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Carabajal v. State9/16/2005
nd in Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 27-14-605 (LexisNexis 2001)." Yenne-Tully v. State ex rel. Wyo. Workers' Safety and Compensation Div., 2002 WY 90, 10, 48 P.3d 1057, 1062 (Wyo. 2002) (Yenne-Tully II).
[ ] At the hearing, the parties presented two issues for resolution: (1) whether Mr. Carabajal was entitled to temporary total disability benefits for his 2002 injury; and (2) whether the Division's Application for Modification of Benefits Due to Mistake should be granted. The OAH made the following conclusions of law:
5. Carabajal has failed to met his burden on the issue of TTD benefits. The evidence is clear that Carabajal did not receive benefits of any type from the Division from at least 1980 through September 2002. . . . Carabajal did not apply for additional benefits within four years of his last paid benefits. TTD benefits are therefore denied.
8. WYO. STAT. ANN. § 27-14-605(a) (LEXIS 2002) provides the Division or an employee can apply for modification within four years from the date of the last payment of benefits due to an increase or decrease of incapacity or due to mistake or fraud. WYO. STAT. ANN. § 27-14-605(b) (LEXIS 2002) provides that any right to benefits under subsection (a) terminates if a claim is not filed within the four-year limitation period. WYO. STAT. ANN. § 27-14-605(c) (LEXIS 2002) provides claims for medical benefits, which would otherwise be terminated under subsection (b), may be paid if the claimant proves by competent medical authority and to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the condition is directly related to the original injury. The deposition testimony of Dr. Sramek clearly indicated that Carabajal's current back condition could not be directly related to the original injury in 1977. The Division made a mistake when it awarded medical benefits in November 2002. The Application for Modification is therefore granted.
In denying Mr. Carabajal's claim for benefits and in granting the Division's modification, the hearing examiner relied upon the four-year statute of limitations set forth in Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 27-14-605(a) and the burden of proof described in Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 27-14-605(c)(ii).
[ ] We have long recognized that an industrial accident can give rise to more than one compensable injury. Baldwin v. Scullion, 62 P.2d 531, 539 (Wyo. 1936). We generally refer to this principle as the "second compensable injury rule." The second compensable injury rule applies when "an initial compensable injury ripens into a condition requiring additional medical intervention." Yenne-Tully v. State ex rel. Workers' Safety and Compensation Div., 12 P.3d 170, 172 (Wyo. 2000) (Yenne-Tully I).
[ ] In Baldwin, we discussed the basic rationale behind the second compensable injury rule:
Medical science and diagnosis have advanced with well-nigh miraculous strides in the last decade or two, yet they cannot at this time, and probably never will be able to foretell accurately the reaction of every particular human body to every particular hurt it may sustain in industrial employment. Under these circumstances it seems to us palpably unjust to the employee to deny him compensation because he has tried to keep his place on the employer's pay roll by doing his regular work and then has found that conditions produced at the time of the accident, and which medical science could not recognize or whose final consequences it could not forecast, have gradually and ultimately produced a compensable injury. We do not think the language employed in the law by our state legislature was reasonably intended to produce any such result.
Baldwin, 62 P.2d at 539. We have since applied the rule in a variety of ca
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