Pratt v. Mfa

• Decision Date: 01 February 2002
• Docket Number: SD24146
• Citation: 67 S.W.3d 697
• Parties: Bill Pratt, Claimant-Respondent, v. MFA, Inc., Employer-Appellant SD24146 Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District 0
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Bill Pratt, Claimant-Respondent v MFA, Inc., Employer-Appellant

SD24146

Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District

02/01/2002

Appeal From: Labor Relations Commission

Counsel for Appellant: Daniel R. Wichmer and Jerry A. Harmison, Jr.

Counsel for Respondent: Paul F. Reichert, of Springfield, Mo.

Opinion Summary: None

Parrish and Rahmeyer, JJ., concur.

James K. Prewitt, Judge

AFFIRMED

MFA, Inc. ("MFA") appeals from a decision of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission ("Commission") which upheld the determination of an administrative law judge in the Division of Workers' Compensation that Bill Pratt ("Pratt") suffered a change in condition meriting additional compensation. Pratt contends that his one-hundred-pound weight gain, hypertension, and edema resulted from an injury he sustained while working for MFA, for which he has already received compensation. MFA challenges the Commission's decision, arguing that Pratt is not entitled to additional compensation because he gained most of his additional weight and exhibited hypertension and edema prior to the original hearing, and failed to give any notice that those conditions were related to his injury. Because we find that Pratt did experience a change in condition subsequent to his initial workers' compensation award, we affirm the Commission's decision awarding additional compensation.Facts

Pratt was injured on September 9, 1994, when he tripped over a metal pipe in the basement of the MFA Milling Company in Springfield, Missouri, where he was employed as a machine operator. When he fell, he hit his head on a concrete wall and lost consciousness. As a result of the accident, Pratt sustained a herniated cervical disc with compression of the spinal cord resulting in transient total paralysis. Following surgery, Pratt continued to experience lower extremity weakness, had difficulty ambulating, and became morbidly obese.

On March 2, 1999, the Division of Workers' Compensation found that Pratt had a compensable injury and ordered that MFA pay Pratt permanent total disability benefits in the amount of $301.58 per week, for Pratt's lifetime, in addition to a lump sum for unpaid temporary total disability compensation. The Commission affirmed that award on October 2, 1999. This court affirmed the Commission's decision by an order and memorandum on June 14, 2000.

Subsequently, Pratt filed a "Motion to Review and Change Award" with the Commission on June 21, 2000, alleging that an increase in the compensation and benefits is necessitated by the "chronic exacerbation" of conditions "directly related to the compensable injury of September 9, 1994" including super morbid obesity, poorly controlled hypertension, and bilateral pedal edema. Following a hearing by the Division of Workers' Compensation, the Commission modified its previous award and permitted additional compensation for a change in condition to cover the cost of medical treatment for Pratt's super morbid obesity.¹Discussion

MFA raises three points on appeal. In its first point, MFA argues that the Commission erred as a matter of law in finding that Pratt experienced a change of condition because Pratt failed to show that some element of disability or symptom not contemplated at the original hearing caused his condition to worsen or suffer a relapse, as Pratt suffered from hypertension, edema, and morbid obesity and had experienced a significant weight gain prior to the original award.

MFA argues in its second point that the Commission's decision that Pratt sustained a change in condition was not supported by competent and substantial evidence and was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence "because even giving the Commission's decision all deference and following the Commission's determinations on credibility, there was no evidence indicative of a change in condition" in that the medical experts agreed that Pratt suffered from hypertension, morbid obesity, and edema before the date of the first Commission decision. As MFA's second point and first point are similar, we will consider them together.

"On appeal in a worker's compensation case, we review the whole record, including legitimate inferences to be drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to the award of the Commission." Kramer v. Bill's Marine, Ltd., 897 S.W.2d 213, 215 (Mo.App. 1995). See also Kennison v. Ranken Technical Inst., 44 S.W.3d 899, 901 (Mo.App. 2001). We defer to the Commission's resolutions of issues of credibility and conflicting evidence. Sherman v. First Fin. Planners, Inc., 41 S.W.3d 633, 635 (Mo.App. 2001). We will "modify, reverse, remand for rehearing or set aside an award or decision of the Commission only if the Commission's actions were unauthorized by law or in excess of its authority, fraudulent, unsupported by the facts as found by the Commission, or unsupported by competent evidence." Kramer, 897 S.W.2d at 215.

Section 287.460 invests the Commission with authority to modify an award due to a change in the employee's condition before final payment on the award has been made or the expiration of time during which the award is to be paid. See Holman v. Normandy Osteopathic Hosp., 691 S.W.2d 360, 361 (Mo.App. 1985). "In order to obtain an increased award upon the grounds of change of condition, the employee must show that since the original award his condition has become substantially worse." Blissenbach v. Gen. Motors Assembly Div., 650 S.W.2d 8, 10-11 (Mo.App. 1983). "A continued incapacity of the same kind and character for which an award has been made is not a change in condition warranting a modification of the award." Modlin v. Sun Mark, Inc., 699 S.W.2d 5, 8 (Mo.App. 1985). Rather, the employee must show "'that since the time of the rendition of the original award his condition has become substantially worse, and not that it has in fact always been worse than the commission happened to have found it to be.'" Brammer v. Binkley Min. Co. of Mo., 244 S.W.2d 584, 589 (Mo.App. 1951) (quoting Winschel v. Stix, Baer & Fuller Dry Goods Co., 77 S.W.2d 488, 491 (Mo.App. 1934)).

The...