Huit v. Ashwater Burns, Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 June 2016
• Docket Number: Supreme Court No. S–15514
• Citation: 372 P.3d 904
• Parties: Joseph D. Huit, Petitioner, v. Ashwater Burns, Inc., et al., Respondents.
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

372 P.3d 904

Joseph D. Huit, Petitioner

v.Ashwater Burns, Inc., et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court No. S–15514

Supreme Court of Alaska.

June 17, 2016

Robert A. Rehbock and Andrew D. Wilson, Rehbock & Rehbock, Anchorage, for Petitioner.

Robert L. Griffin and Aaron M. Sandone, Griffin & Smith, Anchorage, for Respondents.

Laura Fox, Assistant Attorney General, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for Amicus Curiae State of Alaska.

Before: Stowers, Chief Justice, Fabe, Winfree, and Bolger, Justices.

OPINION

WINFREE, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

This appeal presents our first opportunity to consider whether City & Borough of Juneau v. Thibodeau,¹ holding that a superior court decision remanding a case to an administrative agency is not a final judgment for purposes of appeal to this court,² should apply to Alaska Workers' Compensation Appeals Commission decisions. We conclude that it should.

This appeal also presents our first opportunity to consider, at least in part, the legislature's 2005 amendments to the Alaska Workers' Compensation Act's presumption analysis. We reverse the Commission's application of that analysis in this case and modify its earlier precedent.

II. OVERVIEW OF THE RELEVANT LEGAL ISSUES BEFORE US

A. City & Borough of Juneau v. Thibodeau

Before the Commission's creation an Alaska Workers' Compensation Board decision could be appealed to the superior court, and a party dissatisfied with the superior court's final resolution of the case then could appeal to this court.³ Construing the appellate rules, we decided in Thibodeau that “a decision of a superior court, acting as an intermediate appellate court, which reverses ... the decision of an administrative agency and remands for further proceedings, is a non-final order of the superior court.”⁴

In 2005 the legislature created the Commission,⁵ a quasi-judicial agency in the executive branch⁶ authorized to hear appeals from decisions of the Board,⁷ and gave parties to a Commission decision the right to appeal a “final” decision to this court.⁸ The legislature also authorized our review of other Commission orders “as provided by the Alaska Rules of Appellate Procedure.”⁹

In the case before us the Commission decided that its decision was final as to some issues but not as to others and gave the parties notice that they could appeal to this court those parts of the decision that were “final” but needed to petition for discretionary review if they wanted review of the “non-final” portions of the order. The injured worker appealed a “final” part of the decision. We ordered the parties to provide supplemental briefing on the question of the finality of the Commission's decision and the applicability of the Thibodeau rule to the Commission's decision.

B. Three–Step Presumption Analysis

In addition to creating the Commission the 2005 amendments to the Alaska Workers' Compensation Act changed the causation standard for compensable injuries.¹⁰ At issue here is the effect of this change on the presumption analysis used to evaluate workers' compensation cases.

1. Pre–2005 analysis

For work-related injuries before November 7, 2005,¹¹ application of the presumption of compensability consisted of three possible steps.¹² At the first step the employee was required to attach the presumption that the disability was work related by “establish[ing] a preliminary link between his disability and his employment.”¹³ To establish the link the employee was required to offer “ ‘some evidence’ that the claim arose out of the worker's employment.”¹⁴ If the employee attached the presumption, the burden shifted to the employer to offer substantial evidence that either (1) provided an alternative explanation excluding work-related factors as a substantial cause of the disability, or (2) “directly eliminated any reasonable possibility that employment was a factor in causing the disability.”¹⁵ We called the two methods of rebutting the presumption “affirmative evidence” and “negative evidence.”¹⁶ An employer could rebut the presumption by presenting a qualified expert's testimony that the claimant's work was probably not a substantial cause of the disability.¹⁷ The first two stages of the analysis required the Board to consider the evidence in isolation without weighing it.¹⁸

If the employer presented enough evidence to rebut the presumption, the burden shifted back to the employee to prove the claim by a preponderance of the evidence.¹⁹ Only at the third stage could the Board weigh the evidence.²⁰ The employee had to show by a preponderance of the evidence that work was a substantial factor in causing the disability: to prevail, the employee had to show that “(1) ‘but for’ the employment the disability would not have occurred, and (2) reasonable persons would regard the employment as a cause and attach responsibility to it.”²¹

2. The 2005 amendments

In 2005 the legislature repealed and reenacted AS 23.30.010,²² modifying the standard for compensability of work-related injuries. The legislature also included in the reenacted statute a presumption analysis formulation. Alaska Statute 23.30.010(a) now provides:

Except as provided in (b) of this section,^{[23 ]} compensation or benefits are payable under this chapter for disability or death or the need for medical treatment of an employee if the disability or death of the employee or the employee's need for medical treatment arose out of and in the course of the employment. To establish a presumption under AS 23.30.120(a)(1) that the disability or death or the need for medical treatment arose out of and in the course of the employment, the employee must establish a causal link between the employment and the disability or death or the need for medical treatment. A presumption may be rebutted by a demonstration of substantial evidence that the death or disability or the need for medical treatment did not arise out of and in the course of the employment. When determining whether or not the death or disability or need for medical treatment arose out of and in the course of the employment, the [B]oard must evaluate the relative contribution of different causes of the disability or death or the need for medical treatment. Compensation or benefits under this chapter are payable for the disability or death or the need for medical treatment if, in relation to other causes, the employment is the substantial cause of the disability or death or need for medical treatment.

The legislature did not amend the definition of “arising out of and in the course of employment” in AS 23.30.395 in 2005.²⁴

In Runstrom v. Alaska Native Medical Center the Commission construed the new statutory language as changing the presumption analysis only at the second and third stages.²⁵ The Commission previously had interpreted the phrase “the substantial cause” in AS 23.30.010(a) as meaning that a disability is compensable if, in comparison to other causes, work is the most important factor in bringing about the disability.²⁶ In considering how the statutory change affected the second stage, the Commission in Runstrom decided that the negative-evidence test from our prior cases—“directly eliminat[ing] any reasonable possibility that employment was a factor in causing the disability”²⁷ —was now “incompatible with the statutory standard for causation” because under the amended statute “employment must be more than a factor in terms of causation.”²⁸ It also determined in Runstrom that an employer can rebut the presumption by showing “that a cause other than employment played a greater role in causing the disability ....”²⁹

The Commission decided here that the employer had met its burden through expert opinions not identifying an alternative cause but nonetheless concluding that work was probably not the substantial cause of the employee's need for medical treatment. The parties dispute whether the employer rebutted the presumption and in so doing raise the question of the 2005 amendments' impact on the second stage of the presumption analysis both generally and as applied to this case.

III. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

Joseph Huit worked for Ashwater Burns, Inc. in 2010. Early in November he was working on a remodel project, and as part of the job he removed a water-damaged vanity from a bathroom. As he was carrying the vanity he scratched his abdomen on a protruding drywall screw; he showed the scratch to some people at the job site, including his brother Steven, but did not file a report of injury.

Late that night Huit left Alaska to visit his daughter and grandchildren in Florida. Near the end of the visit his daughter noticed the scratch, which she thought was inflamed. Huit flew back to Alaska, stopping for a long layover in Seattle where he met with his wife, who had been caring for her father in Oregon. His wife also noticed the scratch and told him to watch it. According to Huit at some point later in November the scratch appeared to heal.

On Friday December 3 Huit felt ill at work, so he went to the emergency room. After testing Huit the doctor diagnosed a likely “viral syndrome” and told Huit to go home and rest but to return for a recheck if a fever still was present the following Monday. Huit stayed home for about five days, but his symptoms did not improve—they got worse. On December 9 he returned to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with endocarditis ;³⁰ he was hospitalized for several weeks while he received antibiotics to treat the infection. The emergency room physician wrote that Huit had “spontaneous endocarditis ”³¹ and commented that he “had no history of IV drug abuse.” Upon admission another physician noted that there was “[n]o evidence of significant rash, erythema, breakdown, or bruising.” An infectious-disease doctor was consulted as well; he observed that Huit's blood cultures were “growing Staphylococcus aureus,” a type of bacteria, and reported “[m]etastatic lesions to the spleen, kidneys and brain” as well as “probable vegetation” on Huit's...