Anderson v. Wales Industries, 95-3930

• Decision Date: 31 January 1997
• Docket Number: No. 95-3930,95-3930
• Citation: 688 So.2d 379
• Parties: 22 Fla. L. Weekly D332 Jimmie ANDERSON, Appellant, v. WALES INDUSTRIES and Gallagher Bassett Services, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 379

688 So.2d 379

22 Fla. L. Weekly D332

Jimmie ANDERSON, Appellant, v. WALES INDUSTRIES and Gallagher Bassett Services, Appellees.

No. 95-3930.

District Court of Appeal of Florida First District.

Jan. 31, 1997.

Rehearing Denied March 19, 1997.

Dennis Smejkal of Parish & Smejkal, P.A., Orlando; Bill McCabe of Shepherd, McCabe & Cooley, Longwood, for Appellant.

Michael Broussard and Raymond L. Potts of Broussard, Condry, Morgan & Nelson, Orlando, for Appellees.

ERVIN, Judge.

Claimant, Jimmie Anderson, appeals an order in which the judge of compensation claims (JCC) denied benefits for his psychological condition, denied his claim for wage-loss benefits and failed to rule on his request to increase his average weekly wage (AWW). We reverse on all issues, except a portion of the order dealing with wage loss, and remand.

Anderson was a night-shift truck driver for the employer, Wales Industries, a subsidiary of Citrus World, when he was hit by a forklift on November 26, 1991, permanently injuring his lumbar spine and left wrist. ¹ Once he returned to work shortly thereafter, he filled a variety of positions in the employer's extensive light-duty work program. He returned to night-shift driving on September 13, 1993, transporting empty cans used in juice production.

Several witnesses for the employer testified that although Anderson had the opportunity to work full-time hours, he repeatedly refused to haul loads and missed work for personal reasons or for insubordination. On November 21, 1993, after arguing heatedly with two of his supervisors and refusing to haul a load of fruit, saying that the bumpy road would hurt his back, Anderson left work and never returned. The next day he was hospitalized for symptoms of severe depression, inability to cope with stress, and homicidal and suicidal attitudes, and he remained in the hospital for the next two weeks. Anderson's treating psychiatrist diagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder, which was causally related to the stress Anderson had experienced at work.

Psychological Injury

The JCC concluded that Anderson's physical injuries did not contribute to his psychological condition; rather it resulted solely from stress at work that Anderson had brought on himself; consequently, the JCC denied his claim for benefits. In so deciding, the JCC found it significant that Anderson had made no serious effort to seek psychological help from the date of his accident until the date of his hospitalization. ² He concluded that there was a "total absence" of medical testimony linking Anderson's physical injuries to his psychological condition. We disagree.

The law at the time of Anderson's injury required a mental injury to be predicated on a physical injury and to directly and immediately result therefrom, to be compensable. ³ Ackley v. General Parcel Serv., 646 So.2d 242 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994). "There is no specific time period for the manifestation of a mental injury." Id. at 245. A claimant was not required to show that the industrial accident was the sole cause of the mental injury or condition, but simply that it was a precipitating or accelerating cause. Id. In other words, the industrial injury must have been an element in the causal chain resulting in or contributing to the wage loss. Turner v. G. Pierce Wood Mem'l Hosp., 600 So.2d 1153 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992). Even when a claimant had suffered physical injury, the psychological condition was not compensable if the medical evidence showed that it resulted from emotional or stress factors, rather than from the physical injuries. Thames v. Santa Rosa County Jail, 639 So.2d 95 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994); City of Miami Beach v. Morantes, 633 So.2d 491 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994); Egan v. Florida Atl. Univ., 610 So.2d 585 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992).

The JCC concluded that the medical evidence provided competent, substantial evidence for denying benefits. To the contrary, however, Dr. Guthrie repeatedly declined to attribute Anderson's psychological condition solely to stress that was unrelated to his initial physical injuries, stating instead that the two could not be separated. He opined,

Stress is the product of a series of events. And this series of events, in my opinion, began with the injury--the physical injury--and then his need to deal with that physical injury and then his need to deal with the situations at work as a result of his needing to change job descriptions--and also a major, what he describes to me, cut in pay that was associated with the change in jobs.

Dr. Guthrie continued that the psychiatric hospitalization would not have occurred if Anderson had not suffered an industrial accident. Although he considered that job stress may have been the last link in the chain leading to claimant's condition, the initial link--the original industrial accident--could not be ignored. Dr. Guthrie observed that claimant had developed a phobic avoidance to his workplace, both because he initially had nightmares and thereafter developed mood instability and anxiety resulting from his injury, and because he had developed an inability to get along with other employees.

In addition to the above medical evidence, the JCC reviewed the testimony of psychiatrist Dr. James Fesler, who performed an independent medical examination, noting therefrom that Dr. Fesler testified that Anderson had only complained about "stress and anger and feelings of being taken advantage of by his co-workers and attributed his psychological problems to those phenomena." On the contrary, our examination of Dr. Fesler's testimony shows that he explicitly declined to attribute Anderson's condition solely to job stress, as opposed to the physical limitations caused by Anderson's industrial accident. He considered that if claimant's physicians had imposed physical limitations, ⁴ these could have become intertwined with his job stressors and led to his psychiatric difficulties. On the other hand, if claimant had no physical restrictions, Dr. Fesler said he would feel comfortable in concluding that claimant's psychological condition resulted only from how he felt he was being treated at work. When counsel for the employer/carrier (E/C) again pressed Dr. Fesler concerning whether he could conclude that Anderson was anxious and depressed because of how he was treated at work, rather than because of his physical limitations, Dr. Fesler replied,

I would have to say, based on what he told me, that there are elements of both.... I would say the physical limitations contributed to what happened at work and then his...