Issacson v. Minnetonka, Inc.

• Decision Date: 11 September 1987
• Docket Number: No. C3-87-940,C3-87-940
• Citation: 411 N.W.2d 865
• Parties: Helen M. ISSACSON, Respondent, v. MINNETONKA, INC. and St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, Relators, Minnesota Department of Jobs and Training, intervenor, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 865

411 N.W.2d 865

Helen M. ISSACSON, Respondent, v. MINNETONKA, INC. and St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, Relators Minnesota Department of Jobs and Training, intervenor Respondent.

No. C3-87-940.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Sept. 11, 1987.

Syllabus by the Court

The finding of the Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals that the employer received statutory notice or knowledge of the work injury is reversed.

C.D. Knudson, Gary M. Hagstrom, Mark G. Pryor, Minneapolis, for relators.

Raymond R. Peterson, Minneapolis, for Helen M. Issacson.

Richard H. Rhode, St. Paul, for Minn. Dept. of Jobs and Training.

Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument.

OPINION

KELLEY, Justice.

A compensation judge, in denying respondent Helen Issacson's claims for workers' compensation benefits, found that she, an employee of Minnetonka, Inc., had failed to give the statutory notice of injury which is a precedent requirement to the successful establishment of a claim for benefits. In a split decision the Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals vacated that finding and substituted a finding that the employer had received the statutory notice or had knowledge of Ms. Issacson's alleged work injury. ¹ We reverse.

In April 1979, employee began working for employer as a light-duty assembler. In early January 1982, employee began to notice pain in her right arm and shoulder; but she did not report this to anyone at work. On January 20, 1982, employee saw her family doctor who gave her a note that stated: "[a]dvised not to work because of shoulder pain." Because employee had just been given a "layoff notice," she returned to work despite the medical advice. Although she told her supervisor she was "having arm and shoulder problems," she did not recall telling him that the condition was work related. She requested and received what she described as an "easier job" at which she worked until March 1, 1982, when she was "laid off" pursuant to the "layoff notice."

When, in August, employee was recalled to work, she responded that she was unable to return because she was under a doctor's care and needed his authorization to return. The record contains no indication that she told employer at this time her condition was work related. The employer advised her to inform it within 2 weeks concerning her ability to work. Having received no further communication from employee, on October 15, 1982, employer formally terminated employee's employment.

Employer/insurer claimed they first learned of the claim that employee's condition was possibly the result of a work injury on November 10, 1982, the date reflected in a first report of injury made to the insurer by employer. In a deposition at the hearing before the compensation judge, employee was asked if she had ever told her employer that she had been injured at work. Both times employee said she did not remember.

In reversing the compensation judge's finding that Ms. Issacson had failed to give the requisite notice, the WCCA held that her failure was excused because employer had actual knowledge of a work injury or, alternatively, that the injury was trivial or latent. ²

Essential to proof of a claim under the Workers' Compensation Act is a showing that the employer had timely notice or knowledge of the employee's injury within the statutory period. In this case, the normal outside period was 180 days. Minn.Stat. Sec. 176.141 (1986). ³ Clearly, employee did not directly give employer notice in this case. The crucial question is whether the employer had "actual knowledge." In Pojanowski v. Hart, 288 Minn. 77, 81, 178 N.W.2d 913, 916 (1970), we addressed that portion of the notice requirement of section 176.141 as follows:

'Actual knowledge' is knowledge of such information as would put a reasonable man on inquiry. * * * Mere knowledge of a disability following a traumatic injury is not sufficient, for the facts and circumstances of either the disability or the injury must be such as would put a reasonable man on inquiry that the disability is work-related.

(Citations omitted). For actual knowledge to exist, an employer must have some information connecting work activity with an injury. E.g., Greene v. W & W Generator Rebuilders, 302 Minn. 542, 224 N.W.2d 157 (1974). It is simply not enough that the employer is aware that an employee has shoulder pain. Rinne v. W.C. Griffis Co., 234 Minn. 146, 47 N.W.2d 872 (1951); see also Wing v. Control Data Corp., 311 Minn. 535, 249 N.W.2d 174 (1976). See generally, 3 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation Sec. 78.31(a) (1983). The record in this case shows that the employer was aware only that employee was having arm and shoulder problems--not that it arose from employee's work. A finding of actual knowledge that the condition was related to work on these facts was manifestly contrary to the evidence. Hengemuhle v. Long Prairie Jaycees, 358 N.W.2d 54 (Minn.1984). ⁴

In concluding that the employee's failure to give timely notice was excused because "neither party was aware of the claimed work-relatedness of the injury" until a medical opinion on causation dated in December 1984, the WCCA erroneously applied the latent or trivial injury rule. Indeed, the notice period found in Minn.Stat. Sec. 176.141 may, in effect, be "tolled" if the injury claimed by the employee is deemed to be trivial or latent. In such case the statutory time for giving the required notice commences to run not from the time there exists a medical opinion on causation, as the WCCA...