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Allen Canning Co. v. Woodruff9/7/2005
Appellant, Allen Canning Company, appeals the Workers' Compensation Commission's adoption of the administrative law judge's decision finding that appellee, J.D. Woodruff, suffered a compensable injury on July 7, 2003; that appellee was entitled to temporary-total disability for the period July 8-18, 2003; and that appellee's claim was not barred by the Shippers defense. Allen Canning asserts that there is no substantial evidence to support the Commission's finding that appellee sustained a compensable back injury while in the course and scope of his employment and that the Commission erred in finding that the Shippers defense was inapplicable. Woodruff cross-appeals, arguing that his period of temporary-total disability should not have ceased on July 18, 2003, but instead should continue until a date to be determined because he remained in his healing period. We affirm on direct appeal and on cross-appeal.
The standard of review in workers' compensation cases is well-settled. We view the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commission's findings and affirm the decision if it is supported by substantial evidence. Geo Specialty Chem. v. Clingan, 69 Ark. App. 369, 13 S.W.3d 218 (2000). Substantial evidence is such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. Air Compressor Equip. v. Sword, 69 Ark. App. 162, 11 S.W.3d 1 (2000). The issue 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. Geo Specialty, supra. It is the Commission's function to determine witness credibility and the weight to be afforded to any testimony; the Commission must weigh the medical evidence and, if such evidence is conflicting, its resolution is a question of fact for the Commission. Searcy Indus. Laundry, Inc. v. Ferren, 82 Ark. App. 69, 110 S.W.3d 306 (2003). The Commission's resolution of the medical evidence has the force and effect of a jury verdict. Jim Walters Homes v. Beard, 82 Ark. App. 607, 120 S.W.3d 160 (2003).
Prior to his employment at Allen Canning, appellee, a forty-eight-year-old man, had an extensive history of work-related back injuries. In 1992, he injured his lumbar spine while employed by Don Youngblood as a truck driver; as a result of this compensable injury , he did not work for over one year and was assigned a permanent physical-impairment rating of nine percent to the body as a whole. Appellee also suffered two compensable back-related injuries while he was employed by Wal-Mart - first on September 28, 2001, and then on July 20, 2002. Additionally, appellee has degenerative-disc disease and small-disc herniations in multiple levels of his lumbar spine.
Following treatment for his last Wal-Mart injury, appellee's physician, Dr. Kannout, released appellee on August 19, 2002, for return to work without any restrictions. Appellee subsequently went to work for appellant. On July 7, 2003, appellee was loading one of appellant's trucks with boxes of shoestring potatoes weighing about twenty pounds each when his back began to hurt. He said that he felt fine before he began working, that he must have bent the wrong way while he was picking up a box, that he felt a pop in his lower spine, that he felt severe pain in his back, and that he also felt pain shooting halfway down his right thigh. Appellee reported the incident to the forklift driver, who went to inform the warehouse manager. Appellee continued to work until Don James, the warehouse manager, arrived about ten minutes later and told him to go to the shoestring potato"lidder" line,
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