Poulnot v. Dundee Mills Corp.
Decision Date | 12 March 1985 |
Docket Number | No. 69413,69413 |
Citation | 173 Ga.App. 799,328 S.E.2d 228 |
Parties | POULNOT v. DUNDEE MILLS CORPORATION et al. |
Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
H. Clifton Conrad, Jr., Canton, for appellant.
H.P. Arnall, H.A. Stevens, Decatur, for appellees.
We granted the claimant's application for discretionary appeal to review an order of the superior court reversing an award in his favor by the State Board of Workers' Compensation. The board had reversed the administrative law judge's denial of his claim for compensation.
Diers v. House of Hines, 168 Ga.App. 282(1), 308 S.E.2d 611 (1983). Calhoun v. Mergentine/KVN, etc., 165 Ga.App. 610(1), 302 S.E.2d 401 (1983).
Applying the foregoing standard of review, the evidence is sufficient to support the board's award reinstating workers' compensation benefits to the claimant based upon his change in condition. The claimant, employed for approximately forty-six years as a manual laborer in appellee's textile mill, suffered a compensable back injury resulting in surgery and his absence from work for some 4 and one-half to 5 months. The claimant's surgeon discharged him on July 15, 1981 with a permanent partial disability estimated at 15% to the body as a whole. Upon his discharge, the surgeon released the claimant to return to light or moderate work; that is, the claimant's lifting was restricted to weight no more than forty pounds. The claimant received workers' compensation benefits until their termination upon his return to work for appellee on July 26, 1981. Instead of being assigned light or moderate work, he was returned to the normal duties of his pre-injury position which entailed strenuous physical exertion not in keeping with the surgeon's release to work. After seventeen days, he quit due to a gradual worsening of his back pain. Approximately four months later, he returned to seek light duty work from appellee, but he was informed that none was available.
The superior court reversed the board's award to the claimant relying upon Hartford Acc., etc., Co. v. Bristol, 242 Ga. 287, 248 S.E.2d 661 (1978), for the proposition that the claimant's failure to seek work elsewhere precluded an award for change in his condition. We reverse because the superior court applied an erroneous theory of law to the facts of this case. In Hartford Acc., etc., Co. v. Bristol, supra, and the cases which follow its holding, the claimant had received an on-the-job compensated injury, had returned to employment in keeping with the physician's release to work whereupon benefits were suspended, and then he was terminated for causes unrelated to the previous injury. As a consequence, in proceedings brought by the claimant to resume benefits due to his change in condition, the burden is on the claimant to show that after he was terminated from his job, he sought suitable employment elsewhere. See Gilmer v. Atlanta Housing Auth., 170 Ga.App. 326, 316 S.E.2d 535 (1984), and cases cited therein. Here the factual posture is entirely different. The board found that the claimant returned to his pre-injury position which was not in compliance with the surgeon's release to work. He was not provided with suitable employment by appellee. See generally Employers Fire Ins. Co. v. Walraven, 130 Ga.App. 41, 202 S.E.2d 461 (1973). The claimant attempted to perform such work but when his condition then worsened, he refused to continue and resigned. ...
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