 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Mrs. Baird's Bakery v. Cox4/26/2005
We decide whether the Court of Civil Appeals (COCA), Division I (by 2-1 decision) erred in vacating a Workers' Compensation Court (WCC) three-judge panel's order affirming (as modified) a WCC trial judge's order that Mrs. Baird's Bakery (employer) was to provide David Lee Cox (claimant) reasonable and necessary medical care and treatment to the low back, including fusion surgery. The panel's order (like the trial judge's preceding it) was based on finding, in effect, that claimant's need for the care and treatment was caused by an accident while performing a work-related task for employer and that an event occurring at claimant's home a number of months after the work-related accident was insufficient to constitute an intervening cause so as to break the chain of causation or causal nexus to the work-related accident. The COCA vacated the three-judge panel's order basically based on a finding the need for medical care and treatment, rather than stemming from the work-related accident, was the result of the event occurring at claimant's home, to wit: the act of lifting his disabled child. In that competent evidence was presented at trial before the WCC trial judge supportive of the factual determination(s) made by the three-judge panel that, in essence, the home event of claimant lifting his child did not constitute an intervening cause and the event only gave rise to a recurrence of the earlier work-related injury, we hold the COCA erred, we vacate that court's opinion and we sustain the WCC three-judge panel's order.
PART I. STANDARD OF REVIEW
When a WCC three-judge panel's decision is substituted in place of a WCC trial judge's decision and the former is tendered for appellate corrective relief, the review standard as to decisive factual determinations is the traditional any-competent-evidence test of correctness. Parks v. Norman Mun. Hosp., 1984 OK 53, 684 P.2d 548, 552. In such review, an appellate court does not weigh the evidence to determine where the preponderance lies, but simply reviews the trial record for the purpose of ascertaining whether the panel's decision is supported by competent evidence. Id. Factual findings made in the WCC decision under review are conclusive and binding, unless they lack support in competent evidence. Id. Only if a relevant factual finding lacks support by competent evidence may a WCC decision based thereon be deemed erroneous as a matter of law and, thus, subject to vacation by an appellate court. Id.
PART II. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
In February 2002 claimant was employed by employer as a route salesman. Part of his job included the duty of delivering food products to employer's customers. While in the course of such employment, claimant injured his low back on February 9, 2002 as he picked up a box of tortillas. He experienced pain in his back and, apparently, the next morning, the pain, in part, radiated down his right leg. At trial, in essence, employer (through counsel) stipulated that claimant sustained an accidental personal injury in the course of and arising out of his employment with employer by virtue of the February 2002 lifting incident.
An MRI scan revealed claimant suffered a large disc herniation at L4-5. The MRI also revealed degenerative disc changes at L3-4. In June 2002 he underwent surgical intervention, undergoing a type of lumbar spine surgery. Claimant returned to work in July 2002, but with a medically prescribed forty (40) pound weight restriction.
In August 2002, at home, claimant lifted his twenty (20) pound daughter out of her playpen preparatory to suctioning her trachea, which must be done periodically by either claimant or his wife to clear out mucous b
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 Oklahoma Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|