Paramount Poultry v. Mims, BC-389

• Citation: 472 So.2d 1281,10 Fla. L. Weekly 1706
• Decision Date: 10 July 1985
• Docket Number: No. BC-389,BC-389
• Parties: 10 Fla. L. Weekly 1706 PARAMOUNT POULTRY and Gab Business Services, Inc., Appellants, v. Louise MIMS, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 1281

472 So.2d 1281

10 Fla. L. Weekly 1706

PARAMOUNT POULTRY and Gab Business Services, Inc., Appellants, v. Louise MIMS, Appellee.

No. BC-389.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

July 10, 1985.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 12, 1985.

William W. Massey, III, of Massey & Poucher, Jacksonville, for appellants.

John J. Schickel, of Coker, Myers & Schickel, P.A., Jacksonville, for appellee.

ZEHMER, Judge.

We affirm the workers' compensation order which grants claimant wage-loss benefits for the period March 1983 through February 1984.

Claimant, a 46-year-old woman with a fourth grade education and unable to read or write, injured her lower back when she fell March 13, 1980, while working for the employer. She had been employed at the poultry processing plant for nearly thirty years, and her duties consisted of cleaning chickens while standing at an assembly line processing the chickens. Claimant reached maximum medical improvement January 21, 1983, and was given permanent impairment ratings by an orthopedic surgeon and a chiropractor. They imposed restrictions on bending, lifting, prolonged standing, climbing, crawling, or twisting. The record reveals, also, that she was suffering from chronic pain syndrome and conversion reaction. The chiropractor's report stated that "it would not be advisable for her to return to the former occupation, or any occupation, which would include physical requirement as outlined above" (R. 241).

During most of her thirty years working experience, claimant had been employed by this employer or its predecessor. The briefs indicate the employer made two offers of work to claimant after terminating her employment while she was in the hospital recovering from her back injury. One such job involved folding boxes, but claimant was unable to perform this or the other sheltered work because of pain. The carrier's personnel manager testified that he "took one look at [claimant] and recognized that with her mobility she would be unable to do the ... job because of the mobility aspect of the job" (R. 21). Nor was claimant able to do any other sheltered employment offered by the employer because of her physical limitations and chronic pain. Claimant's work search at other places of employment was admittedly sparse.

The defense asserted by the employer and carrier that claimant had not performed an adequate job search and had voluntarily limited her income during the period of claimed wage loss was rejected by the deputy commissioner. The deputy granted claimant's wage-loss claim upon his finding that claimant "acted in good faith and attempted not only the work offered to her by the employer but also attempted to find other work. Her work search was adequate and sincere under the circumstances" (R. 372). The deputy's finding was expressly made upon his consideration of claimant's extremely limited educational and intellectual capacities, her inability to read or write, her psychiatric problems resulting from the accident, her permanent impairment ratings assigned by the orthopedic surgeon and the chiropractor, and the physical limitations, pain, and other difficulties suffered by claimant. The deputy expressly found that claimant had not refused work that she was physically capable of performing.

The record contains sufficient competent, substantial evidence to sustain the deputy's findings. The deputy has not departed from the requirements of law in granting claimant's wage-loss claim in this instance. Although claimant's physicians did not testify that claimant was totally prohibited from performing any kind of light work, an unqualified statement by a physician to that effect is not an essential prerequisite to the award of wage-loss benefits. Ordinarily whether claimant has performed a good faith work search or is excused from performing further work search under the requirements of section 440.15 is a question of fact for the deputy commissioner to decide. In passing on the sufficiency of the work search or whether claimant has voluntarily limited her employment or failed to accept employment commensurate with her abilities, the...