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Scetta v. St. Joseph Hospital12/31/2004
DECISION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This matter is before the Appellate Division upon the appeal of the petitioner/employee from the denial of her Original Petition in which she alleged that she sustained injuries to her left arm, hand, shoulder and elbow at work on July 5, 2000, resulting in incapacity from July 10, 2000 to October 5, 2000 and again from March 22, 2001 to May 20, 2001. At the pretrial conference, the petition was denied. The employee claimed a trial and at the conclusion of that proceeding, the trial judge found that the employee failed to prove that she sustained a work-related injury on July 5, 2000. The employee then filed a claim of appeal. After careful review of the record, we affirm the decision of the trial judge.
In July 2000, Ms. Scetta had been working as a laundry aide at St. Joseph Hospital for a little over sixteen (16) years. She testified that her job involved loading and unloading laundry from the dryers and moving the laundry around in trucks. Often, the dryers would be overloaded and one (1) load might weigh up to 150 pounds. On July 5, 2000, she was unloading blankets from the dryer and as she pulled one (1) blanket out with her left arm, the entire contents of the dryer came out at once and she felt pain in her left elbow, her back and her left shoulder. She testified that this incident was witnessed by a co-worker, Ann Hyder, who was not called to testify at the trial. The employee completed her shift, and then worked full shifts on Thursday and Friday.
The employee testified that she had constant pain following this incident. On Sunday, July 9th, the pain worsened. On Monday, she called in sick and sought medical treatment at Garden City Treatment Center. She complained of pain in the left arm at the elbow radiating down through her fingers and into her back. She also stated that she had numbness in her back and the left fourth (4th) and fifth (5th) fingers. She was seen by Dr. Edward Cullen who diagnosed left elbow tendonitis. He prescribed Tylenol with codeine and ordered her to remain out of work for one (1) week. The reports from Garden City Treatment Center were introduced into evidence. They note that the complaints started on July 9, 2000 and that the employee works in the laundry at Fatima, but there is no mention of a specific incident or injury at work on July 5, 2000. In addition, the bill was submitted to Healthmate, the employee's private health insurer, for payment, rather than to the employer.
On July 11, 2000, the employee reported to Addie Bossone, secretary to her supervisor, that she had hurt her elbow at work and that she would be out of work for one (1) week. The following week, two (2) weeks after the incident, she went to Fatima Hospital, per hospital procedure, and filled out the appropriate paperwork for reporting an injury in the office of her supervisor, Paul Czachur. On cross-examination, the employee admitted that she was familiar with hospital procedures for reporting injuries due to previous experience with the system, and that in the past she had always reported injuries immediately.
On July 19, 2000, the employee saw an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Sidney P. Migliori. Her complaints at that time were pain in the left lateral elbow and tingling into her fourth (4th) and fifth (5th) fingers of her left hand. The doctor referred her for EMG and nerve conduction studies. The nerve conduction studies were normal, but the EMG study demonstrated a very mild chronic left-sided C7 radiculopathy. Dr. Migliori's diagnosis was left lateral epicondylitis and cubital tunnel syndrome. According to Dr. Migliori's initial report, these were causally related to the incident which occurred at work on July
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