Augusta County School Bd. v. Humphreys
| Decision Date | 10 February 2009 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 0940-08-3. |
| Citation | 672 S.E.2d 117,53 Va. App. 355 |
| Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
| Parties | AUGUSTA COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD and Sedgwick CMS, Inc. v. Carol A. HUMPHREYS. |
J. David Griffin (Winchester Law Group, P.C., on brief), Winchester, for appellants.
George L. Townsend (The Chandler Law Group, on brief), Charlottesville, for appellee.
Present: FELTON, C.J., McCLANAHAN, J., and COLEMAN, S.J.
The Augusta County School Board and its insurer (collectively, the "school board") appeal a decision of the Workers' Compensation Commission awarding temporary total disability benefits to claimant, Carol A. Humphreys, on her change-in-condition application. The school board argues the commission erred in rejecting the school board's statute of limitations defense. For the following reasons, we affirm the decision of the commission.
On March 12, 2003, Humphreys, a teacher for the school board, was injured at work when a table fell on her leg, causing an abrasion. The injury developed into an ulceration. Humphreys missed a total of nine and a half days of work for related medical appointments. Subsequently, she filed a workers' compensation claim seeking indemnification for lost wages and medical benefits. The parties stipulated to the compensability of her injury and medical treatment (excluding pain management). However, among its defenses, the school board asserted Humphreys suffered no actual wage loss because she took sick leave for the nine and a half days of work she missed for her medical appointments, and received full pay for each of those days.
In his May 17, 2005 opinion, the deputy commissioner found, inter alia, that Humphreys did not lose any actual wages, but lost sick leave due to her injury. He then awarded her "reimbursement of sick leave used to date for medical appointments related to her industrial accident," and medical benefits "for as long as necessary."
The school board appealed to the full commission that portion of the deputy commissioner's opinion awarding reimbursement of sick leave, asserting the commission had no jurisdiction to make such an award. While the appeal was pending, the parties agreed to a settlement entered in the form of a stipulated order by the deputy commissioner on August 22, 2005, which modified his May 17, 2005 award and ended the appeal. The parties stipulated in the order as follows:
1. The [e]mployer's appeal is withdrawn.
2. The May 17, 2005[o]rder of the [d]eputy [c]ommissioner is modified as follows:
a. The parties agree that the [c]laimant has not exhausted the waiting period for payment of indemnity of the first seven days, and therefore those days are not yet payable.[1] In the event they do become payable, the parties agree to re-instate sick time at a rate of .75 days in exchange for each day payable, but only in multiples of one.
b. For the remaining days lost, the parties agree that the [e]mployer shall only be responsible for the reinstatement of two days sick time.
It is undisputed that the parties "abided by this agreement."
On March 1, 2006, Humphreys filed an application for benefits based on a change in condition. She sought an award of temporary total disability benefits for work missed on February 8, 2006 to attend a medical appointment related to her original compensable injury. She later amended the application to include six additional days of missed work due to medical appointments. In defending the claim, the school board contended, inter alia, that the claim was barred by the two-year statute of limitations for change-in-condition applications, as set forth in Code § 65.2-708.2 The deputy commissioner rejected the school board's defenses and awarded payment of compensation to Humphreys for the seven days at issue (within a time frame of February 2006 to May 2006).
The school board appealed the decision to the full commission, continuing to argue Humphreys' change-in-condition application was time-barred under Code § 65.2-708. The school board asserted that no compensation was awarded under the original May 17, 2005 award—only medical benefits, and, thus, the limitations period expired two years from the date of the March 12, 2003 accident—long before Humphreys' subsequent March 1, 2006 claim based on an alleged change in condition.
The commission determined that Humphreys' March 1, 2006 change-in-condition application was not barred by the Code § 65.2-708 two-year statute of limitations, but reached that decision only after re-evaluating the basis for the deputy commissioner's May 17, 2005 award on Humphreys' original claim. As the commission explained, "[t]his decision is complicated by the fact that the [d]eputy [c]ommissioner's May 17, 2005[a]ward was improper." In that award, the deputy commissioner ordered "reimbursement" of Humphreys' sick leave used for medical appointments, which "exceed[ed] the [c]ommission's statutory authority." However, according to the commission, it was "obvious" the deputy commissioner "intended to award temporary total disability benefits but mistakenly entered the wrong award." The commission then reasoned that the award was
the equivalent of an award for temporary total disability benefits with a credit to the employer for the sick pay that was reinstated. Thus, we will utilize our equitable powers grounded in the doctrine of imposition to correct this mistake and enter the proper award for nine days of disability. The May 17, 2005[a]ward [o]rder is hereby amended, in relevant part, for payment of temporary disability benefits for [the nine days in March, April and May 2003 when Humphreys missed work for medical appointments].
"While these amendments change the form of the [a]ward entered by the [d]eputy [c]ommissioner," the commission stated, they do not That is, the commission concluded that Humphreys filed her change-in-condition application within two years from the date of the final order on her original claim, affirming the deputy commission's opinion and then remanding for a determination of Humphreys' pre-injury average weekly wage.
The school board argues the commission had no authority to award benefits to Humphreys on her change-in-condition application in light of the deputy commissioner's May 17, 2005 "medical benefits only" award and the parties' stipulated order, which became final. According to the school board, the commission did so only by "chang[ing] the nature of the case and remov[ing] a statute of limitations bar." In other words, the commission "[did] not have authority to unilaterally change either a final [o]rder or a [s]tipulated [o]rder eighteen months after its entry" on the basis of the doctrine of imposition.
While recognizing that upon a change-in-condition application the commission, pursuant to Code § 65.2-708, may increase the compensation previously awarded within two years from the last day for which compensation was paid, the school board contends "no compensation benefits were ever paid" to Humphreys under the deputy commissioner's May 17, 2005 award on her original claim. Rather, it was a "medical benefits only" award. Thus, the school board argues, Humphreys' application for compensation, filed more than two years from the date of her compensable injury, was time-barred.
The school board correctly asserts that, where the commission has entered a "medical benefits only" award for a compensable injury, any subsequent claim for compensation (i.e., lost wages) arising from that injury must be filed within two years from the date of the injury. See Keith v. Ball Metal Beverage Container, 45 Va.App. 50, 608 S.E.2d 501 (2005); Mayberry v. Alcoa Bldg. Prods., 18 Va.App. 18, 441 S.E.2d 349 (1994). And, here, at the time of its execution, the deputy commissioner's May 17, 2005 award provided only medical benefits, as the deputy commissioner's attempt at awarding reinstatement of Humphreys' sick leave was erroneous.3
We conclude, however, that under the parties' stipulated order, which modified the deputy commissioner's award and settled the dispute over Humphreys' original claim,4 a portion of Humphreys' salary was treated as payment of compensation for lost wages under the Workers' Compensation Act (the "Act"). The parties agreed that the nine and a half days Humphreys missed for medical appointments were, in fact, compensable under the Act, subject to the Code § 65.2-509 seven-day waiting period, that Humphreys' last two and a half days of sick leave were currently due and payable, and that a portion of Humphreys' salary for those last two and a half days of sick leave was to be treated as the payment of workers' compensation benefits. We thus hold that Humphreys' change-in-condition application was not barred by the applicable two-year statute of limitations, and affirm the commission's ruling to that effect, but on grounds other than the doctrine of imposition.5
Despite the import of the terms of the parties' stipulated order, the school board contends on appeal that, as a matter of law, the payment of wages to Humphreys could not subsequently be deemed payment of compensation to her under the Act. We disagree. Code § 65.2-520 states, in relevant part, that "[a]ny payment made by the employer to the injured employee during the period of disability ... which by the terms of this title were not due and payable when made, may, subject to the approval of the Commission, be deducted from the amount to be paid as compensation ...." (Emphasis added.)
While the Virginia appellate courts have not addressed Code § 65.2-520 in the context here presented in a published decision, the commission, in applying this statute, has consistently held, at least since 1988, that
the payment of...
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