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Suits v. M & M Mars10/5/2005
In this case the plaintiff, Phyllis I. Suits, has appealed from the entry of a Chancery Court judgment awarding her 25 percent permanent partial disability to the body as a whole as a result of sustaining a neck injury. The Chancellor dismissed her claim for a psychological injury (depression) and an injury to her lungs.
General Facts
Plaintiff, a fifty-year-old college graduate with a degree in medical technology, began working for defendant, M & M Mars, during 1991. She was employed as an analytical technician in the candy company's laboratory where her duties required her to test chocolate syrup for quality purposes. On about October 11, 1998 she was on top of an eighteen-wheel tank truck taking a sample of chocolate syrup when she lost her balance and started to fall but caught a safety rail on the truck which prevented her from falling to the ground. She testified the incident caused an injury to her neck although she continued to finish work that day and she did not miss any work until the following month of November when she requested and took a period of family leave. The incident was reported to the plant nurse, Patsy Gooden, and she referred her to the plant doctor, Dr. Allan Chastain.
Plaintiff testified she takes a lot of pain medication, suffers from depression and has asthma attacks. She claims all of these problems resulted from the October 11 work incident. During her testimony, she admitted she had previously been treated for neck problems but that had been much better before the incident in question. She also admitted that years prior to the October 11 incident, she had emotional problems about her marriage that ended in a divorce; she was having problems with her teenage daughter; she had remarried and divorced a second time; and that she had seen a psychologist during 1992-1994 and again in 1998 in connection with the daughter's problems although she later testified she began to tell the psychologist about some of her personal problems.
The record indicates that while she was off on personal or family leave, she had bladder surgery which was not work-related but which required a four to six week recovery period. She returned to work during April 1999 at the same rate of pay and she said her employer attempted to accommodate all of her work restrictions. She worked at the same job until February 24, 2000 when she was terminated for "job abandonment".
Patsy J. Gooden, a registered nurse and the plant nurse, testified by deposition and stated that when the plant doctor was aware her neck injury was not improving, he referred her to Dr. Boehm who she had previously seen for a neck problem. She also stated that she was aware of her taking personal or family leave because of depression from personal problems but was never on notice that it had anything to do with the accident at work.
George Linden, personnel manager of M & M Mars, testified that when she returned to work they provided accommodations for all of her medical restrictions and one such accommodation was an assistant to go upon a tank truck and obtain samples of chocolate syrup. He said after a period of several months, there was concern the plaintiff was not doing 100 percent of her job even with the accommodations they had provided. So he met with her and advised her of this concern and requested she perform all of the duties of her job. He stated that she did not come to work the next day which was a Friday and she also missed work the following week from Monday through Thursday. As to the Friday absence, he said a voice mail message had been received which requested an absence for that day and that another employee, Dave Cox, had received a vo
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