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Green v. GKN Automotive10/26/2005
Submitted October 1, 2005
AFFIRMED
Donna A. Green appeals the denial of her request for workers' compensation benefits. The single commissioner and appellate panel of the commission (the Commission) found Green failed to sustain her burden of proving her claimed injury was causally related to her employment. The decision was affirmed by the circuit court. We also affirm.
FACTS/PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Claimant Donna A. Green was employed by Respondent GKN Automotive as an assembly line worker in the company's Columbia automotive parts factory. Green had worked for GKN for approximately two years when, on February 7, 2002, she claims she was injured on the job . In her testimony before the single commissioner, Green described what she was doing on February 7 and how she was purportedly injured. She testified that she had been given a new job assignment that day working on a "GMX 320" machine performing "operations 30 and 40," tasks Green asserted were not her regularly assigned work. These "operations" required Green to assemble steel automobile prop shafts. When assembled, these prop shafts were roughly seven feet in length and each weighed about 20 pounds. Green was then required to hang each of the finished shafts on a rack approximately seven feet tall. Green claimed that, because of her height (about five feet, two inches tall), she had to lift the assembled prop shafts above her head and shoulders, stretch, and stand on the tips of her toes in order to place shafts on the rack. Green claimed this exertion caused her great strain, resulting in "muscle spasms" down her left and right side. She testified that she also began to feel pain and numbness in her arms during her hour-long drive home on the evening of February 7.
When Green returned to the factory the next morning, she claimed the pain and numbness she experienced the night before continued and became more severe as she began her day's work. She reported the problem to her supervisor and the safety officer at the factory who sent her to Providence Occupational Health Services for examination. Green was examined by Dr. Richard Boyer, who determined she was suffering from Paresthesia, or a tingling sensation, in her left arm. He prescribed heat and ibuprofen to reduce the discomfort, and found she was fit to return to work without any restrictions on her activities.
Green continued working normal hours until February 25, 2002, when she visited her personal physician complaining of continued upper body pain and numbness. Green's doctor examined her and determined she should be excused from work and that she should be treated with a regimen of physical therapy. Green followed her doctor's advice--leaving work and attending regular therapy. After several months of treatment, Green returned to work in May 2002, but she was only able to work one week. Shortly thereafter, Green filed a Form 50 seeking temporary total disability benefits.
At the hearing before the single commissioner, it was brought to light that Green had offered vague and contradictory reports to her employer concerning how she was injured. A critical inconsistency was discovered in a "Personal Injury Report" Green had filled out and submitted to GKN on February 8, 2002, the day after her alleged injury at the factory. In this report, Green indicated that she was injured while performing "operation 50" which she further indicated was her "regularly assigned work"--not the new, unfamiliar work of "operations 30 and 40" on the "GMX 320" machine as she testified to before the single commissioner. Green also wrote in this report that the injury occurred because the "pedestal wheel too tight"--again, cont
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