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Allgood v. Parsons Trucking Co.2/5/2002
UNPUBLISHED
A decision without a published opinion is authority only in the case in which such decision is rendered and should not be cited in any other case in any court for any other purpose, nor should any court consider any such decision for any purpose except in the case in which such decision is rendered. See Rule of Appellate Procedure 30 (e)(3).
Plaintiff appeals from the denial of his claim for workers' compensation benefits. Plaintiff, employed by defendant as a long distance truck driver, sought compensation for injuries he allegedly sustained to his knee and back when he fell while disembarking from his truck cab on 12 February 1996. He filed a request for a hearing on 12 February 1998. Defendant responded to the request for a hearing by denying compensability on the ground that plaintiff did not sustain an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of employment or develop an occupational disease. Deputy Commissioner Edward Garner, Jr., heard lay testimony on 3 December 1998 and after receiving deposition testimony of two medical witnesses, filed an opinion and award denying compensation. Plaintiff appealed to the Full Commission, which also denied compensation based upon the following findings of fact:
1. Plaintiff, who was sixty-one years old at the time of the hearing before the Deputy Commissioner, worked as a truck driver most of his adult life.
2. On 12 February 1996, plaintiff was employed by defendant as a long distance truck driver. On that date, as he was climbing out of the cab of his truck in his usual and customary fashion, he experienced a sharp pain in his knee and fell to the ground. Plaintiff did not sustain an injury to his back or knee as a result of the fall.
3. When plaintiff returned to North Carolina with his truck on 13 February 1996, he did not indicate on the driver inspection report for that trip that the truck seat was broken.
4. On 16 February 1996, plaintiff was seen by Larry A. Pearce, M.D., for complaints of neck and back pain. Plaintiff reported a history of worsening back and neck pain over the preceding year. He also indicated that his pain was aggravated by his job as a long distance truck driver. Plaintiff did not describe injuring himself as the result of a fall from his truck, and he did not initially report that his truck seat was broken.
5. Plaintiff suffers from degenerative disc disease of the cervical and lumbar spine. This is an ordinary disease of life which is common in persons of plaintiff's age due to wear and tear of the body which accumulates over time.
6. Plaintiff's claim that he injured his back when he fell from his truck on 12 February 1996 is not accepted as credible.
7. The greater weight of the evidence failsto show that plaintiff's degenerative disc disease of the lumbar and cervical spine was caused or significantly contributed to by his employment with defendant or that plaintiff's job placed him at an increased risk for contracting his condition as compared to members of the general public not so employed.
8. Even if plaintiff made three to six trips with a broken seat, the repetitive slapping of that seat may have aggravated his symptoms, but it did not cause, aggravate, or accelerate the degenerative changes present in plaintiff's spine.
Based upon these findings of fact, the Full Commission concluded plaintiff did not sustain an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment with defendant. It also concluded plaintiff failed to prove that his degenerative disc disease was characteristic of and peculiar to his employment with defendant and that his employme
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