City of Charlottesville v. Sclafani

• Citation: 300 Va. 212,862 S.E.2d 101
• Decision Date: 26 August 2021
• Docket Number: Record No. 200791
• Parties: CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE, et al. v. William SCLAFANI
• Court: Supreme Court of Virginia

300 Va. 212

862 S.E.2d 101

CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE, et al.

v.William SCLAFANI

Record No. 200791

Supreme Court of Virginia.

AUGUST 26, 2021

Brian J. McNamara (Brian A. Richardson ; Faraaz A. Jindani ; Ford Richardson, on briefs), for appellants.

Bradford M. Young (HammondTownsend, on brief), Fishersville, for appellee.

PRESENT: Lemons, C.J., Goodwyn, Mims, Powell, Kelsey, McCullough JJ., and Millette, S.J.

OPINION BY JUSTICE CLEO E. POWELL

The City of Charlottesville (the "City") appeals the decision of the Court of Appeals affirming an award of workers’ compensation benefits.

I. BACKGROUND

In May 2017, William Sclafani ("Sclafani"), a Charlottesville police officer, took part in a SWAT team training activity. Sclafani played the role of the suspect in various scenarios from 8:00 a.m. until approximately 5:00 p.m. In this capacity, Sclafani was repeatedly put on the ground, handcuffed with his hands behind his back and then picked up while still in handcuffs. During the training, Sclafani experienced some discomfort but there was never any significant pain. However, at the end of the day he discovered that he could not straighten his left arm to reach the steering wheel of his car and go home. As the evening progressed, Sclafani found that he could no longer move his arm up or down. According to Sclafani, he did not feel any pain until the next morning.

Sclafani reported his injury to his supervisor but did not seek medical treatment for several days. After seeing a nurse practitioner, he was advised to see a specialist if his arm did not improve in three weeks. Sclafani subsequently sought treatment with an orthopedist who gave him a steroid injection and sent him to physical therapy. Sclafani's shoulder eventually required surgery for rotator cuff tears and traumatic impingement syndrome.¹ After his surgery, Sclafani transitioned back to light-duty and then full-duty work.

Sclafani filed a workers’ compensation claim seeking an award of medical benefits and temporary total disability benefits for the period beginning five days before his surgery and lasting until his release to light-duty work. The City denied that Sclafani had suffered a compensable injury by accident. During a deposition, Sclafani testified that he was never roughly handled during the training nor did he ever experience any sudden pain or feel a pop or crack. However, he recalled that, during the last scenario, he "was picked up a little weird" and "felt some discomfort." When he was subsequently asked if that was the incident that he believed resulted in his injury, Sclafani responded, "Oh, yeah. There's no doubt."

After a hearing before a Deputy Commissioner, Sclafani's claim was initially denied on the basis that, although Sclafani had clearly suffered an injury, he failed to establish an identifiable incident or sudden precipitating event that caused the injury. Sclafani requested a review by the full Commission. The Commission reversed the Deputy Commissioner's ruling and entered an award of benefits. According to the Commission, "the training session provided the necessary rigidity of temporal precision to constitute one event" and, therefore, Sclafani had sufficiently established the identifiable incident that had caused the injury.

The City appealed the Commission's decision to the Court of Appeals. In a published opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed the Commission's ruling on the basis that "the Commission assumed but failed to find that Sclafani's testimony established an identifiable incident with sufficient temporal precision." City of Charlottesville v. Sclafani , 70 Va. App. 613, 623, 830 S.E.2d 52 (2019) (hereafter, " Sclafani I "). The Court of Appeals acknowledged that "[t]he assumption that Sclafani sustained a non-cumulative injury during the last four hours of training was justified based on Sclafani's own testimony," but noted that the Commission had based its decision on a finding that the injury had occurred during the entire eight-hour training session rather than just the last four hours. Id. It remanded the case to the Commission to make a factual finding regarding "whether Sclafani's injury occurred during the four post-lunch hours of the training." Id.

On remand, the Commission noted that Sclafani did not notice any problems with his shoulder prior to lunch, whereas after lunch, he noted some discomfort. As such, the Commission found that Sclafani "sustained a non-cumulative injury during the last four hours of training." The City again appealed to the Court of Appeals.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals ruled that it would not consider whether Sclafani had "suffered a compensable, discrete injury by accident arising out of employment" or "met his burden to show an identifiable incident" on the basis that those issues had previously been raised and adversely decided in Sclafani I and the City never appealed those rulings to this Court. The Court of Appeals further affirmed the Commission's determination that Sclafani had satisfied his burden to prove that he had incurred his injury at a reasonably identifiable time, and ruled that this conclusion was mutually exclusive with the city's assertion that the injury was cumulative in nature.

The City appeals.

II. ANALYSIS

On appeal, the City initially asserts that the Court of Appeals erred in its application of the law of the case doctrine. It next contends that the Court of Appeals and the Commission erred in finding that Sclafani suffered a compensable, discrete injury arising out of employment during the training session. Specifically, the City claims that Sclafani failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that an identifiable accident caused his injury as opposed to repetitive trauma.

A. LAW OF THE CASE

The City first argues that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the law of the case doctrine precluded its review of whether a compensable injury arising out of Sclafani's employment occurred and whether he met his burden to show an identifiable accident was the cause of that injury. The City insists that the present case is analogous to Uninsured Employer's Fund v. Thrush , 255 Va. 14, 19, 496 S.E.2d 57 (1998), where we held that a matter previously raised on appeal to the Court of Appeals and remanded to the lower tribunal is not subject to the law of the case doctrine on a subsequent appeal. We agree.

This Court has explained the law of the case doctrine as follows:

Where there have been two appeals in the same case, between the same parties, and the facts are the same, nothing decided on the first appeal can be re-examined on a second appeal. Right or wrong, it is binding on both the trial court and the appellate court, and is not subject to re-examination by either. For the purpose of that case, though only for that case, the decision on the first appeal is the law.

Steinman v. Clinchfield Coal Corp. , 121 Va. 611, 620, 93 S.E. 684 (1917).

The Court has further recognized that "when a party fails to challenge a decision rendered by a court at one stage of litigation, that party is deemed to have waived [its] right to challenge that decision during later stages of the ‘same litigation.’ " Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins , 276 Va. 19, 26, 661 S.E.2d 822 (2008). Thus, "[t]he ‘law of the case’ doctrine applies both to issues that were actually decided by the court, and also to issues ‘necessarily involved in the first appeal, whether actually adjudicated or not.’ " Id. (quoting Kemp v. Miller , 160 Va. 280, 285, 168 S.E. 430 (1933) ).

We have, however, recognized an exception to the law of the case doctrine. In Thrush , the employer appealed the Commission's decision regarding the amount of benefits to award. 255 Va. at 17, 496 S.E.2d 57. The Court of Appeals reversed the award with directions that the Commission make a new award. Id. The Court of Appeals did not modify the award, but it clearly indicated the manner in which it should be modified. Id. On remand, the Commission followed the Court of Appeals’ guidance and entered a new award. Id. The employer again appealed the amount of benefits awarded. Id. The Court of Appeals, noting that the issue was the same issue that had been previously raised, ruled that the law of the case doctrine barred its further consideration of the matter. Id. at 18, 496 S.E.2d 57. On appeal to this Court, we held that, under these circumstances, where the Court of Appeals could have modified the ruling of the Commission, but chose instead to remand the matter, the law of the case doctrine had no application. Id. at 19, 496 S.E.2d 57. We explained that, in enacting Code § 17–116.09,² the General Assembly clearly intended to allow a party to choose between appealing the Court of Appeals’ decision to this Court or accepting the remand without "waiv[ing] its right to seek an ultimate appeal to this Court from an unfavorable decision following the remand." Id.

The posture of the present case is virtually identical to that of Thrush . In Sclafani I , the Court of Appeals explicitly acknowledged that whether the Commission properly determined that Sclafani had suffered a discrete, compensable injury arising out of his employment and whether Sclafani met his burden to show such an injury were the issues before it. 70 Va. App. at 618, 830 S.E.2d 52. The Court of Appeals noted that both of these issues turned on whether Sclafani's evidence provided sufficient temporal proof as to when the injury occurred. Id. at 620, 830 S.E.2d 52. However, rather than address the sufficiency of Sclafani's evidence, the Court of Appeals ruled that the Commission's finding lacked "sufficient temporal precision" due to the Commission's reliance on the entire eight-hour training session. Id. at 623, 830 S.E.2d 52. Specifically, the Court of Appeals stated that "[i]t appears ... that the Commission assumed but failed to find that Sclafani's testimony established an identifiable incident with sufficient temporal precision." Id. The Court of Appeals did not modify the...