Bruno v. Harbert Intern. Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 January 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-C-1444,91-C-1444
• Citation: 593 So.2d 357
• Parties: Betty BRUNO v. HARBERT INTERNATIONAL INC., et al.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 357

593 So.2d 357

Betty BRUNO v. HARBERT INTERNATIONAL INC., et al.

No. 91-C-1444.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Jan. 17, 1992.

Jacques Cousin, Cousin & Cousin, New Iberia, for applicant.

Dennis R. Stevens, Gibbens & Blackwell, New Iberia, for respondent.

HALL, Justice.

The primary issue in this worker's compensation suit is whether the district court's factual finding that plaintiff sustained a work-related injury was manifestly erroneous or clearly wrong. The appellate court concluded that there was such error and reversed the district court's judgment awarding benefits for total and permanent disability. Bruno v. Harbert International Inc., 580 So.2d 1018 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1991). On Mrs. Bruno's application, we granted certiorari to review the correctness of that decision. 586 So.2d 519 (La.1991). As our reading of the record convinces us that the appellate court misapplied the manifest error/clearly wrong standard, we reverse.

I.

Mrs. Bruno was hired by Harbert International, Inc., in March 1986, as a process technician. Her duties included cleaning and pumping out large water and molasses tanks. She worked four days on, four days off shifts, alternating days and nights. Mrs. Bruno claims that she was injured in the course and scope of her employment at Harbert.

Mrs. Bruno filed a claim for compensation with the State of Louisiana, Department of Labor, Office of Worker's Compensation. The office recommended payment of benefits. The office's recommendation was rejected, and Mrs. Bruno filed suit in district court against Harbert and its insurer United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company.

Plaintiff testified that on January 24, 1988 (the last day of a four-day shift), she injured her lower back while lifting and carrying a 65-pound pump and doing heavy manual labor. At the time, she felt a "tightness" in her back. Despite being in pain, she completed the few remaining hours in her shift. During her next four days off, she rested. On January 29th, she returned to work and finished another four-day shift. Plaintiff testified that since then she has been unable to return to work.

Plaintiff further testified that during her last four-day shift she had difficulty performing her duties, but that her supervisor and co-worker, Gary Adams, "sort of let [her] skate." While she did not file a formal accident report during that time, plaintiff testified that she told Gary Adams and a couple of other co-workers that she was in pain. She further testified that the reason she delayed filing an accident report was that she thought it perhaps was "just a muscle strain," that she was "not in the habit of reporting every little nick and bruise," and that she believed she "could work through it and it would go away."

On her next day off, February 1, 1988, plaintiff saw Dr. Fletcher Sutton, an orthopedic surgeon. While she did not relate to Dr. Sutton a definite history of an accident or injury, she testified that she told him that she had done some "stressful work." She further testified that the reason she did not relate an accident to Dr. Sutton was that she believed it to be just a pulled muscle and that she did not want to report something so minor. On that same date, she telephoned a representative of Harbert, reported an injury and informed that her doctor had advised her to stay at home. Plaintiff testified that before the date of this accident she had not missed any work at Harbert.

Plaintiff testified that on February 8, 1988 she orally reported the alleged work-related accident to her employer. On February 11, 1988, she was interviewed by Mr. St. Marie, Harbert's employer's administrative manager, for the purpose of completing an accident report.

By stipulation, the parties agreed that Mr. Freddy Bruno, plaintiff's husband, and Ms. Margaret Wiltz, plaintiff's friend and neighbor, would both testify and corroborate plaintiff's version of the onset of her symptoms coincidentally with the January 24th incident, her physical problems thereafter, and the absence of any physical problems before the incident.

Dr. Sutton's deposition was taken for the purpose of use at trial and was introduced into evidence. He testified that when he first saw plaintiff on February 1, 1988, she complained of pain in her lower back in the posterior left hip and thigh area and that she told him this pain had begun gradually two weeks earlier and had increased in severity. Dr. Sutton further testified that while at that time plaintiff did not relate any history of an accident, "she did have a somewhat long history of intermittent back pain on and off which she had either seen Dr. Segura or Elias for about a year, year and a half previously." Dr. Sutton also testified that when he saw plaintiff in the hospital on February 29, 1988, she related to him for the first time a specific accident: "she felt that somewhere the two or three weeks previous that she was lifting a pump at work and felt some aggravation in her back at that time and really never did get very bad until two or three days later."

Dr. Sutton also testified that while plaintiff was hospitalized in February 1988, he determined that she had a herniated disc in the lower back.

Dr. Sutton continued to see Ms. Bruno over a period of time. He was of the opinion that she was disabled from performing heavy manual labor. At trial and on appeal, defendants took the position that she is not totally and permanently disabled.

Plaintiff's co-worker and supervisor, Gary Adams, testified on defendants' behalf that he recalled on the last day of a particular shift he and plaintiff had picked up a pump weighing about 65 pounds and moved it from one place to another. He testified that at the time they lifted the pump plaintiff did not complain. He further testified that on the first day of that particular shift, plaintiff came in complaining of back problems and that during that shift she asked him if he knew a good chiropractor. Mr. Adams further testified that he was sure that plaintiff's back pain complaints were made before the pump-lifting incident because he had underlined those four dates on a shift schedule that he maintained. Mr. Adams testified that he underlined those dates either on January 20th or 21st, that he made no other notation on the shift schedule, and that this was the first time he had underlined dates on his schedule.

Mr. Adams also testified that he was sure that the shift during which plaintiff complained was the last shift she worked at Harbert. Plaintiff's payroll records as well as the accident report, however, confirm that plaintiff's last shift at Harbert was the shift running from January 29th through 31st, that is, the next shift she worked after the pump-lifting incident.

Defendants also presented the testimony of Brad St. Marie, Harbert's personnel supervisor who interviewed plaintiff. Mr. St. Marie testified that plaintiff was initially unable to relate her injury to any specific on the job incident. He further testified that it was only after he explained to plaintiff that compensation benefits only cover work-related accidents that she responded that "it must have happened when Gary and I were moving the pump."

The trial court, in finding in plaintiff's favor, stated that the testimony of plaintiff and Gary Adams proved a work-related accident by a preponderance of the evidence. In so finding, the trial court in its reasons for judgment expressly reconciled the inconsistencies between the testimony of plaintiff and Gary Adams as follows:

There was some confusion in Mr. Adams' testimony in that he was certain that [plaintiff's complaints of back pain] occurred the week before this particular incident but that he was also certain that the complaints were made on the last shift that Betty Bruno worked. It seems reasonable that this gentlemen would recall Mrs. Bruno complaining and would also seem reasonable that he would recall that after that four day shift of complaining that she never came back to work. This is in fact and indeed consistent with the testimony of Mrs. Bruno and that she hurt her back the shift before her very last shift.

On defendants' appeal, the court of appeal held that "[t]he trial judge's evaluations of credibility and his factual finding that Betty Bruno did prove a work accident causing her disabling condition by a preponderance of the evidence are manifestly erroneous." The correctness of that holding is the issue we address in this case.

II.

As a threshold requirement, a worker in a compensation action must establish "personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment." LSA-R.S. 23:1031 (emphasis supplied). The applicable statutory definition of "accident" is "an unexpected or unforeseen event happening suddenly or violently, with or without human fault, and producing at the time objective symptoms of an injury." LSA-R.S. 23:1021(1). While that definition was amended after the occurrence of the accident involved in this case, the governing law in a compensation action is that which was in effect at the time of the alleged injury. Nelson v. Roadway Express, Inc., 588 So.2d 350 (La.1991).

Louisiana courts consistently have interpreted the work-related accident requirement liberally. Williams v. Regional Transit Authority, 546 So.2d 150, 156 (La.1989). Indeed, it is well-settled in Louisiana that an "accident" exists when "heavy lifting or other strenuous efforts, although usual and customary, cause or contribute to a physical breakdown or accelerate its occurrence because of a pre-existing condition." Cutno v. Neeb Kearney & Co., 237 La. 828, 112 So.2d 628, 631 (1959); Nelson, supra (collecting cases). Moreover, Louisiana courts view the question of whether there was an accident from the worker's perspective. Williams, supra.

Despite the liberal construction of the statute afforded the worker in a compensation action, the worker's burden of proof is not relaxed. Prim v. City of...