Kwikset/Emhart v. Mayberry

• Decision Date: 23 October 1990
• Docket Number: No. 70147,70147
• Parties: KWIKSET/EMHART and Aetna Casualty & Surety Company, Petitioners, v. Patricia MAYBERRY, Respondent .
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 239

800 P.2d 239

1990 OK 112

KWIKSET/EMHART and Aetna Casualty & Surety Company, Petitioners, v. Patricia MAYBERRY, Respondent [Claimant].

No. 70147.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Oct. 23, 1990.

John N. MacKenzie, Whitten, Davies and Layman, Tulsa, for petitioners.

Mark O. Thurston, Tulsa, for respondent.

OPALA, Vice Chief Justice.

The dispositive issue on certiorari is whether a Workers' Compensation Court review panel may modify the trial judge's fact finding that limits claimant's on-the-job injury in contest to her left hand and arm by adding another compensable injury--that to her right shoulder--based solely on medical reports and without the aid of a transcript of the hearing held before the trial judge. We answer this question in the negative.

The trial judge found that the claimant had sustained a work-related injury to her left hand and arm but denied compensation for a claimed injury to her right shoulder. The claimant appealed to a three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court. That tribunal modified the trial judge's finding by adding to claimant's work-related harm an injury to her right shoulder. The Court of Appeals sustained the panel's order modifying the trial judge's findings and held that the panel's decision must be left undisturbed because the record tendered by employer for review (which did not include a transcript) fails to overcome the presumption of correctness that is due the panel's decision. We granted certiorari upon the employer's petition.

In her brief the claimant admits that "[n]either party requested a transcript and the only record before the ... [review panel below consisted of] the doctor's reports which had been admitted into evidence." ¹ The record here is entirely consistent with claimant's concession. ² This controversy centers not on deficiencies in the record, but rather, on the propriety of the panel's decision to modify the trial judge's fact finding upon a record devoid of a transcript. We hold there was no proof before the panel to justify the addition of an accidental injury to another part of the claimant's body.

Appeals to a three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court are not de novo proceedings. ³ They must be determined on the record made before the trial judge. ⁴ Without the benefit of a transcript the panel can neither assess the correctness of any claim-related facts nor condemn a trial judge's finding on the grounds that it is clearly contrary to the evidence adduced. ⁵ Although a physician's evaluation may include the claimant's history, the competency of his opinion depends largely on the assumption of critical facts consistent with those unfolded by lay evidence connecting the claimed injury with the accident for which compensation is sought. ⁶ Without this underlying lay testimony, history found in a medical report may not alone afford evidentiary support for establishing a claimant's injury as work-related.

For affirmance of the panel's decision in question the record must disclose competent evidence that supports a work-related injury to the right shoulder. ⁷ The panel's finding, which was made solely upon consideration of medical history in a physician's report, stands without any basis in testimony connecting the shoulder injury to the on-the-job harm in contest. ⁸ This court's past jurisprudence recognizes that due process is denied when a reviewing tribunal alters a trial judge's findings without support in a transcript of the proceedings heard by that judge. ⁹ In short, a panel's modification of the trial judge's factual findings must be anchored in its reappraisal of the testimonial evidence and other pertinent proof considered by that judge.

The review panel's need for a transcript has not always been essential. Under the terms of 85 O.S.1971 § 77(Ninth), ¹⁰ now repealed, a trial judge could sit on the panel and serve as a resource to the en banc tribunal for supplying the evidence he or she considered when hearing the claim. ¹¹ Now, since the 1977 amendment that became effective in 1978, no judge who presided over any hearing of the claim may participate as a member of a review panel. ¹² The transcript of testimony is thus the only source of proof available to the panel for a meaningful review of factual issues sought to be pressed on appeal. ¹³

In sum, this case reveals the panel supplied a finding that added a right shoulder injury without any support in record proof. Insofar as it expands the trial judge's description of the claimant's compensable injury without the benefit either of a transcript or of any other form of lay evidence heard by the trial judge, the panel's order is both unauthorized by statutory law and in contravention of due process. Art. 2 § 7, Okl.Const. ¹⁴ The minimum standards of due process require that a trial judge's findings which resolve disputed fact issues be left undisturbed unless the reviewing tribunal discovers--from the transcript of the proceedings conducted before the trial judge--that these findings are "against the clear weight of the evidence." ¹⁵

The claim is hence remanded to the three-judge review panel with directions to reconsider the claimant's appeal and to afford her the opportunity to designate that part of the record which is necessary to support her quest for relief before the panel. On her failure timely to secure a transcript of evidence, the review panel shall confine its appellate reexamination process and corrective relief to errors apparent on the face of the proceedings as reflected by the orders and paperwork found in the case file.

THE COURT OF APPEALS' OPINION AND THE ORDER OF THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT'S REVIEW PANEL ARE VACATED; THE CLAIM IS REMANDED TO THE REVIEW PANEL FOR RECONSIDERATION WITH DIRECTIONS.

HARGRAVE, C.J., and HODGES, LAVENDER and SIMMS, JJ., concur.

KAUGER, J., concurs in part and dissents in part.

DOOLIN, ALMA WILSON and SUMMERS, JJ., dissent.

SUMMERS, Justice, dissenting.

The issue is whether an Order of a three judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court modifying a trial judge's earlier Order may be sustained in the absence of a Designation of Record accompanying the initial appeal from the trial judge to the three judge panel. My conclusion is that the appealing parties have failed to show that such an instrument was essential to the validity of the three judge panel's Order. The panel's Order favoring claimant in this case should be sustained.

The trial judge found that Patricia Mayberry sustained a compensable injury to her left arm and left hand. She appealed to a three judge panel, which affirmed the earlier order in part but also modified it in finding that Mayberry had additionally sustained a compensable injury to her right shoulder. The employer and insurance carrier then appealed the Order of the three judge panel.

On their appeal the only argument made by the employer and insurance carrier was that no Designation of Record had been filed by the claimant with her appeal to the three judge panel, and that because of this deficiency the panel had no record before it on which to base its decision. The claimant countered with the argument that on appeal to the three judge panel "neither party requested a transcript and the only record before the Review Panel were the doctor's reports which had been admitted into evidence". The majority accepts the employer's position and holds that the "history alone [as contained in admitted medical reports]--without this underlying lay testimony--may not afford support for finding that a claimant has sustained a work-related injury."

Rule 28 of the Workers' Compensation Court does not expressly require the filing of a Designation of Record. It states in pertinent part:

Rule 28. Appeals

A. Appeals to the three judge panel may be taken by filing an original and three copies of a request for review within ten (10) days from the date the order appealed from was stamp filed by the Court. The request for review shall include:

(1) The name of the trial judge from whose decision the appeal is taken;

(2) A copy of the order appealed;

(3) A statement of each conclusion of law and finding of fact urged as error; and

(4) A brief statement of the relief sought. No response to a request for review is necessary. Appeals to the three judge panel shall be strictly on the record made before the trial court. No new evidence shall be allowed....

C. ....If a basis of the appeal involves medical evidence, copies of the medical evidence shall be attached to the original and all copies of the request for review." 85 O.S.Supp.1987, Ch.4, App. (emphasis added)

A short review of the function of a Designation of Record demonstrates that such is not necessary in the Workers' Compensation Court. A Designation of Record is currently required in civil appellate practice by Rule 1.20 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure in Civil Cases. 12 O.S.1981, Ch. 15, App. 2. It is an instrument filed in the office of the Clerk of the trial court, for the purpose of identifying "pertinent instruments filed in the case and of proceedings and evidence adduced which are sought to be included on the record on appeal." Id. at Rule 1.20. The Clerk assembles, numbers, indexes, and binds the instruments so designated, and then certifies such under the seal of the Clerk. Id. at Rule 1.25.

The primary importance of a designated record for appellate review is not that the pages are numbered, indexed, or clipped together, but that it is certified as the record of the inferior court. The certification of the Clerk is a declaration that the material bound and transmitted to an appellate court is that which is, in fact, contained in the record of the inferior one. In this way a second court can have judicial knowledge of those records of the first, and base its decision thereon. Instruments not so certified are "extra-judicial", and usually beyond the cognizance of the appellate court. Chamberlin v. Chamberlin, 720...