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Skinner v. Southwest Arkansas Development Council6/28/2000
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
AFFIRMED
The appellant in this workers' compensation case suffered a prior back injury while working for a previous employer before she began working as a personal care aide for appellee in October 1996. Her work for appellee as a personal care aide required her to perform personal hygiene care and housekeeping duties for elderly clients. She filed a claim for benefits alleging that, while bending over to wring out a mop in the course of her employment with appellee on July 31, 1997, she experienced a sensation of movement in her back, accompanied by the sudden onset of pain. After a hearing, the Commission found that appellant failed to establish her injury by medical evidence supported by objective findings. From that decision, comes this appeal.
For reversal, appellant contends that the Commission erred in finding that she did not sustain a compensable injury . We find no error, and we affirm.
Our standard of review is well-settled:
On appeal in workers' compensation cases, we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commission's findings and will affirm if those findings are supported by substantial evidence. Substantial evidence means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. The issue on appeal is not whether we might have reached a different result or whether the evidence would have supported a contrary finding; if reasonable minds could reach the Commission's conclusion, we must affirm its decision. Where a claim is denied, the substantial evidence standard of review requires us to affirm the Commission if its opinion displays a substantial basis for the denial of the relief sought. Jeter v. B.R. McGinty Mechanical, 62 Ark. App. 53, 55-56, 968 S.W.2d 645, 647 (1998) (citations omitted).
There was evidence documenting the existence of palpable muscle spasms throughout appellant's thoracic and lumbar spine, and muscle spasms do constitute objective findings as defined by Ark. Code Ann. ยง 11-9-102(16) (Supp. 1999). Continental Express, Inc. v. Freeman, 339 Ark. 142, 4 S.W.3d 124 (1999). The Commission, however, was not convinced that appellant's muscle spasms were caused by her 1997 injury . In finding that appellant failed to prove the existence of a compensable injury by objective medical findings, the Commission noted that there was no record of appellant having suffered muscle spasms until more than four months after her 1997 injury, and that another six months elapsed before any further muscle spasms were detected. It reasoned that the temporal separation between the date of the injury and the two incidents of muscle spasms, and the lack of any similar findings prior to or between those incidents, cast doubt over the relationship between the muscle spasms and appellant's alleged injury. On this record, we cannot say that reasonable minds could not reach the conclusion arrived at by the Commission, or that its reasoning does not display a substantial basis for the denial of relief. Consequently, we hold that substantial evidence supports the Commission's finding that appellant failed to establish her injury by medical evidence supported by objective findings.
Affirmed.
Meads and Crabtree, JJ., agree.
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