Masco Corp. v. Angulo

• Decision Date: 05 February 2019
• Docket Number: No. 77478-6-I,77478-6-I
• Parties: MASCO CORP., Appellant, v. CARLOS ANGULO, Respondent.
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals

MASCO CORP., Appellant, v. CARLOS ANGULO, Respondent.

No. 77478-6-I

COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON DIVISION ONE

February 5, 2019

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

CHUN, J. — Carlos Angulo worked as an insulation installer for Masco Corporation (Masco) for nearly two decades. He developed degenerative disc disease of the cervical spine and filed an occupational disease workers' compensation claim with the Department of Labor & Industries (the Department). The Department allowed the claim, and Masco protested the decision. An Industrial Appeals Judge (IAJ) reversed the Department's decision. The Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals (the Board) reversed the IAJ's decision and reinstated the claim. Masco appealed, and the superior court conducted a bench trial. The trial court affirmed the decision of the Board allowing the claim for an occupational disease. We affirm.

I.

BACKGROUND

Masco is a self-insured employer. Angulo worked for Masco for 19 years, installing insulation in both residential and commercial buildings. In January 2013, Angulo had a workplace accident and sustained a major lower back injury. As a result of this injury, Dr. Sanford Wright performed lumbar surgery on Angulo's back in May 2013.¹ Shortly before this surgery, Angulo reported pain in his neck, right shoulder, and right arm down to his little finger.

Due to this neck and shoulder pain, Angulo filed a workers' compensation occupational disease claim alleging injury as of January 2013. This occupational disease claim did not relate to the prior lower back injury and surgery. The Department allowed the claim on December 9, 2014 and affirmed that decision on January 15, 2015.

Hearing Before the IAJ. Masco subsequently appealed to the Board. An IAJ conducted a live hearing on November 16, 2015, with testimony from Angulo through a Spanish interpreter.

Angulo testified that he was 54 years old and had received formal education through only fourth grade in Mexico. He spoke very little English and typically needed an interpreter for medical appointments.

Angulo began working for Masco as an insulation installer in 1994, and worked full-time at this job for about 19 years. Masco paid for installation as piecework, so Angulo worked as quickly as possible and the job was very fast paced.

Angulo described a typical day of his work. Each day began by packing his truck with an average of 16 large packages of insulation weighing approximately 70 or 80 pounds each. After he lifted the packages of insulationinto the truck, Angulo drove to the work site and unloaded the packages and heavy scaffolding into the building.

Once he had set up his job site, Angulo would put on his equipment, including a pouch (containing his stapler, hammer, and knife) and stilts. He often spent four or five hours on stilts to install insulation in ceilings, high walls, and around ventilation systems. Sometimes Angulo needed to go down into crawl spaces to work.

To perform his job, Angulo had to look up constantly with his neck bent backward. He also had to raise his arms over his shoulders to work. He spent hours each day in this position. He testified that by the end of the day his neck "was just done."

Angulo described his neck pain. He experienced stabbing pain in his shoulders and pressure in his neck. He described his pain as moderate on good days, but on bad days, he could not move his neck. The pain started in his neck and shoulders and traveled up to his head. He also experienced numbness on the side of his face and very frequent numbness and tingling in his arms. The numbness and tingling went around the circumference of the arm and affected his fingers.

Angulo could not recall exactly when the neck and shoulder pain began, but he estimated the symptoms started after about six years of installing insulation. He said the pain and discomfort progressed and worsened over time, The pain became more intense and limited his ability to work. Angulo testified he did not pay attention to the pain at the beginning, but as the pain worsened henoticed he needed to take more small breaks and bring his arms down to reduce the pain. In addition, insulating parking garages took a heavy toll on his neck, and he stopped working those jobs during his last five years of employment with Masco.

Angulo said that, despite the worsening pain, he never alerted his supervisors at work because he needed the money from his job. Angulo said he worried Masco would send him to a doctor who would say he could no longer work. Angulo said, "My bills were not going to wait for me to get back to work, so no, I simply could not do that. It was much too much to miss even one day, just too much."

In addition to Angulo's testimony, the IAJ received medical evidence through perpetuation depositions, summarized here:

Michael Santoro, M.D. Occupational medicine physician Dr. Michael Santoro served as Angulo's attending physician for his cervical spine disease. Dr. Santoro began treating Angulo in January 2015. At the time of referral, Dr. Santoro noted Angulo had neck pain radiating into both arms. Angulo experienced tightness of the right side of the neck with numbness traveling into his arms, especially on the right side. Upon initial examination in January 2015, Dr. Santoro found limited neck mobility, especially with respect to extending the neck or bending it backwards. Angulo also had significantly limited range when turning or rotating the neck and bending it toward the side. When Dr. Santoroperformed the Spurling's maneuver,² Angulo experienced pain in his neck but not radiating into his arms. Angulo had tenderness in the muscles throughout his neck, trapezius muscle, and sternomastoid muscle. His neck appeared straighter, without the normal, gentle forward curve.

According to Dr. Santoro, Angulo's neurological examination revealed normal strength and sensation to both arms except "[h]e was able to feel pinprick in his left hand and had generally diminished sensation, but nothing that I could find that was in what is called a dermatomal pattern that correlated to a specific nerve." Angulo had absent reflexes at the brachioradialis on both right and left, indicating a potential impairment of the nerve at cervical spine level C6 or C7.

Dr. Santoro described the results of the MRI of Angulo's neck from December 2013:

An MRI was performed of his neck in December of 2013 that showed multilevel spondylosis, which is wear, bone spurs and crowding of the spine. That was at the lower levels, mainly on the right side, with narrowing of the exit points, where the nerves exit the spinal cord traveling into the arms. There was likely pinching of the nerves as they were trying to exit the spinal cord, although the spinal cord itself was not being compressed by these changes in his neck.

Dr. Santoro noted a wear-type pattern involving bone spurs and crowding of the nerves in various areas, but most significantly at C5-6 and C6-7. Dr. Santoro described further features of the MRI, including reactive endplate edema between the sixth and seventh vertebrae indicating acute and chronic inflammation where the discs and vertebrae come into contact. The MRI showedevidence of narrowing of the foramen,³ which likely resulted in impingement on the nerves.

Based on his examination and the MRI, Dr. Santoro diagnosed neck strain with degeneration of cervical discs and cervical spine stenosis. Dr. Santoro opined that work activities either caused or permanently aggravated Angulo's cervical condition. He further explained this conclusion as follows:

[I]n all of us, as we get older, there are some of these degenerative problems that appear in the cervical spine, but the degree of changes that were seen on the MRI scan, I believed, were more advanced than what I would expect to see in someone who was 53 years old at the time that I saw Mr. Angulo, and that the nature of his work, in performing sustained overhead work with his neck extended, was a significant factor and contributing to the development of this problem.

According to Dr. Santoro, Angulo's job involving heavy lifting and working with his neck bent backwards put significant strain on the small joints in the back of the neck, which "are not really meant to be loaded." The weight of overhead lifting combined with extending the neck is "not a good combination." Dr. Santoro concluded that Angulo's work activities as an insulation installer, on a more probable than not basis, gave rise to and proximately caused the cervical spine condition.

Dr. Santoro testified that the American Medical Association Guides to the Evaluation of Disease and Injury Causation (AMA Guides)⁴ did not address the development of cervical spine disease in the context of insulation installation orany studies pertaining to neck extension for prolonged periods of time or overhead work. But the AMA Guides did mention repeated overhead lifting as a risk factor for developing neck pain. Furthermore, Dr. Santoro noted the AMA Guides is not an exhaustive compilation of studies and research on causation.

Sanford Wright, M.D. Dr. Wright began treating Angulo for his cervical spine condition in November 2013. Upon examination, Dr. Wright noted tenderness at the back of the neck, limited range of motion in the neck, and decreased sensation in both arms. Dr. Wright ordered the December 2013 MRI that revealed narrowing of the nerve openings at the C5-6 and C6-7 disc levels due to degenerative changes. Dr. Wright characterized the foraminal narrowing as moderately severe and "significant."

At subsequent appointments, Dr. Wright diagnosed symptomatic spinal cord and nerve pinching and compression. As of March 2014, Dr. Wright recommended surgery; specifically, a bilateral C5-6 and C6-7 laminectomy to enlarge the narrowed nerve openings to reduce the pain, numbness, and weakness.

In his deposition, Dr. Wright noted the connection between Angulo's neck issues and his employment:

After 18 years of work, the pain became so

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