Hatfield v. Howell Machine, Inc., 110116 IDWC, IC 2012-005680
| Case Date | November 01, 2016 |
| Court | Idaho |
1. Whether Claimant sustained an injury from an accident arising out of and in the course of employment;
2. Whether the condition for which Claimant seeks benefits was caused by an industrial accident; and
3. Whether and to what extent Claimant is entitled to the following benefits:
a. Medical care;
b. Permanent Partial Impairment (PPI)
d. Permanent Partial Disability in excess of Impairment.(Hearing Transcript 4/24-5/14). CONTENTIONS OF THE PARTIES Claimant asserts he injured his neck on February 28, 2012 as the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment with Employer. This industrial injury led to surgery. Claimant is entitled to all applicable benefits associated with his injury. Defendants argue Claimant did not prove an accident occurred. Furthermore, Claimant suffered no disability above his 5% whole person impairment. Claimant has no compensable claim. EVIDENCE CONSIDERED The record in this matter consists of the following:
1. Claimant's hearing testimony;
2. Joint Exhibits (JE) 1 through 16, admitted at hearing;
3. The post-hearing deposition transcript of John McNulty, M.D., taken on January 27, 2016;
4. The post-hearing deposition transcript of Bret Dirks, M.D., taken on March 3, 2016; and
5. The post-hearing deposition transcript of William Stump, M.D., taken on April 27, 2016.Referee Harper submitted Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommendation to the Commission for its review. Having reviewed the same, the Commission agrees with the outcome proposed by Referee Harper, but prefers to provide additional analysis supporting the decision. For this reason, the Commission declines to adopt the proposed Decision and adopts this Decision in lieu thereof. FINDINGS OF FACT 1. At the time of hearing, Claimant was a 48 year old man living in Clarkston, Washington. 2. Claimant went to work for Employer in approximately January of 2003. From his date of hire, to the date of the claimed accident, Claimant was employed as a fabricator. He described his job responsibilities as follows:
A. Well, I mean, it would have been much, much more physical than it is now. I mean, it would be - - a typical day would be - - I mean, I walked through the door at 7:00 in the morning and put my helmet on and start working as a fabricator, welder.
That may mean a production run. For example, those boxes that I talked about that we move the product back and forth. I mean, we may be doing a production run on 300 of those boxes.
So I mean, it - - it was pretty much, you know, physical labor until lunch. Half an hour for lunch break, and then back - - back in to working until it was time to go home at 3:30, which, you know, as a fabricator, I mean, a lot of heavy lifting. All that steel has to get from one place to another. And as it gets broke down, I mean, it comes down finally to where you're handling it by hand. Most all of those pieces need to be prepped. And by "prepped," prepped for weld, prepped - - you know, deburred and everything, which is generally done with a grinder and then assembled and - - and welded in some manner, you know.
Q. Did it involve heavy lifting throughout the day?
A. Sure. I mean, some - - some days are obviously heavier than others. It depends on what you're working on. If you're building a plating tank that's made out of quarter-inch steel, big pieces, you're going to end up lifting a little heavier.
I mean, if you're doing - - we do - - we build these collator bowls for bullets. That's all aluminum. It's very light-duty stuff, but it's tedious. It's a lot of helmet up/helmet down type of stuff. So there's - - there's a wide variety in there of whether it's heavy or whether it's - - it usually kind of came in - - you're either working on something heavy, and so you might be involved in that project for a couple weeks. And then you might be involved in lighter duty stuff. It generally seems, if your pieces are lighter, you have more of them, and then you're doing more of a repetitive type.
Q. And when you - - when you - - describe helmet up/helmet down, what's that? What do you mean by that?
A. Well, when you're welding, your helmet has to be down because you're looking through a lens, you know. It's going to burn your eyes. So when you flip your helmet up so that you can see what you need to see and you go to the point where you're going to begin your weld and you flip your helmet down and weld.
Q. Okay. How many times a day do you do that on average?
A. On average, I would - - I would say 100 times probably at - - at least.(Hearing Transcript, 12/13-14/13). 3. Claimant contends that while performing his usual work activities on February 28, 2012, he suffered an untoward mishap/event which qualifies as an "accident" as defined at Idaho Code § 72-102(18)(b). He described his work activities that day as typical. (Hearing Transcript 20/7-11). Although Claimant contends that an accident occurred on this date, Claimant identified, neither at hearing, nor in his history to medical providers, any particular onset of symptomatology on February 28, 2012 associated with his cervical spine. Instead, Claimant testified that on the morning of February 29, 2012, he awoke with a terrible headache, one so severe that it caused him to vomit. This eventually led him to see Dr. Weiland and other medical providers. The medical records in evidence do not reflect the occurrence of a significant change in symptomatology on February 28, 2012. However, those records uniformly reflect that Claimant has a long-standing history of neck, headache, shoulder and upper extremity complaints similar to those with which he presented subsequent to February 29, 2012. Claimant was first seen by Dr. Weiland on March 2, 2012. At that time, Dr. Weiland recorded the following history concerning the onset of Claimant's difficulties:
The patient is a 44-year-old white married male presenting today with his wife, here for orthopedic issues. The patient is a welder. He has a significant problem with both cervical and lumbar back pain, probably most bothersome in the upper area with pain at the base of the skull extending down to about the C7 level. He complains of radicular symptoms into both upper extremities, and also he has some questionable weakness in the hand. He is right-handed.
He has been off work because of the chronic pain and discomfort. He has been going to the VA, seeing Dr. Rice. His medication list is incomplete at this point in time, and needs to be updated before further therapy is prescribed.
The patient also complains of low back, issues without significant radicular symptoms. The patient appears to have hypertension as well as nonspecific arthralgias with two negative workups in the past, both here and the VA for inflammatory arthritis.
. . .
APPRAISAL:
1) Cervical radiculopathy. This seems to be progressive and not tied to any specific identifiable acute injury or accident.(Joint Exhibits at 280). 4. Concerning Dr. Weiland's note of March 2, 2012, Claimant offered the following comments at hearing:
Q. Okay. Now, I'll represent to you that in his note, he indicated that you were assessed with a cervical radiculopathy that seemed to be progressive and not tied to any specific identifiable acute injury or accident. Is that your understanding of how it went down?
A. I don't recall. I don't recall ever seeing that....
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