Browning v. Zoological Soc. of Cincinnati

[Cite as Browning v. Zoological Soc. of Cincinnati, 2020-Ohio-4042.]
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT OF OHIO
HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO
MELISSA BROWNING, APPEAL NO. C-190381
: TRIAL NO. A-1802224
Plaintiff-Appellee,
:
vs. O P I N I O N.
:
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF
CINCINNATI, :
Defendant-Appellant, :
and :
SARAH MORRISON, :
ADMINISTRATOR, OHIO BUREAU
OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION, :
Defendant. :
Civil Appeal From: Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas
Judgment Appealed From Is: Affirmed
Date of Judgment Entry on Appeal: August 12, 2020
Kneflin and Associates, LLC, Chrisopher Kneflin and Brent Martini, for Plaintiff-
Appellee Melissa Browning,
Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, LLP, and Andrew R. Thaler, for Defendant-Appellant
Zoological Society of Cincinnati.
OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
BERGERON, Judge.
{¶1} In this worker’s compensation appeal, the entire basis for seeking to
overturn the trial court’s result is the court’s admission that it may not have
scrutinized each page of the record. The employer seizes upon this as its ticket for
reversal, but in so doing, seeks to impose an obligation on trial courts to fly-speck
every sheet of paper that the parties heave onto their desks. The trial court here
evinced great familiarity with the case and the nuances of the claim at hand, and
certainly reviewed the record in depth. We have no hesitation in affirming its
decision.
{¶2} In January 2013, plaintiff-appellee Melissa Browning suffered an ankle
injury during the course of her employment with defendant-appellant Zoological
Society of Cincinnati (the “Zoo”). Stemming from this injury, Ms. Browning filed a
claim with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, with her claim permitted as
to the conditions of left ankle sprain, closed fracture of the lateral malleolus, and
right knee contusion. Ms. Browning subsequently requested participation for an
additional condition of “stage II posterior tibial tendon insufficiency with accessory
navicular displacement.” But this condition did not fare as well, with all three
administrative levels of the Industrial Commission denying this request. Ms.
Browning accordingly appealed to the court of common pleas.
{¶3} In April 2019, the trial court convened a single-day trial. During the
trial, Ms. Browning presented her treating physician’s deposition, while the Zoo
offered counter expert testimony (also by way of deposition). Both physicians agreed
that Ms. Browning suffered from the requested accessory navicular displacement
condition, but fenced over the condition’s relation to any work injury. Also during
trial, the court admitted into evidence the parties’ stipulated joint exhibits containing
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
Ms. Browning’s prior medical records, all contained in a single binder. Upon
receiving all of this evidence and testimony, the court then retired, taking a day to
review everything. The next day, the parties returned and the court announced its
decision, opening the hearing with a candid statement:
THE COURT: I’ve listened to the testimony. I’ve reviewed the medical
opinions and some of the records. I can’t say I’ve reviewed each and
every one of 500 pages or so.
The court then proceeded to emphasize the specific portions of the evidence and
testimony that it relied upon, ultimately finding in Ms. Browning’s favor. In the
wake of this decision, the Zoo now appeals, not contesting the merits of the trial
court’s determination but rather assigning error to the court’s purported failure to
review the entire record prior to entering its judgment.
{¶4} The Zoo proclaims that the court committed reversible error when it
failed to consider all the exhibits before rendering judgment, citing Higgins v.
Buehrer, 1st Dist. Hamilton No. C-160288, 2016-Ohio-7214, for support.
Specifically, the Zoo posits that, because the court acknowledged it “can’t say [it]
reviewed each and every one of 500 pages or so,” the record demonstrates that the
trial court failed to examine the stipulated joint exhibits prior to ruling in favor of
Ms. Browning.
{¶5} Because the Zoo doubles down on Higgins, we begin there. In
Higgins, a single-day bench trial commenced, with the parties offering the court,
prior to opening statements, several stipulated exhibits concerning Mr. Higgins’s
prior medical records, which the court admitted. However, after closing arguments,
the trial court immediately issued its ruling, never examining the stipulated exhibits
the parties tendered the court earlier that day. This court ultimately reversed and
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
remanded for a new trial, holding that a trial court possesses “a duty to thoroughly
review all evidence and exhibits that were made a part of the record in the case
before it prior to entering judgment,” which the trial court failed to do in that case.
Id. at ¶ 6. We reasoned that an examination of the entire record is necessary for
evaluating whether a party satisfied its burden and for properly rendering credibility
determinations. Id. at ¶ 6-7. Therefore, because the record “affirmatively
demonstrated that the trial court failed to consider all evidence,” specifically the
stipulated exhibits, this court reversed and remanded for a new trial. Id. at ¶ 9.
{¶6} Reading Higgins broadly, the Zoo seemingly envisions that Higgins
requires a trial court to independently dissect each and every page of the record prior
to issuing its decision. We think this pushes Higgins past its breaking point. As this
court emphasized, Higgins constituted a “rare case in which it ha[d] been
affirmatively demonstrated that the trial court failed to consider all evidence,” with
the court admitting the stipulated exhibits at the beginning of the single-day trial,
and then rendering a decision later that very day without taking any time to review
the exhibits. Id. at ¶ 9. In other words, the trial court in Higgins effectively refused
to examine properly-admitted evidence. See id. at ¶ 7. While the trial court must
“thoroughly review all evidence and exhibits” admitted before its ruling, id. at ¶ 6, we
never suggested that the trial court must break out the magnifying glass to scrutinize
each scrap of paper in the record.
{¶7} The Zoo’s position seems to hinge on the notion that just because an
exhibit was stipulated to by the parties, it must be critically relevant. Not so.
Attorneys stipulate to exhibits all the time for various reasons, and they often fill the
record with scores of admissible exhibits that might have no bearing on the court’s
overall analysis. We are loath to place a burden on the trial court to individually
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
inspect countless pages of records not necessarily relevant to the issue at hand. To
read Higgins as such would essentially shift the parties’ burden to the trial court,
with the likely result that they would inject even more extraneous documents into the
record, hoping for a safety valve for an appeal if the trial court failed to recall the
details of each page. See GMS Mgt. Co. v. Nguyen, 9th Dist. Wayne No. 08CA0014,
2008-Ohio-6574, ¶ 20 (“[A]nd it was [the appellant’s] lawyer’s job, through
argument, to call the trial court’s attention to relevant provisions and explain their
relevance.”); In re S Children, 1st Dist. Hamilton Nos. C-170624 and C-170653, 2018-
Ohio-2961, ¶ 24 (“Moreover, we do not accept the argument that it is the trial court’s
duty to root through the records to unearth evidence favorable to a party. We utilize
an adversarial court system, not an inquisitional one.”).
{¶8} That is not what Higgins contemplated. We have a trial court here
who professed to review the record, and whose detailed comments in issuing its
decisions reflected a command of that very record. Unlike Higgins, we do not see
any indication of a trial court skirting its obligations and refusing to consider record
evidence. See In re S Children at ¶ 23-24 (reasoning the trial court’s statement that
it had not “ ‘had an opportunity to review every single page in those medical
records,’ ” did not “mean that the court had not looked at the documents at all,” and
thus unlike Higgins, the trial court “did not clearly fail to review exhibits prior to
ruling.”). Accordingly, we cannot find this is one of the rare cases where the record
affirmatively demonstrates the trial court failed to consider all the evidence prior to
its ruling.
{¶9} We accordingly overrule the Zoo’s sole assignment of error and affirm
the judgment of the trial court.
Judgment affirmed.
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OHIO FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS
MYERS, P.J., and CROUSE, J., concur.
Please note:
The court has recorded its own entry this date.
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