Belton v. Carlson Transport

• Court: Montana Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: SHEA
• Citation: Belton v. Carlson Transport, 202 Mont. 384, 658 P.2d 405, 40 St.Rep. 158 (Mont. 1983)
• Decision Date: 07 February 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-90,82-90
• Parties: Ralph V. BELTON, Claimant and Respondent, v. CARLSON TRANSPORT, Employer, and Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, Defendant and Appellant, and Rice Truck Line, Employer, and Transport Indemnity Company, Co-Defendant and Respondent.

Page 405

658 P.2d 405

202 Mont. 384

Ralph V. BELTON, Claimant and Respondent, v. CARLSON TRANSPORT, Employer and Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, Defendant and Appellant and Rice Truck Line, Employer and Transport Indemnity Company, Co-Defendant and Respondent.

No. 82-90.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted Sept. 17, 1982.

Decided Feb. 7, 1983.

Crowley, Haughey, Hanson, Toole & Dietrich, L. Randall Bishop argued, Billings, for defendant and appellant.

Victor R. Halverson argued, Billings, Garlington, Lohn & Robinson, Larry E. Riley argued, Missoula, for respondents.

SHEA, Justice.

Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company (Hartford) appeals from an order of the Workers' Compensation Court which held that Hartford must pay permanent total disability benefits to claimant, Ralph Belton. Claimant injured his back in two separate accidents--one in 1977, when Hartford was on risk--and one in 1979, when Transport Indemnity was on risk. The Workers' Compensation Court found that claimant's 1979 injury was an aggravation of the 1977 injury, and because the 1977 injury had not "completely healed," Hartford, rather than Transport Indemnity, must pay the compensation benefits. We vacate the order and remand for further proceedings.

The trial court based its decision on Little v. Structural Systems (1980), Mont., 614 P.2d 516, 37 St.Rep. 1187. We held in Little that:

"Where there have been two accidents, each occurring under a different insurer, and the second happens before the first injury is completely healed, the second accident is incident to the first and the first insurer is required to pay all compensation." (Emphasis added.) 614 P.2d at 519.

We recognize that use of the term "completely healed" was an unfortunate choice of language and that a more meaningful term based on medical fact and legal conclusion, would have been one such as "maximum healing," "medically stable condition," or one which conveys the message that the claimant's condition had arrived at a point where it would get no better even though the claimant would still have symptoms of the injury whether it be an objective sign or a subjective symptom such as pain.

The claimant sustained a series of work-related injuries between 1970 and 1979. Between September 1971 and mid-1977, he was totally disabled, due in part to low back pain for which he was rated 15 percent permanently partially impaired. During this period, he received total disability benefits from the Social Security Administration. Two of the accidents involved here occurred after he went back to work in 1977. The first accident occurred on November 7, 1977 and the second occurred on December 7, 1979.

Claimant was a long-haul truck driver. On November 7, 1977, while employed with Carlson Transport, and while Hartford Indemnity was on risk, claimant slipped on a frost-covered trailer and fell. He injured his buttocks on the edge of the trailer and slipped off the trailer onto the ground injuring his lower back. The injury was diagnosed as a "lateral extradural defect at L4-5." Hartford Indemnity paid compensation benefits until March 31, 1978, when claimant was released to go back to work. He returned to Carlson Transport in April 1978, but later worked for other trucking firms.

On December 7, 1979, while working for Rice Truck Line, and while Transport Indemnity was on risk, claimant slipped off a fuel tank on which he had been standing. He fell approximately three feet and when he hit the ground most of his weight was on his left foot. He immediately felt pain and it increased over the next four hours. He went to the doctor and he has not worked since. Both insurers concede, and the trial court found that claimant has been totally disabled since the December 1979 accident. It is also undisputed that the December 1979 accident aggravated the lower back injury sustained in November 1977.

Claimant testified, that he was often in pain after the 1977 lower back injury up to the time of the 1979 accident. He testified that he was also limited in some of the work he was required to do. He needed help in putting up the end gage of the trailer; he needed help in putting the tarp over the loads he carried; and he had to stop at least once every 100 miles to briefly rest his back, while before he only had to stop once every 200 miles. A co-worker corroborated claimant's difficulties in performing his job.

At trial, Transport Indemnity relied entirely on our "completely healed" requirement in Little, and in its appellate brief Transport Indemnity has cited and discussed only the Little case. We have no doubt, furthermore, that it was our unfortunate choice of language in Little which led to the trial court's ruling.

The trial court ruled that Hartford Indemnity must prove that claimant sustained a "separate and distinct injury from the November 7, 1977 injury" and that "implicit in this burden is a requirement of proof that the claimant had completely healed from the first injury ..." (Emphasis added.) The court examined the evidence and using the "completely healed" requirement as the standard, concluded that:

"... the claimant had certainly reached maximum healing for purposes of determining temporary total disasbility during the period beginning March of 1978 through December of 1979. But the requirement of Little is that the claimant must have reached complete healing. Here, none of the doctors would state that the claimant was completely healed." (Emphasis added.)

Based on this analysis of the evidence (which was correct) the trial court held that Hartford Indemnity must pay the compensation benefits. Because of our language in Little, the trial court had little choice but to conclude that Hartford Indemnity must pay the benefits. Nevertheless, we hold that the trial court reached an improper legal conclusion based in part on our erroneous "completely healed" standard.

A compensable event does not require that a "separate and distinct injury" be proved. It has long been the law that an accident is compensable if the traumatic event or unusual strain aggravates a pre-existing injury. The employer takes the employee as he finds him. Therefore, no basis exists to conclude that a second accident is compensable as a separate event only if it is proved that the injury resulting from the first accident had "completely healed." The facts reveal without question that two accidents are involved.

An industrial accident is defined in part by section 39-71-119(1), MCA, as "a tangible happening of a traumatic nature ..." The slip and fall in 1977 and the slip and fall in 1979 were without question "a tangible happening of a traumatic nature ..." Further, the 1979 slip and fall indisputably aggravated the injuries received in the 1977 accident, and this 1979 accident is just as indisputably compensable.

The "completely healed" standard set forth in Little is not an appropriate standard by which to determine whether the insurer on risk during the first accident or the insurer on risk during the second accident should pay the benefits. We have no difficulty in distinguishing the facts here from the facts in Little, but the fact remains that we adopted the "completely healed" standard in Little, and it is a standard we now expressly overrule.

In Little, on April 4, 1978, while U.S.F. & G. was the compensation carrier for the employer, claimant injured his knee. However, he continued to work and did not see a doctor. Two months later, on June 6, 1978, claimant again injured his knee while working for the same employer. At this time, however, Industrial Indemnity was the compensation carrier for the employer. Claimant reported this second accident and sought medical attention. The question arose as to whether U.S.F. & G., the insurer during the first accident, or Industrial Indemnity, the insurer during the second accident, should pay the compensation benefits. Medical testimony established that claimant was a stoic noncomplainer who had knee problems going back to 1941. Both the April 1978 and the June 1978 accidents aggravated this longstanding knee problem.

The treating doctor testified that when claimant reinjured his knee in the June 1978 accident, his knee had not recovered from the injury just two months before in the April 1978 accident. Although neither the questions put to the doctor nor the answers were framed in language of whether claimant had reached "maximum healing," or had reached a "medically stable condition" at the time of the second accident, we have no doubt that this is what the doctor meant when he testified that claimant had not fully recovered from the knee injury sustained just two months before. Based on this testimony, we held that the insurer on risk at the time of the first accident must pay the compensation benefits.

Our adoption of the requirement "completely healed" in Little may have been occasioned by our use of this term in Newman v. Kamp (1962), 140 Mont. 487, 374 P.2d 100, cited and quoted in Little. In listing the important facts we stated in Newman that the (claimant's) injury caused by the first...