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Hammonds v. National Health Corp.3/8/2000
AFFIRMED AS MODIFIED AND REMANDED
This worker's compensation appeal has been referred to the Special Workers' Compensation Appeals Panel of the Supreme Court in accordance with the provisions of Tennessee Code Annotated ยง50-6-225 (e) (3) (1998 Supp.) for hearing and reporting to the Supreme Court of findings of fact and conclusions of law. The Trial Court found the worker to suffer from a condition known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy, and awarded the Appellee forty-five percent vocational disability apportioned to the body as a whole. The employer appeals asserting a number of grounds for reversal. We have considered each of the issues raised on appeal, and further we have weighed the evidence ourselves, as we are required to do, with a presumption of correctness of the decision of the Trial Judge as to factual matters, and without presumption as to legal issues. We have considered the testimony presented in the record, including the depositions of a number of medical professionals, and the record of live testimony presented before the Trial Judge. We find that the award of the Trial Judge should be modified to provide for twenty-five percent vocational disability, and further modified with regard to costs of medical and psychological care, but otherwise the decision of the Trial Judge should be affirmed.
The Appellee is forty-four years of age. She has a high school diploma, but no formal education after high school. She worked for more than a decade as an assistant physical therapist for the Appellant before her injuries occurred.
The Appellee alleged two injuries. She first alleged that on September 1, 1994, as she assisted a patient, the patient began to collapse and the Appellee had the duty of breaking the patient's fall. In doing so she injured her neck and left shoulder. She then alleged a second injury in mid-October, 1995 which she also asserts is a work-related injury. Suit was not filed by the Appellee until December 29, 1995, more than one year after her first injury, and on that basis the Appellant seeks the decision of the Court dismissing the case due to the running of the statute of limitations upon such injuries. A first report of injury was filed by the employer immediately upon the occurrence of the alleged first injury, and treatment was provided for the Appellee. The Appellee was first treated by Dr. Wallace Burroughs, who was one of three physicians then approved by the Appellant for treatment of work-related injuries. At that same time, Dr. Burroughs worked under a contract with the Appellant to provide medical services for patients at the nursing home operated by the Appellant where the Appellee was employed. The employer paid for medical care for the Appellee for a period of time, including payment for a prescription for pain medication less than one year before suit was filed alleging worker's compensation injuries. Curiously, this prescription was paid by the employer not from funds designated for workers' compensations, but rather from a fund held by the employer at its local nursing home, intended apparently for discretionary purposes for the morale of employees. The purpose for this prescription is in controversy, yet the Appellee has presented evidence that the prescription was for further treatment of her September 1, 1994 work injury. The evidence shows that company policy would have required the submission of a claim for medical treatment for a work-related injury to be processed through the company's home office in Murfreesboro, which was not accomplished. The Appellant is self-insured, the evidence shows, for workers' compensation claims. Dr. Burroughs found that the Appellee had sustained a minimally reduced range of motion, and mild t
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