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Pickney v. L. A. Darling Co.2/23/2005
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
The appellant in this workers' compensation case sustained a compensable back injury on June 11, 2001, while employed by appellee as a factory production supervisor. Appellee paid for appellant's medical care and, after a brief period off work that ended on June 18, 2001, appellant returned to work without restriction. Subsequently, appellant's physician restricted appellant to working forty hours per week (rather than his usual fifty hours) for the period of August 3 to August 23, 2001. Appellee honored that restriction, but terminated appellant on August 17, 2001. Appellant subsequently filed a claim with the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission, alleging that appellee had refused to return him to available work without reasonable cause and asserting that he was therefore entitled to wage-loss benefits under Ark. Code Ann. § 11-9-505(a). After a hearing, the Commission found that appellant failed to prove that appellee unreasonably failed to return him to work, and this appeal followed.
On appeal, appellant argues that the Commission erred in failing to find that appellee refused to return him to work without reasonable cause. We affirm.
In reviewing decisions from the Workers' Compensation Commission, we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commission's findings and affirm if they are supported by substantial evidence, i.e., evidence that a reasonable person might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. Carman v. Haworth, Inc., 74 Ark. App. 55, 45 S.W.3d 408 (2001). We will not reverse the Commission's decision unless we are convinced that fair-minded persons with the same facts before them could not have reached the conclusions arrived at by the Commission. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Sands, 80 Ark. App. 51, 91 S.W.3d 93 (2002). Questions of weight and credibility are within the sole province of the Commission, which is not required to believe the testimony of the claimant or of any other witness, but may accept and translate into findings of fact only those portions of the testimony it deems worthy of belief. Strickland v. Primex Technologies, 82 Ark. App. 570, 120 S.W.3d 166 (2003). Once the Commission has made its decision on issues of credibility, the appellate court is bound by that decision. Id.
Arkansas Code Annotated § 11-9-505(a) (Repl. 2002) is part of a statutory section dealing with the rehabilitation of injured workers. It provides that:
(a)(1) Any employer who without reasonable cause refuses to return an employee who is injured in the course of employment to work, where suitable employment is available within the employee's physical and mental limitations, upon order of the Workers' Compensation Commission, and in addition to other benefits, shall be liable to pay to the employee the difference between benefits received and the average weekly wages lost during the period of the refusal, for a period not exceeding one (1) year.
(2) In determining the availability of employment, the continuance in business of the employer shall be considered, and any written rules promulgated by the employer with respect to seniority or the provisions of any collective bargaining agreement with respect to seniority shall control.
Several requirements must be met before Ark. Code Ann. § 11-9-505(a) is applicable. The employee must prove by a preponderance of the evidence 1) that he has sustained a compensable injury, 2) that suitable employment within his physical and mental limitations is available with the employer, 3) that the employer refused to return him to work, and 4) that the employer's refusal to return him to wor
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