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Theriot v. Church Point Wholesale Beverage Co.2/15/2001
JOHN D. SAUNDERS JUDGE
REVERSED.
At trial, the workers' compensation judge determined that Mr. Theriot's benefits should be reinstated retroactively to the time of termination, but they should be reduced by 50% because Mr. Theriot had refused to cooperate with his employer's efforts to rehabilitate him. On appeal, we find that the trial judge erred in reducing Mr. Theriot's benefits, and we reverse.
FACTS
In January 1996, Bobby Theriot began working for Church Point Wholesale Beverage Company (CPWB) at its facility in Opelousas, Louisiana. Mr. Theriot's job responsibilities included selling beer to retail outlets, delivering beer to the stores, and loading and unloading various beer products. Mr. Theriot's job regularly required him to load his truck with beer at the CPWB warehouse. Part of the loading onto the truck was done by forklift. Mr. Theriot testified that the employees would move beer pallets from the warehouse to the trucks using the forklift.
Mr. Theriot was injured on July 1, 1996. At the time of the accident, Mr. Theriot and other employees were taking beer from the warehouse and loading it onto trucks. The accident occurred when another employee of CPWB backed into Mr. Theriot with a forklift. The forklift struck the right side of Mr. Theriot's body, crushing his arm and his shoulder. As a result of the accident, the right side of Mr. Theriot's body was bruised. More significantly, the accident caused a tear in the rotator cuff of his right shoulder. Mr. Theriot's torn rotator cuff necessitated arthroscopic surgery which Dr. F. Lionel Mayer performed. After the surgery, Mr. Theriot underwent six weeks of physical therapy; however, his right arm and shoulder never recovered from the accident. Mr. Theriot's right arm is visibly atrophied compared to his left arm. Dr. Mayer indicated that Mr. Theriot should not return to the same type of work he was performing at the time of his accident because the job required excessive lifting requirements for the type of injury he sustained.
Sometime thereafter, CPWB hired Louise Coleman & Associates, Inc. (Louise Coleman) to provide Mr. Theriot with vocational rehabilitation. Louise Coleman initially sent Ms. Deborah Waterman, a rehabilitation nurse, to Opelousas to discuss Mr. Theriot's rehabilitation. During this meeting, Ms. Waterman questioned Mr. Theriot about his former employment and his education. At the termination of that meeting, Ms. Waterman said that she would mail job information to him. Mr. Theriot testified that Ms. Waterman never conducted testing on him. Rather, Mr. Theriot testified that during their one meeting, he and Ms. Waterman "sat and we drank a cup of coffee at McDonald's and we talked." Mr. Theriot testified that Ms. Waterman did send him a "couple of job deals." Mr. Theriot testified that he went to the Job Service office in Opelousas and met with Mr. Fontenot to discuss the three job listings that Ms. Waterman had sent him. Mr. Theriot testified that through this meeting, he learned that he could not perform two of the jobs Ms. Waterman had listed because they required lifting over fifty pounds. The other job listed had already been filled.
Ms. Anne Rearick became involved in Mr. Theriot's vocational rehabilitation after Ms. Waterman terminated her employment with Louise Coleman. Ms. Rearick never met with Mr. Theriot. Contact between the two was limited to telephone calls and letters. Mr. Theriot received letters from Ms. Rearick on September 24, 1997, January 21, 1998, and February 11, 1998. In the January 21, 1998, letter Ms. Rearick indicated that there were nine job offerings available to Mr. Theriot. Ms. Rearick's letter only provided
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