Floyd v. Quaker Oats, No. 00-1618.

• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa
• Writing for the Court: CARTER, Justice.
• Citation: 646 N.W.2d 105
• Parties: Lyle FLOYD, Appellee, v. QUAKER OATS, Appellant.
• Decision Date: 12 June 2002
• Docket Number: No. 00-1618.

646 N.W.2d 105

Lyle FLOYD, Appellee,
v.
QUAKER OATS, Appellant

No. 00-1618.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 12, 2002.

646 N.W.2d 106

Mark A. Woollums and Jean Dickson Feeney of Betty, Neuman & McMahon, L.L.P., Davenport, for appellant

Pete Leehey and Melissa M. Harbaugh Adams of Wertz & Leehey, P.C., Cedar Rapids, for appellee.

CARTER, Justice.

Quaker Oats, the employer of Lyle Floyd, appeals from a decision on judicial review, which applied the full-responsibility rule in Floyd's workers' compensation claim involving a scheduled injury. After reviewing the record and considering the arguments presented, we reverse the judgment of the district court.

While working at Quaker Oats on September 3, 1993, Floyd slipped, caught himself from falling, and twisted his knee. He immediately reported the injury to his employer. At his employer's request, claimant was evaluated by a general practitioner on October 8, 1993. That physician recommended consultation with Dr. Coates, an orthopaedic surgeon. Dr. Coates concluded that claimant had a full range of motion and no instability in the leg at that time. X-rays of the knee revealed minimal spurring of the superior and inferior aspects of the patella. He concluded that the discomfort that claimant reported was the probable result of a torn or partially torn medial meniscus.

On October 14, 1993, Dr. Coates reported that x-rays revealed the knee to be within limits of normal except for some early arthritic changes. He continued to diagnose the condition as a medial meniscus tear, which should heal. On May 10, 1994, Dr. Coates reported that claimant continued to experience pain along the medial joint line and had a greater compromise of the joint space than had previously been identified.

Following a December 22, 1994 examination, Dr. Coates established a lifting restriction for claimant of forty to sixty pounds and predicted that with this restriction "he will be able to keep going for the foreseeable future." On October 17, 1995, Dr. Coates wrote to claimant's personal physician and reported:

This is a knee that is in a rather awkward position. Obviously, we would like to do something to fix it. On the other hand, I think arthroscopic debridement would fail. I do not think it would give him enough good to worth the cost of

646 N.W.2d 107

the operation, and yet it is not bad enough to recommend a knee replacement. So, we are really stuck with a knee that is not a good knee, but it may last this way yet for several years.

In response to an inquiry from the employer's lawyer, Dr. Coates reported on July 23, 1996, that claimant's leg had sustained a twenty percent functional impairment. He opined that seventy-five percent of that impairment, a fifteen percent functional disability, was work related and the rest was the result of degenerative arthritis. He fixed July 23, 1996, as the date of maximum recovery from the September 3, 1993 injury.

In a letter to claimant's counsel, Dr. Coates concluded that, with respect to the fifteen percent work-related functional disability of claimant's leg, seventy-five percent of that impairment was attributable to the September 1993 injury.¹ The balance of the functional disability, i.e., 3.75%, was attributed to a cumulative trauma that resulted from claimant's work activities subsequent to September 3, 1993. Claimant filed a petition to arbitrate the September 3, 1993 injury. He also filed a petition claiming a cumulative injury subsequent to September 3, 1993. He later dismissed the petition involving the September 3, 1993 injury without prejudice in the face of a statute-of-limitations defense. The deputy industrial commissioner found that the claimant had sustained a cumulative injury of 3.75% from day-to-day work activities after September 3, 1993. He concluded, however, that the full-responsibility rule recognized in Second Injury Fund v. Nelson, 544 N.W.2d 258, 265 (Iowa 1995), and Celotex Corp. v. Auten, 541 N.W.2d 252, 254 (Iowa 1995), should be applied to produce a compensable impairment of fifteen percent of the use of claimant's leg.

On appeal to the industrial commissioner's designee, the deputy's decision was upheld in all respects other than the application of the full-responsibility rule. The appeal decision concluded that the full-responsibility rule is only applicable in body-as-a-whole disability cases and does not apply to functional impairment that is determinative of compensation for scheduled injuries. On claimant's petition for judicial review, the district court disagreed with the agency's refusal to apply the full-responsibility rule and ruled that the disability established in the opinion of the deputy industrial commissioner was correct. Other facts that are significant in deciding this appeal will be discussed in connection with our consideration of the legal issues presented.

I. Whether the Cumulative Injury Found to Exist Arose Out of Claimant's Employment.

The first argument advanced by the employer is a claim that the evidence does not show that the cumulative injury found to have occurred subsequent to September 3, 1993, arose out of claimant's employment. The employer urges that, as this court recognized in Miedema v. Dial Corp., 551 N.W.2d 309 (Iowa 1996), to arise out of one's employment, "the injury must not have coincidentally occurred while at work, but must in some way be caused by or related to the working environment or the conditions of ... employment." Miedema, 551 N.W.2d at 311.

It is evident from the medical reports that were tendered in evidence that Dr. Coates, whose evaluations form

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the basis for the agency's finding of disability, had been made aware of the tasks that claimant performed on a routine basis. It is also clear...