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Mrs. Baird's Bakery v. Cox4/26/2005
sturbed in this court if supported by any competent evidence.
The instant case, after a searching analysis of the trial record, in our view, is a classic example of one involving a factual dispute over whether the subsequent event at claimant's home caused merely a recurrence of the initial work-related injury to his low back, or, instead, whether the home event constituted an intervening cause, so that the causal nexus to the original work accident could be considered broken.
As we have set forth in PART II, FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY, the medical evidence presented was in direct conflict as to the causation issue, notwithstanding the COCA majority's mistaken view that it was not. Simply stated, the majority misinterpreted the trial record when it indicated there was no conflict in the evidence pertaining to the salient facts determinative of this review proceeding. Thus, unless there is some other legal issue raised by petitioners (employer and its workers' compensation insurer) that would call for vacation of the three-judge panel's order, we must sustain the panel's decision, not second-guess it as to pertinent factual determinations. As an appellate court, we may not substitute our view of the evidence for that of the WCC as to how to resolve a factual conflict like that involved here as to the causation issue. We also conclude petitioners have shown no legal flaw in the three-judge panel's order.
Contrary to the seeming view of the COCA's majority and petitioners, the reasonableness of a claimant's acts or omissions in relation to a home or non-work event that occurs subsequent to a work-related injury-causing accident, may be a relevant or a pertinent factor as to the causation question. In Sinclair Prairie Oil Co. v. State Indus. Comm'n, 1936 OK 35, 54 P.2d 348, a worker while in the employ of a certain company in 1929 sustained an accidental personal injury through oil and gas exposure poisoning to his hands which manifested itself in acute Eczema on both hands. Id. at 348. The injury caused was termed an allergic or susceptible condition whereby his hands were thereafter permanently sensitive to oil and grease. Id. at 348-349. The worker was awarded temporary total disability for a time and by virtue of a stipulated agreement of the parties, approved by the WCC, was paid a lump sum for permanent partial disability. Id. Several years later, in 1935, while working on a farm in Kansas performing the task of repairing an automobile, the worker placed his hands in oil and grease and as a result thereof had another acute Eczema attack on both hands and again became disabled for the performance of any work. Id. The worker instituted proceedings before the WCC and, in effect, attempted to hold the employer he worked for in 1929 responsible for the 1935 incident. This Court vacated the WCC award in the worker's favor and in so doing stated the following:
And this court has held that where an employee has been awarded compensation under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act and has suffered an aggravation or recurrence of injury through inadvertence or accident under such circumstances as to make the original injury the responsible cause, that further compensation may be awarded properly.
However, this is not the situation that was presented to the and which is now presented to us. ... The record further discloses that the [worker] was aware of this condition at the time he exposed himself to oil and grease on March 25, 1935, and that such exposure was not accidental or inadvertent, but was the result of a deliberate act on part ... and with full knowledge of the probable consequences. To say that under these circumstances the is aut
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