 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Wal-Mart Stores2/26/2003
Injured employee challenges district court decision on judicial review that reversed workers' compensation commissioner's award of permanent total disability benefits and penalty payment. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
This appeal challenges the decision rendered on judicial review of an administrative proceeding for workers' compensation benefits. The district court disagreed with the compensation commissioner's factual findings regarding the extent of the workers' disability as well as the commissioner's conclusions regarding its award of penalty benefits. The question on appeal is whether the district court applied the proper standard of review and whether the record, properly reviewed, supports the commissioner's decision.
In keeping with Iowa Code section 17A.19(10)(f) (Supp. 1999), we have examined the "record before the court . . . viewed as a whole." Based on our review, we believe that substantial evidence supports the commissioner's findings and award. We therefore reverse the district court's contrary decision and remand for entry of an order affirming the agency.
I. Background.
Rick Caselman has been a truck driver for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., since October 1991. He injured his back in August 1997 while unloading merchandise at a Wal-Mart store in Shenandoah, Iowa. The injury occurred while Caselman was muscling a 130-pound docking plate into place. Conservative treatment using bed rest and anti-inflammatory medications provided only partial relief. An MRI revealed a herniated disc at the L5-S1 level. In October 1997, Caselman underwent surgery for a laminectomy and discectomy. Although the surgery was reportedly successful, continuing back and leg pain has impaired Caselman's ability to return to his former employment with Wal-Mart. The extent of his impairment is the fighting issue on this appeal.
The parties agree that Caselman's work injury caused some degree of industrial disability. Our factual focus, therefore, must be on the extent of his loss of earning capacity. Thilges v. Snap-On Tools Corp., 528 N.W.2d 614, 616 (Iowa 1995); Guyton v. Irving Jensen Co., 373 N.W.2d 101, 103 (Iowa 1985). As this court said in Guyton,
odily impairment is merely one factor in gauging industrial disability. Other factors include the worker's age, intelligence, education, qualifications, experience, and the effect of the injury on the worker's ability to obtain suitable work. When the combination of factors precludes the worker from obtaining regular employment to earn a living, the worker with only a partial functional disability has a total industrial disability. Guyton, 373 N.W.2d at 103 (citations omitted); accord IBP, Inc. v. Al-Gharib, 604 N.W.2d 621, 632-33 (Iowa 2000).
With these principles in mind, we turn to the record made before the agency.
A. Facts.
Caselman was forty-three years old at the time of the hearing. He is a high school graduate but academics have never been his strong suit. He graduated thirty-fifth out of a class of thirty-eight. All of his adult employment has involved unskilled manual labor, most of it physically demanding. He has worked over twenty years as a truck driver, including a two-year period when he owned his own rig. As a younger man he held a number of minimum-wage jobs including grounds maintenance, pizza cook, and service station attendant.
For roughly a year following his hiring by Wal-Mart in 1991, Caselman hauled freight out of the company's terminal in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. He then drove a Wal-Mart moving van for several years, loading, transporting, and unloading household furnishings for company executives and managers who had been transferred
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Iowa Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|