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Clayton v. Fleming Co.3/21/2000
that on May 1, 1997, claimant suffered a new injury, an aggravation of a pre-existing condition. The medical report advised that claimant was unable to return to work and that a myelogram and CT scan should be performed to look at the operative site.
Employer denied that claimant sustained a new injury on May 1, 1997. Instead, employer argued at the hearing that claimant suffered a worsening of his 1990 injury and contended that claimant should have filed a motion to reopen the adjudication of the 1990 injury against his former employer. In support of its position, employer submitted a report by its medical expert advising that claimant's back injury was a temporary aggravation causally related to his 1990 injury and that a CT myelogram would be an acceptable diagnostic procedure to assess claimant's injury.
After hearing the evidence on claimant's request for temporary total compensation and medical expenses, the trial judge denied the claim.
The order denying the claim, found and ordered:
THAT claimant did not sustain an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of claimant's employment with the above named respondent, as alleged in the claim for compensation filed herein.
THAT it is therefore ordered that claimant's claim for compensation be and the same hereby is denied.
Claimant timely requested three-judge panel review. In his request, claimant contended that the decision of the trial court should be modified to reflect that he suffered a new accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment or in the alternative that he suffered a worsening of his adjudicated 1990 back injury. The three-judge panel determined that the trial judge's order was not against the clear weight of the evidence nor contrary to law, affirmed the order, and denied claimant's motion to open his case in chief.
Claimant timely initiated this review proceeding. In his brief in chief, claimant complained that the trial judge failed to specifically find whether his temporary total disability and need for medical expenses resulted from the 1990 back injury or the 1997 back injury. In its answer brief, employer countered that the order of the trial court denying the claim was proper and supported by competent evidence.
Relying on Benning v. Pennwell Publishing Co., 1994 OK 113, 885 P.2d 652, the Court of Civil Appeals reversed the trial judge's order for lack of decretal specificity. In reversing the WCC, the Court of Civil Appeals determined that the trial judge should have entered more explicit findings as to "whether there was or was not a new disability and/or need for medical treatment, and, if so, whether it was caused by a new work-related injury or change of condition of a previously adjudicated injury".
In addition, the Court of Civil Appeals opinion set forth a procedure to be followed whenever an employer resists a claim by contending that the injury was incurred during other employment or is the result of a change of condition for the worse of a previously adjudicated injury for which another employer is liable. The procedure set forth in the opinion requires the trial judge to "(1) direct that an alternative claim(s) - or motion(s) to reopen for change of condition - be filed against all other potentially liable employer(s)/insurer(s), and (2) order the claims consolidated for trial disposition, including any appeal to a three-judge panel."
II.
THE TRIAL JUDGE'S ORDER IS SUFFICIENTLY DEFINITE AND CERTAIN TO ALLOW FOR MEANINGFUL JUDICIAL REVIEW.
On certiorari, employer attacks the Court of Civil Appeals' finding th
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