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Simmons Industries v. Hartman12/11/1990
formed the following March. After the accident, the employer was afforded ample opportunity to make such tests and examinations as it deemed necessary to determine the extent and nature of the claimant's injuries. The employer was not prejudiced by the failure of the claimant to more accurately describe his injuries in his initial notice of injury. Guy James Constr. Co. v. Harris, 434 P.2d 150 (Okl. 1967); National Zinc Co. v. Van Gunda, 402 P.2d 264 (Okl. 1965).
The employer's argument that the claimant could have appealed the trial court's order of March 4, 1988, if he felt aggrieved by the court's ruling rather begs the issue because it is obvious he was not aggrieved. He was awarded what he sought, i.e., temporary total disability benefits and medical expenses.
The supreme court, in Pruitt v. Mid-Continent Pipe Line Co., 361 P.2d 494 (Okl. 1961), recognized that an order allowing benefits for temporary total disability during the continuance of the claimant's healing period, differs from a final award granting compensation for permanent disability. The court held that:
"An order allowing benefits during the continuance of the healing period is neither accumulative in its nature, nor does it constitute a final award. . . . The benefits must under the law be terminated when temporary total disability ceases and the workman is either cured or his condition becomes stationary so as to permit evaluation of permanent effects, if any, resulting from his injury . Such order, it is apparent, is only interlocutory. It merely takes into consideration the immediate condition and need for which temporary provision is made. The matter of a final adjudication is left for a future disposition."
Id. at 497.
The employer relies on Williams v. Central Dairy Products Co., 205 Okl. 266, 236 P.2d 984 (1951), and Reaves v. Uniroyal Tire Co., 671 P.2d 679 (Okl.App. 1983), to support the proposition that the award of March 4, 1988, was a final order not subject to modification unless founded on a change of condition under 85 O.S. 1981 ยง 28 . Both of those cases involved attempts to modify permanent disability awards, not temporary orders.
In neither Williams nor Reaves did the claimant seek (1) to reinstate temporary total disability benefits as opposed to attempting to receive additional benefits after an award for permanent partial disability; (2) to receive compensation for a separate injury not specifically adjudicated in an earlier order.
III
We hold the March 4, 1988, order is supported by competent evidence and therefore must be sustained. Parks v. Norman Mun. Hosp., 684 P.2d 548 (Okl. 1984).
Award sustained.
REIF, P.J., and MEANS, J., concur.
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