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Floyd v. Quaker Oats6/12/2002
Employer appeals from decision on judicial review applying full-responsibility rule in deciding workers' compensation claim involving a scheduled injury. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Quaker Oats, the employer of Lyle Floyd, appeals from a decision on judicial review, which applied the full-responsibility rule in Floyd's workers' compensation claim involving a scheduled injury. After reviewing the record and considering the arguments presented, we reverse the judgment of the district court.
While working at Quaker Oats on September 3, 1993, Floyd slipped, caught himself from falling, and twisted his knee. He immediately reported the injury to his employer. At his employer's request, claimant was evaluated by a general practitioner on October 8, 1993. That physician recommended consultation with Dr. Coates, an orthopaedic surgeon. Dr. Coates concluded that claimant had a full range of motion and no instability in the leg at that time. X-rays of the knee revealed minimal spurring of the superior and inferior aspects of the patella. He concluded that the discomfort that claimant reported was the probable result of a torn or partially torn medial meniscus.
On October 14, 1993, Dr. Coates reported that x-rays revealed the knee to be within limits of normal except for some early arthritic changes. He continued to diagnose the condition as a medial meniscus tear, which should heal. On May 10, 1994, Dr. Coates reported that claimant continued to experience pain along the medial joint line and had a greater compromise of the joint space than had previously been identified.
Following a December 22, 1994 examination, Dr. Coates established a lifting restriction for claimant of forty to sixty pounds and predicted that with this restriction "he will be able to keep going for the foreseeable future." On October 17, 1995, Dr. Coates wrote to claimant's personal physician and reported:
This is a knee that is in a rather awkward position. Obviously, we would like to do something to fix it. On the other hand, I think arthroscopic debridement would fail. I do not think it would give him enough good to worth the cost of the operation, and yet it is not bad enough to recommend a knee replacement. So, we are really stuck with a knee that is not a good knee, but it may last this way yet for several years.
In response to an inquiry from the employer's lawyer, Dr. Coates reported on July 23, 1996, that claimant's leg had sustained a twenty percent functional impairment. He opined that seventy-five percent of that impairment, a fifteen percent functional disability, was work related and the rest was the result of degenerative arthritis. He fixed July 23, 1996, as the date of maximum recovery from the September 3, 1993 injury.
In a letter to claimant's counsel, Dr. Coates concluded that, with respect to the fifteen percent work-related functional disability of claimant's leg, seventy-five percent of that impairment was attributable to the September 1993 injury. The balance of the functional disability, i.e., 3.75%, was attributed to a cumulative trauma that resulted from claimant's work activities subsequent to September 3, 1993. Claimant filed a petition to arbitrate the September 3, 1993 injury. He also filed a petition claiming a cumulative injury subsequent to September 3, 1993. He later dismissed the petition involving the September 3, 1993 injury without prejudice in the face of a statute-of-limitations defense. The deputy industrial commissioner found that the claimant had sustained a cumulative injury of 3.75% from day-to-day work activities after September 3, 1993. He concluded, however, that the full-responsibility rule recognized in Second Injur
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