Evans v. Orlando Work Force, AV-373

• Decision Date: 15 May 1984
• Docket Number: No. AV-373,AV-373
• Citation: 449 So.2d 992
• Parties: George EVANS, Appellant, v. ORLANDO WORK FORCE and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 992

449 So.2d 992

George EVANS, Appellant, v. ORLANDO WORK FORCE and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Appellees.

No. AV-373.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

May 15, 1984.

R.W. Simmermon, Orlando, for appellant.

Edward H. Hurt, Jr., Orlando, for appellees.

WIGGINTON, Judge.

Appellant appeals the deputy commissioner's order denying his claim for temporary total disability benefits from June 10, 1982 through January 17, 1983. We reverse and remand.

Appellant, who is approximately fifty-one years old, does not have the use of his right arm due to a shooting accident that occurred twenty-seven years ago. His work experience has consisted of manual labor jobs that he could perform with his remaining good arm and hand. However, on January 29, 1982, he broke his left wrist in a work related accident.

Employer/carrier paid appellant temporary total disability benefits until June 10, 1982. He initially was treated by Dr. Shea, an orthopedist, whose reports were not admitted into evidence and whose deposition was not taken. According to appellant's testimony, in June, 1982, Dr. Shea released him to return to work without restrictions, telling him that he did not have any further treatment to offer him. Appellant testified that he continued to suffer pain and his arm remained swollen to the extent that he was unable to seek work, especially since he did not have another usable arm. He did not return to Dr. Shea until January, 1983, because he was unable to pay the medical bill and believed that since he was no longer receiving benefits, he was not entitled to medical treatment at employer/carrier's expense. In January, 1983, Dr. Shea performed surgery on appellant's hand to release certain tendons that had been pinned down by scar tissue due to the injury, a procedure referred to as releasing the DeQuervains.

In June, 1983, Dr. Shea referred appellant to Dr. Tucker, an orthopedist, who treated appellant through September, 1983. According to Dr. Tucker's testimony and report in the record, at the time he saw appellant, appellant had a "healed fractured radius," but apparently he had developed a "sympathetic dystrophy" of his left hand. The doctor explained that sympathetic dystrophy is a progressive condition in which the body's compensation mechanism, rather than being of assistance in healing an injury, actually causes demineralization of the extremity, and the area feels alternately hot and cold. He went on to say that a patient with that condition tends not to use his limb because it hurts, but the less the limb is used the worse it becomes. He stated that sympathetic dystrophy usually begins to occur about six weeks after an injury. He believed that it occurred in appellant while Dr. Shea was treating him. He felt that appellant's complaints of pain throughout the previous year were real. He performed a second DeQuervains release on appellant in August, 1983, since rescarring had occurred due to the sympathetic dystrophy condition. At the time he saw appellant, he was of the opinion that appellant had serious physical limitations due to his wrist condition, but he thought appellant could begin to do light work and gradually he would improve.

The testimony of Dr. Tucker and appellant was unrefuted. On the basis of the evidence as related above, in his order, the deputy commissioner merely made the general statement that he found no competent substantial evidence in the record to support the claim for temporary total disability benefits for the period of June 10, 1982, through January 17, 1983, and therefore he denied the claim.

In Mobley v. Fulford Van & Storage, 390 So.2d 426 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980), we observed that:

It...