ROBERT MAXFIELD, Employee/Appellant,
v.
STREMEL MFG. CO. and SENTRY INS. CO., Employer-Insurer.
Minnesota Workers Compensation
Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals
January 6, 1999
HEADNOTES
PENALTIES
- SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE; STATUTES CONSTRUED - MINN. Stat. §
176.225, SUBD. 1. Where, in its earlier decision
reversing the compensation judge's denial of disability
benefits, the Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals had
listed several items of evidence supporting the employer and
insurer's opposition to payment of benefits, and where
the employee's entitlement to penalties for a period of
disability benefits conceded by the employer and insurer at
the time of trial was not clearly at issue for litigation at
the hearing, sufficient evidence existed to support the
compensation judge's denial of penalties against the
employer and insurer on remand, notwithstanding the supreme
court's summary affirmance of the WCCA's conclusion
that the judge's denial of disability benefits was
unsupported by substantial evidence.
Affirmed.
Determined by Pederson, J., Wheeler, C. J., and Hefte, J.
Compensation Judge: Bonnie A. Peterson
OPINION
WILLIAM R. PEDERSON, Judge
The
employee appeals from the compensation judge's denial of
penalties pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 176.225. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
On
November 13, 1991, Robert Maxfield [the employee] sustained a
work-related injury to his low back while employed as an
ironworker with Stremel Manufacturing Company [the
employer]. The injury proved permanent, and the parties
have stipulated to the fact that the employee sustained a
10.5% whole body impairment as a consequence. Eventually
the employee was granted retraining as a paralegal, which he
completed with an excellent grade point average in December
1995. Notwithstanding a subsequent Job Placement Plan
and Agreement [JPPA] that targeted paralegal jobs paying
$8.00 an hour, in early April 1996 the employee returned to a
$6.00-an-hour job as a laborer with A-1 Outdoor Power, a
small business owned by a relative, which he had held prior
to his retraining as a paralegal. About the same time,
on April 5, 1996, the employee filed a Claim Petition,
seeking benefits including economic recovery compensation
[ERC] for his permanency, penalties pursuant to Minn. Stat. §
176.221 and 176.225, and, by later amendment, temporary
partial disability benefits commencing April 1,
1996. Subsequently, in late November 1996, the employee
took a job with Quorem Legal Services [Quorem], not as a
paralegal but as a "document coder," at which he
earned initially $7.00 an hour and eventually $8.00 an hour.
The
matter came on for hearing on April 8, 1997. At the time
of the hearing, the employer and insurer agreed to pay the
employee temporary partial disability benefits retroactive to
the beginning of his employment with Quorem in November
1996. The employee's claim for temporary partial
disability benefits was thereby limited to a period from
April through November 1996. Subsequent to that
concession in temporary partial disability benefits by the
employer and insurer, immediately prior to opening arguments,
and as the only identification of the penalties issue on the
record, the employee's attorney stated, "The only -
- The only addition that we would make is we did assert a
claim for penalties and interest associated with temporary
partial - - and he received benefits." In the
course of the ensuing hearing, nearly all of the testimony
pertained to periods of disability prior to the
employee's November 1996 employment with Quorem, except
for some very brief direct examination of the employee and of
his QRC.1 During these brief parts of
testimony, the employee was questioned as to the nature of
his work for Quorem, his wages for that work, and his job
search since commencing that employment, and his QRC was
questioned as to the suitability of the Quorem job. This
testimony contained no evidence as to the employee's
attempts to obtain disability benefits from the employer and
insurer. By Findings and Order filed June 2, 1997, the
compensation judge concluded that the employee's
cooperation with rehabilitation and search for work had not
been...
