 87, 177 S.E.2d 775, 777 (1970)
(“Ordinarily, a motion for further hearing on the grounds of
introducing additional or newly discovered evidence rests in the
sound discretion of the Industrial Commission.”); cert. denied,
277 N.C. 726, 178 S.E.2d 831 (1971).
The test for abuse of discretion is whether a
decision is manifestly unsupported by reason,
or so arbitrary that it could not have been
the result of a reasoned decision. Because
the reviewing court does not in the first
instance make the judgment, the purpose of the
reviewing court is not to substitute its
judgment in place of the decision maker.
Rather, the reviewing court sits only to
insure that the decision could, in light of
the factual context in which it is made, be
the product of reason.
Burnham v. McGee Bros. Co., Inc., ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 727
S.E.2d 724, 728 (2012) (citation, quotation marks, and ellipses
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omitted), disc. review dismissed and cert. denied, 366 N.C. 437,
737 S.E.2d 106 (2013).
As the “newly discovered evidence” which the defendants asked
the Commission to consider is not actually “newly discovered
evidence,” see Parks, 153 N.C. App. at 412, 571 S.E.2d at 19, the
Commission did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion.
Defendants further contend that the Commission erred in failing to
address their motion to consider and admit newly discovered
evidence; however, even according to defendants, this “motion” was
two paragraphs as part of a larger motion to reconsider. It is
obvious that the Commission denied defendants’ entire motion. The
Commission is not required to file a separate order or even add a
separate sentence specifically denying this additional “motion”
embedded within the motion to reconsider, since the order denying
the motion to reconsider is clearly a denial of all arguments made
within that motion. This argument is overruled.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.
AFFIRMED.
Judges MCGEE and BRYANT concur.