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Baugh-Carroll v. Hospital Authority of Randolph County2/22/2001
BL-019
We granted this discretionary appeal to review whether the superior court erred by reversing a workers' compensation award. At issue is whether the superior court failed to defer to an explicit factual finding that the employer/self-insurer had waived a possible defense to its former employee's claim for disability income benefits. After review, we find that the employer/self-insurer waived any defense that could otherwise have been asserted under OCGA § 34-9-104, and, therefore, we reverse.
Felicia Baugh-Carroll was employed by the Hospital Authority of Randolph County d/b/a Joe-Anne Burgin Nursing Home from 1987 until 1998. In 1992, she sustained a compensable injury to her right knee, underwent arthroscopic surgery, and obtained temporary total disability benefits from January 29, 1992, through March 21, 1992. Baugh-Carroll, a nurse's aide, went back to the nursing home to do a light duty assignment, which was largely sedentary. She remained under the care of an orthopedic surgeon who performed a second right knee arthroscopic procedure in June 1997. Baugh-Carroll returned to an approved light duty position on July 14, 1997, and did not receive temporary total disability benefits after that date. In March 1998, for personal reasons, she resigned from the nursing home and relocated to Florida.
In September 1998, Baugh-Carroll began working for a mental hospital in Florida as an observer of patients, again doing primarily sedentary tasks. After being employed at the mental hospital for about ten months, she resigned, claiming that she could no longer work due to "unbearable pain" in both knees. Subsequently, Baugh-Carroll sought workers' compensation benefits from the Hospital Authority of Randolph County ("Hospital Authority" or "employer/self-insurer").
In awarding benefits, the administrative law judge ("ALJ") found that Baugh-Carroll's medical records documented that she had begun experiencing problems with her left knee in 1996 while still working at the nursing home. While recognizing the conflicting notations entered in certain medical reports, the ALJ determined that the "problems with her left knee were at least aggravated, if not caused, by her original on-the-job accident and injury." Deciding that the evidence showed a causal relationship between the original injury to her right knee and her later problems with her left knee, the ALJ found Baugh-Carroll had sustained "a superadded injury as a result of her on-the-job accident and injury of January 29, 1992." The ALJ further found that Baugh-Carroll was totally disabled from working since April 26, 1999, when she resigned from her employment at the mental hospital in Florida. The ALJ expressly noted that in defending the claim, the employer/insurer had failed to assert the appropriate statute of limitation. The ALJ found:
The only statute of limitations defense was one raised by employer in their brief that the statute of limitations in OCGA § 34-9-82 barred Ms. Baugh-Carroll's claim for disability benefits as she did not file a claim in a year of resigning her duties March 31, 1998. However, this is not the applicable statute as Ms. Baugh-Carroll has undergone a change in condition. Further, Ms. Baugh-Carroll was not disabled as a result of this injury until April 26, 1999.
The ALJ decided that Baugh-Carroll was entitled to disability benefits from April 26, 1999, and continuing and also to medical treatment for her left knee. The ALJ found, however, that Baugh-Carroll was not entitled to temporary total disability benefits from March 30, 1998, to September 23, 1998, because she had been capable of performing the light duty job offered to her by the nursing home.
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