George Tyler v. Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc.

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 23-0393
Filed February 7, 2024
GEORGE TYLER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
vs.
TYSON FRESH MEATS, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Celene Gogerty, Judge.
A claimant appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for judicial review
of the workers’ compensation commissioner’s ruling. AFFIRMED.
Benjamin R. Roth of Ball, Kirk & Holm, P.C., Waterloo, for appellant.
Jason P. Wiltfang and Dillon J. Carpenter of Scheldrup Wiltfang Corridor
Law Group Iowa, P.C., Cedar Rapids, for appellee.
Considered by Bower, C.J., and Ahlers and Chicchelly, JJ.
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AHLERS, Judge.
After working at Tyson Fresh Meats (Tyson Meats) for twenty-five years,
George Tyler retired on October 31, 2018. Nearly a year later—on
October 22, 2019—Tyler notified Tyson Meats of a low back injury that he claimed
was caused by his employment. Tyler filed a claim for workers’ compensation
benefits. Tyson Meats asserted the defense that Tyler was not entitled to recover
on his claim because he failed to give Tyson Meats notice of the injury within ninety
days of the date of the injury’s occurrence, as required by Iowa Code
section 85.23 (2020). See DeLong v. Iowa State Highway Comm’n, 295 N.W. 91,
92 (Iowa 1940) (holding lack of notice required by what is now Iowa Code section
85.23 is an affirmative defense with the burden of proof on the employer). Tyler
countered by arguing that the discovery rule tolled the section 85.23 notice period.
The claim went to hearing, and the deputy workers’ compensation
commissioner determined that Tyler had a cumulative injury that was work-related.
But the deputy commissioner also found that Tyson Meats met its burden to prove
Tyler failed to notify it within ninety days of the date of the injury. The deputy
commissioner based this conclusion on the finding that Tyler knew both that he
was injured and that the injury was work-related at the time he retired. Based on
the finding that Tyler gave untimely notice, the commissioner found Tyler’s claim
was barred by section 85.23. Tyler appealed to the commissioner, again arguing
the notice period should have been tolled under the discovery rule because he did
not know the nature of his injury until September 2019. The commissioner affirmed
the deputy commissioner’s ruling in its entirety. Tyler petitioned for judicial review,
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making the same argument he made to the commissioner. The district court
denied his petition. Tyler appeals.
We review district court rulings on judicial review of agency decisions under
Iowa Code chapter 17A (2022). Chavez v. M.S. Tech. LLC, 972 N.W.2d 662, 666
(Iowa 2022). We apply section 17A.19(10) to determine whether we come to the
same conclusions as the district court. Ghost Player, LLC v. Iowa Dep’t of Econ.
Dev., 906 N.W.2d 454, 462 (Iowa 2018). “[W]e accept the commissioner’s factual
findings when supported by substantial evidence.” Bluml v. Dee Jay’s Inc., 920
N.W.2d 82, 84 (Iowa 2018). We “only disturb the agency’s application of the law
to the facts of the particular case if that application is irrational, illogical, or wholly
unjustifiable.” Ripperger v. Iowa Pub. Info. Bd., 967 N.W.2d 540, 549 (Iowa 2021)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). But when reviewing the workers’
compensation commissioner’s interpretation of Iowa Code chapter 85, we review
for correction of errors at law rather than deferring to the agency’s interpretation
“because the legislature has not clearly vested the commissioner with authority to
interpret that chapter.” Chavez, 972 N.W.2d at 666.
Tyler contends the commissioner erroneously applied the discovery rule to
Iowa Code section 85.23 (2020) by not making separate determinations as to when
he knew the nature, seriousness, and compensable character of his injury and
equating all elements of the discovery rule with an employee’s knowledge that the
injury is serious enough to have a permanent adverse impact on employment. He
claims that, instead, the court should have tolled the notice period until he knew
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the nature of his injury in September 2019 (when he contends he first understood
his injury was to his back, not his groin).1
But in the time since Tyler filed this appeal and the parties submitted their
briefs, our supreme court has clarified that the legislature’s 2017 amendments to
section 85.26(1)—which establishes the limitation period for bringing workers’
compensation claims—abrogated the version of the discovery rule relied upon by
Tyler. Tweeten v. Tweeten, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2023 WL 8853036, at *8 (Iowa
2023). The same discovery rule applies to both the statute of limitations set by
section 85.26 and the ninety-day notice requirement set by section 85.23. IBP,
Inc. v. Burress, 779 N.W.2d 210, 218 (Iowa 2010). Under the interpretation of the
discovery rule before the 2017 statutory amendments, the notice period did not
begin until the employee understood the nature, seriousness, and probable
compensable character of the injury. Id. Our supreme court has summarized
these elements with the phrase “serious enough to have a permanent adverse
impact on the claimant’s employment.” Herrera v. IBP, Inc., 633 N.W.2d 284, 288
(Iowa 2001). The parties have framed the fighting issue in the present case as
whether the supreme court’s summarization in Herrera applied to only one, or all
three, of the elements in the discovery rule. But this issue no longer guides the
outcome.
1 The record shows Tyler had a prior work-related hernia for which he asserted a
workers’ compensation claim that he settled with Tyson Meats. Tyler contends
that, until he was told his problems were back-related at a doctor visit in September
2019, he thought the pain he was experiencing was related to his prior hernia for
which he could not seek compensation because of the settlement of his hernia
claim.
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Prior to the legislature’s 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 85, Iowa
Code section 85.23 stated:
Unless the employer or the employer’s representative shall
have actual knowledge of the occurrence of an injury received within
ninety days from the date of the occurrence of the injury, or unless
the employee or someone on the employee’s behalf or a dependent
or someone on the dependent’s behalf shall give notice thereof to
the employer within ninety days from the date of the occurrence of
the injury, no compensation shall be allowed.
In 2017, the legislature added this definitional sentence to sections 85.23
and 85.26(1): “For the purposes of this section, ‘date of the occurrence of the
injury’ means the date that the employee knew or should have known that the injury
was work-related.”
In Tweeten, our supreme court reiterated that, prior to the 2017
amendments, the commencement of the limitation period in section 85.26(1) had
been tied to the claimant’s discovery of the nature, seriousness, and probable
compensable character of the injury. 2023 WL 8853036, at *7. It then held that,
by adding the definition of “date of the occurrence of the injury” to section 85.26(1),
the legislature changed the commencement of the limitation period to tie it to the
occurrence of a specific event, namely the date “the employee knew or should
have known that the injury was work related.” Id. at *7–8. The court explained:
The general assembly has chosen to limit the discovery rule to
knowledge that an injury is work-related, not to knowledge of the
compensable nature of the injury as we had previously recognized.
Continuing to apply our prior common law discovery rule to further
toll the limitation period until the employee is also aware of the
permanent adverse impact of an injury would add words to the
statute that the general assembly did not—something we cannot do.
Id. at *8. Because the legislature added identical language to sections 85.23
and 85.26(1), coupled with the fact that we apply the discovery rule the same under
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both sections, see IBP, 779 N.W.2d at 218, we find Tweeten controls the outcome
in this case. Consistent with the holding in Tweeten, we conclude the ninety-day
notice period set by section 85.23 starts on the date the claimant knew or should
have known the injury was work-related, without regard to a claimant’s knowledge
of the nature, seriousness, or probable compensable character of the injury.
Tyler’s argument rests on his contention that he was unaware of the nature
of his injury until September 2019. But even if that were true, after the 2017
legislative change analyzed by the supreme court in Tweeten, it does not affect
the start date of the notice period set by section 85.23. The only question since
the 2017 amendment is when Tyler knew or should have known that his injury was
work-related. Tyler concedes that he knew his injury was work-related as of his
retirement in October 2018. There is no question Tyler did not provide Tyson
Meats notice of the injury until the following October, well outside the ninety-day
notice period found in section 85.23. Because Tyler did not give Tyson Meats
timely notice of his injury, section 85.23 bars any recovery for his injury, so we
affirm.
AFFIRMED.