Gulf Mgmt. v. Wall

• Docket Number: 1D2020-3741
• Decision Date: 29 November 2023
• Parties: Gulf Management, Inc., and Gallagher Bassett Services, Inc., Appellants, v. Talmadge Wall, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

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Gulf Management, Inc., and Gallagher Bassett Services, Inc., Appellants,
v.
Talmadge Wall, Appellee.

No. 1D2020-3741

Florida Court of Appeals, First District

November 29, 2023

Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331.

Date of Accident: March 18, 2009.

On appeal from the Office of the Judges of Compensation Claims. Mark A. Massey, Judge.

Tiffany Hawks, MKRS Law, Coral Gables, for Appellants.

Bradley G. Smith and Nicolette E. Tsambis, Smith, Feddeler & Smith, Lakeland, for Appellee.

TANENBAUM, J.

Both Gulf Management, Inc. and its servicing agent, Gallagher Basset Services, (collectively referred to herein as Gulf Management) appeal an order of the judge of compensation claims ("JCC") awarding Talmadge Wall permanent total disability benefits ("PTD") under section 440.15(1), Florida Statutes. Gulf Management asserts several grounds for setting aside the order, but essentially, the grounds are variations of a "sufficiency-of-the-evidence" argument. That is, Gulf Management, in several ways, attacks how the JCC considered and weighed the live testimony and other evidence given at the final merits hearing, and it also

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contends that the JCC misapplied the so-called "Blake methods." See Blake v. Merck &Co., 43 So.3d 882 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010). We affirm because the JCC's findings of fact have support in substantial evidence found in the record, and his conclusions properly applied the governing statute to those facts. We hasten, though, to highlight two important points in the analysis that follows. One is our role in conducting judicial review of an adjudicative order stemming from a quasi-judicial administrative proceeding like the one had here. The other has to do with the role that the Blake methods play in applying section 440.15(1) to the evidence when determining a PTD claim.

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First, our role. The JCC is an administrative hearing officer vested by the Legislature with quasi-judicial authority and tasked with adjudicating a dispute between an injured worker and the employer over a claim for benefits under chapter 440. See §§ 440.192, 440.25, 440.29, 440.33, 440.45, Fla. Stat.; cf. Art. V, § 1, Fla. Const. (providing that "administrative officers [] may be granted quasi-judicial power in matters connected with the functions of their office"). As an adjudicator, the JCC conducts a final hearing at which he or she receives and weighs the evidence presented and makes findings of fact material to the dispute. See §§ 440.25(4), 440.29, 440.33, Fla. Stat. "[T]he weighing of evidence and judging of the credibility of witnesses . . . are solely the prerogative of the [JCC] as finder of fact." Strickland v. Fla. A &M Univ., 799 So.2d 276, 278 (Fla. 1st DCA 2001). "It is the hearing officer's function to consider all the evidence presented, resolve conflicts, judge credibility of witnesses, draw permissible inferences from the evidence, and reach ultimate findings of fact based on competent, substantial evidence." Heifetz v. Dep't of Bus. Regul., Div. of Alcoholic Beverages &Tobacco, 475 So.2d 1277, 1281 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985).

By law, we have the authority to review an order of a JCC. See § 440.271, Fla. Stat.; cf. Art. V, § 4(b)(2), Fla. Const. ("District courts of appeal shall have the power of direct review of administrative action, as prescribed by general law."). This judicial review is still appellate review, and it is limited with respect to the JCC's adjudication of disputed facts.

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[W]henever any person . . . may be clothed with authority to hear testimony and charged by law with the duty of deciding questions of fact . . . [he] is at least acting in a quasi-judicial capacity and as such fact-finding arbiter his . . . findings are entitled to great weight and should not be reversed unless there is no competent, substantial evidence which supports such findings

U.S. Cas. Co. v. Md. Cas. Co., 55 So.2d 741, 744-45 (Fla. 1951). "This is so because [the JCC] is the only person charged with the burden and responsibility of hearing the witnesses and making findings of facts." Id. at 744. "The fact-finding arbiter is usually in a better position than the reviewing body to judge the ability, experience and reputation of the various [] witnesses who appear personally before him and to determine the weight which should be given their testimony." Id. at 745.

Under our deferential appellate review, then, where the JCC has made "administrative findings" based at least in part on live testimony, we do not consider the evidence anew. Instead, we make a legal assessment of whether someone reasonably could reach the conclusion the JCC did about a certain fact when faced with the evidence submitted. "The general rule is that administrative findings, in order to be upheld by the courts, must be supported by substantial evidence," meaning "there must be evidence which supports a substantial basis of fact from which the fact in issue can be reasonably inferred." Laney v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction for Orange Cnty., 15 So.2d 748, 753 (Fla. 1943); see also De Groot v. Sheffield, 95 So.2d 912, 916 (Fla. 1957) (explaining that, in the context of an administrative proceeding, "evidence relied upon to sustain the ultimate finding should be sufficiently relevant and material that a reasonable mind would accept it as adequate to support the conclusion reached"); cf. Nelson v. State ex rel. Quigg, 23 So.2d 136, 136 (Fla. 1945) ("We have held, and it seems to be an almost universal rule, that the findings of fact made by an administrative board, bureau, or commission, in compliance with law, will not be disturbed on appeal if such findings are sustained by substantial evidence."); Adams v. Wagner, 129 So.2d 129, 131 (Fla. 1961) (same). We look only at whether there was such evidence before the JCC "in character, weight, or amount, as will legally justify the judicial or official action demanded." Tibbs v. State, 397 So.2d 1120, 1123 (Fla. 1981),

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aff'd sub nom. Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31 (1982).

In other words, we do not re-weigh the evidence; that is a more subjective task reserved entirely to the fact-finder. Id.; see Catron Beverages, Inc. v. Maynard, 395 So.2d 261, 262 n.1 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981) ("Perhaps no principle of appellate review is more universally followed than that which proscribes an appellate court from substituting its judgment for that of the trier of fact on factual issues supported by competent, substantial evidence."). Rather, we will affirm a JCC's findings of fact when they "are supported by competent, substantial evidence even though, had we been the trier of fact, we might have reached an opposite conclusion." Heifetz, 475 So.2d at 1281-82; cf. Swanigan v. Dobbs House, 442 So.2d 1026, 1027 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983) (explaining that even when there is evidence in the record that supports both parties' positions as to the facts, and the "case could have been decided either way, depending on the testimony and evidence accepted and believed by the" JCC, we "do not retry the claim at the appellate level and substitute our judgment for that of the [JCC] on factual issues supported by competent, substantial evidence, and appeals asking us to do so are frivolous"); see also Howard v. Green's Tractor Co., 290 So.2d 46, 48 (Fla. 1973) (observing the contradictions in evidence and that "the conflict could have been resolved by" the JCC "in a manner opposite from that in which he resolved it" but that the role of an appellate court is not "to re-weigh the evidence to see if we agree with the particular manner in which such conflicts were resolved").

Similarly, on appellate review, we do not consider "whether the record contains evidence which could be interpreted to support the arguments rejected by the JCC." Frederick v. United Airlines, 688 So.2d 412, 414 (Fla. 1st DCA 1997); see Swanigan, 442 So.2d at 1027 ("We do not review whether there was competent, substantial evidence to support the claim disallowed by the [JCC]; we only review whether the record contains competent, substantial evidence to support the [JCC's] order.); Mercy Hosp. v. Holmes, 679 So.2d 860, 860 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996) ("Once again we remind counsel of the basic premise that the standard of review in worker's compensation cases is whether competent substantial evidence supports the decision below, not whether it is possible to recite

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contradictory record evidence which supported the arguments rejected below.").

II

Now we get to the role of Blake in a PTD analysis. Gulf Management's arguments in part treat Blake as setting out a rigid, categorical methodology for establishing PTD-as if it sets out three separate and independent ways for doing so, each with its own elements that must be strictly adhered to. To be clear, though, it is section 440.15(1)(b), not Blake, that governs how an employee can establish entitlement to PTD benefits. Under that paragraph, unless the employee has suffered one or more of the enumerated injuries, he or she must establish "that he or she is not able to engage in at least sedentary employment, within a 50-mile radius of the employee's residence, due to his or her physical limitation." § 440.15(1)(b), Fla. Stat. (2009).^[1] This is a fact question that must be resolved by the JCC based on the evidence presented, as we just discussed above.

The statute does not set out any formulaic test to govern the PTD determination, other than what appears in the text itself. Blake is not to the contrary. Instead, it catalogs the different forms of proof that have been accepted as competent, substantial

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evidence supporting a JCC's determination of PTD. These categories of acceptable proof, though, are not mutually exclusive. How could they be? The statutory text anticipates that the claimant is going to have to prove the following: that he cannot work at least in a sedentary job within fifty...