Bath Iron Works Corp. v. Fields

• Decision Date: 18 March 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-2235.,08-2235.
• Citation: 599 F.3d 47
• Parties: BATH IRON WORKS CORP., Petitioner, v. Clair Maynard FIELDS, et al., Respondents.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

599 F.3d 47

BATH IRON WORKS CORP., Petitioner, v. Clair Maynard FIELDS, et al., Respondents.

No. 08-2235.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard: Sept. 11, 2009

Decided: March 18, 2010.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Stephen Hessert, Norman, Hanson &amp Detroy LLC, with whom C.Lindsey Morrill was on brief, for petitioner.

Marcia J. Cleveland, for respondent Clair Maynard Fields.

Before BOUDIN, GAJARSA, ^* and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

The Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act ("LHWCA" or "the Act"), 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-950, establishes auniform no-fault compensation scheme for covered maritime workers who suffer disability or death in connection with their employment. Enacted after a series of Supreme Court decisions restricted the application of state workers' compensation laws within the federal maritime jurisdiction, the LHWCA was "designed to ensure that a compensation remedy existed for all injuries sustained by employees on navigable waters, and to avoid uncertainty as to the source, state or federal, of that remedy." Calbeck v. Travelers Ins. Co., 370 U.S. 114, 124, 82 S.Ct. 1196, 8 L.Ed.2d 368 (1962).

Section 20(a) of the LHWCA provides that certain disabilities are presumed to be work-related "in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary." 33 U.S.C § 920(a). Relying on that provision, the Benefits Review Board affirmed an award of disability benefits for respondent Clair Maynard Fields. Fields's employer Bath Iron Works ("BIW"), a ship manufacturing facility based in Bath, Maine, now petitions for review of the Board's decision, arguing that it produced "substantial evidence" to rebut the statutory presumption and, alternatively, that the Board exceeded the scope of its authority in vacating an earlier decision of the ALJ that rejected Fields's claim for benefits. We disagree on both points and therefore deny the petition.

I.

Fields alleges that he became disabled while working for BIW. It is undisputed for purposes of this proceeding that Fields has been totally and permanently disabled since June 7, 2002, as the result of a lower back condition that causes intense pain to radiate through his left leg. At the onset of his disability, he was sixty years old and weighed approximately 400 pounds.

Fields was a BIW employee from 1983 to 2002. For most of that time, he worked as a pipefitter at BIW's main shipyard in Bath and as a hose fabricator at the company's East Brunswick Manufacturing Facility. He testified that, prior to 2002, he had experienced a bout of lower back pain while working at the East Brunswick facility in 1995. He attributed the pain to work he was performing at the time, which required him to bend over a table while conducting pressure tests on hoses. Fields sought treatment for the pain from BIW's first aid staff and was prescribed anti-inflammatory medication. BIW also altered Fields's work assignment so that he was no longer required to work at the testing table. Fields reported that his pain cleared up after one to two weeks and that he experienced no other significant back pain, except for a few transitory backaches, until 2002.

In 2001, Fields was transferred from the East Brunswick Facility to the recycling department, which was located in the main shipyard in Bath at the time. The recycling job required Fields to remove metal materials from large bins, which he accomplished by bending over while supporting himself on the edge of a bin. On April 26 2002, while Fields was at work, he slipped on ice and fell on his right side and right elbow. He testified that his back began to hurt after the fall, but he "had no leg pain or nothing unbearable." He did not report the incident to BIW's first aid staff at the time.

Soon after Fields fell, BIW moved the recycling department to a new location at the "North Stores." Fields testified that he spent one to two weeks setting up the new work area; he then began dividing his time between two separate tasks. He spent eighty percent of his time at the North Stores sorting materials while sitting at a bench. During the remaining twenty percent of his time, Fields salvaged scrap metal for recycling near the "northgate." Scrap metal would be "dump[ed] in the middle of the floor" near the north gate, and Fields would "bend down on one knee or bend over and pick stuff up, and haul it off, and load it onto another dumpster to be hauled back to the North Stores." Most of the materials were light enough for Fields to carry alone, but he testified that some materials required two people to carry. In contrast to the first recycling job, there was nothing in the north gate area that Fields could use for support while he bent or kneeled.

Fields's pain worsened around the same time he began working near the north gate. He testified that his back pain began to radiate through his left buttock down the inside of his left leg, and into his toe. Soon, the pain became so intense that Fields had difficulty walking. He testified that he was barely able to walk the one hundred yards between the north gate and the pick-up point for his commute home he would "have to stop and lean on vehicles because of the pain." Two weeks later, he "was in such pain [he] couldn't walk any more."

At the suggestion of BIW's Chief of Occupational Medicine, Fields was placed out of work on June 10, 2002. He saw a number of different physicians after that point, including two board certified neurosurgeons, Dr. Rajiv Desai and Dr. Julius Ciembroniewicz. The physicians concluded that the immediate source of Fields's pain was a pinched or irritated nerve near the lowest of his lumbar vertebrae. They explained that one of the apertures through which root nerves exit the spinal canal had become constricted, leading to the compression or irritation of the nerves passing through that space. Although they described the physiological origins of that "foraminal narrowing" in somewhat different terms, it is sufficient for present purposes to say that the physicians be lieved it was likely caused or accelerated by degenerative osteoarthritis.

While Fields was undergoing testing, BIW controverted the compensation claim on the ground that Fields's disability was related to his weight and age rather than his employment. The parties presented their evidence in a benefits hearing before an Administrative Law Judge on May 25, 2005. The ALJ found that Fields had advanced two separate theories of causation: "(1) the fall at work on April 26, 2002 was a work-related injury that resulted in low back-pain and could have caused his herniated disc, and (2) he suffered a workrelated aggravation of his underlying back condition in June of 2002, resulting in the onset of disabling radicular symptoms in his left leg."

After hearing the evidence, the ALJ denied Fields's claim for benefits in a written decision dated December 13, 2005. Pursuant to section 20(a) of the LHWCA, 33 U.S.C. § 920(a), the ALJ held that Fields was entitled to a presumption that his injury was causally connected with his employment at BIW. The ALJ also found, however, that BIW had successfully rebutted that presumption by producing substantial evidence that neither Fields's fall nor his work sorting scrap metal near the north gate had caused or aggravated his back condition. The ALJ then weighed the evidence on the record as a whole and concluded that Fields had not established by a preponderance of the evidence that his disability was causally connected to his employment at BIW.

On appeal, a three-judge panel of the Benefits Review Board vacated the ALJ's order. The Board found that BIW had not produced substantial evidence to sever the causal link between Fields's work sorting scrap metal and his disability. The Board therefore concluded that BIW's evidence was legally insufficient to rebut the section 20(a) presumption and that Fields's disability was work-related as a matter of law. In light of its holding, the Board found it unnecessary to address Fields's April 26, 2002 fall. The case was remanded to the ALJ for further proceedings.

On remand, BIW asked the ALJ to find that Fields's back condition was not workrelated. The ALJ declined to do so, finding that the Board had resolved the issue as a matter of law and that the Board's mandate was binding. The ALJ then found that Fields was permanently and totally disabled and awarded him $443.73 per week in disability benefits.

BIW appealed the matter a second time, arguing that the Board erroneously reweighed the ALJ's factual findings in its first decision. The Board rejected that argument, explaining that its first decision was legal in nature. BIW did not challenge the ALJ's findings as to the severity and permanency of Fields's disability and the proper amount of benefits. The Board therefore affirmed the benefits award. This petition for review followed.

II.

We have jurisdiction to review a final order of the Benefits Review Board. 33 U.S.C. § 921(c). Our role is to examine the Board's decision "for material errors of law or for impermissible departure from the familiar 'substantial evidence' rubric in connection with the Board's assessment of the hearing officer's factual findings." Bath Iron Works Corp. v. U.S. Dep't of Labor ("Knight"), 336 F.3d 51, 55 (1st Cir.2003) (quoting Barker v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, 138 F.3d 431, 434 (1st Cir.1998)); see also Prolerized New Eng. Co. v. Benefits Review Bd., 637 F.2d 30, 35 (1st Cir. 1980).

A. Statutory Framework

When a claim for LHWCA benefits is controverted, it is the claimant's burden to prove the requisite elements of coverage. See Director, OWCP v. Greenwich Collieries, 512 U.S. 267, 281, 114 S.Ct. 2251, 129 L.Ed.2d 221 (1994). Among other things, the claimant must establish a "causal nexus between [his] malady and his employment activities." Sprague v. Director, OWCP, 688 F.2d 862 865 (1st Cir. 1982) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also U.S Indus./Fed. Sheet Metal, Inc....