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Sheppard v. Isle of Capri8/17/2005
Before STEWART, PEATROSS and MOORE, JJ.
Cathey Sheppard filed a disputed claim for benefits arising from an unwitnessed accident at the Isle of Capri casino in Bossier City, where she was a cage cashier. The WCJ found a total absence of evidence to corroborate the incident. Finding no manifest error, we affirm.
Factual Background
Ms. Sheppard had worked at the Isle for about a year and a half; part of her job was to pick up bags of coins after they were filled by the Jet Sort coin sorter. She testified that she had to lift bags eight to 10 times an hour, with dollar bags weighing 20 to 30 lbs. On the swing shift on March 30, 2002, she reached down to pick up a bag: "I had a pull in my back with a sharp pain[,]" a "heavy pain in my lower back." She described the pain as a "10," "like nothing I had ever had before," causing her to cry out loud. Ms. Sheppard testified that about five minutes later, she told her co-worker Cassandra Jackson that she had hurt her back; at the end of the shift, she told Ms. Jackson that she probably would not come in to work the following Monday.
At trial, Ms. Jackson testified that although she worked with Ms. Sheppard, she did not see the accident. Ms. Jackson was not asked if she heard Ms. Sheppard cry out in pain. She vaguely recalled Ms. Sheppard saying "her back hurt," but not that she had just injured it.
Ms. Sheppard did not return to work at the Isle after this. She testified that she phoned in on April 3, telling her cage manager, Judy Jones, that she had hurt her back. According to Ms. Sheppard, Ms. Jones replied that she ought to apply for family leave under FMLA, and transferred her to the Isle's FMLA generalist. Ms. Sheppard further testified that Christina Coss, the FMLA generalist, told her it was probably from "lifting the coins," but nonetheless treated it as an FMLA claim.
Another cage cashier, Glenda Clark, testified that she took Ms. Sheppard's call on April 3 and wrote the call-out slip; Ms. Sheppard gave her the information noted on the slip, "Reason for absence / lateness: sick." Ms. Jones, the cage manager, testified by deposition that Ms. Sheppard never said she had been hurt on the job , only that she was sick; there was also an April 1 call-out slip listing "stomach virus" as the reason for absence. Ms. Coss, the FMLA generalist, testified by deposition that she spoke to Ms. Sheppard about her FMLA request on April 5, 16 and 26, and on those dates Ms. Sheppard never mentioned any work-related accident.
Ms. Sheppard went to a chiropractor, Dr. Patrick Peele, on April 4. She testified she was in acute pain that day and thus may not have told him about the work-related accident, only that her job involved a lot of lifting. After nearly a month of manipulations and differential current therapy, she was little improved so she went to a general practitioner, Dr. David Hudson, a physician listed in the Isle's employee handbook. She admitted that she may have likewise failed to tell this doctor about a work-related injury, but was certain she did so on a later visit.
Dr. Hudson's office records included Ms. Sheppard's handwritten patient history, which said nothing about an accident on the job; he ascribed her symptoms to stress. He gave her Naprosyn, an NSAID (Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug), and Paxil, an anti-depressant, and told her to quit the chiropractic manipulations. He testified that on June 26, she told him it was a workers' compensation claim, but she said nothing about the nature of the accident. Dr. Hudson also discovered that Ms. Sheppard had a history of back problems, including a lumbar strain sustained while working as a cashier at Brookshir
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