Reynolds Const. Co. v. Reynolds

• Decision Date: 14 July 1995
• Docket Number: No. A95A0788,A95A0788
• Citation: 218 Ga.App. 23,459 S.E.2d 612
• Parties: REYNOLDS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY et al. v. REYNOLDS.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 612

459 S.E.2d 612

218 Ga.App. 23

REYNOLDS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY et al. v. REYNOLDS.

No. A95A0788.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

July 14, 1995.

Whelchel, Brown, Readdick & Bumgartner, Richard A. Brown, Jr., Gregory T. Carter, Brunswick, Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers, James T. McDonald, Jr., Atlanta, for appellants.

Edward E. Boshears, Brunswick, for appellee.

BLACKBURN, Judge.

Reynolds brought a claim for workers' compensation benefits against his employer, Reynolds Construction Company, claiming that job-related mental worry and fatigue caused him to suffer a disabling stroke. The administrative law judge's (ALJ) award of benefits to Reynolds was adopted and affirmed by the appellate division of the State Board of Workers' Compensation, and the superior court entered an order affirming the appellate division. We granted the employer's application for a discretionary appeal.

Reynolds, a 37-year-old man, worked for a construction business owned by his family. The symptoms of the stroke first became apparent one afternoon as he returned home from viewing a potential job site. Testimony received from Reynolds and his brother, who also worked for the family's construction business, indicates that, for approximately three years prior to the stroke, Reynolds was subject to extreme fatigue and stress associated with running the business. Reynolds and his brother testified that this work-related fatigue and stress caused or contributed to Reynolds' stroke. A review of the record reflects that the level of fatigue and stress Reynolds experienced as a result of his job was indeed extreme. ¹

No medical expert testified at the hearing about Reynolds' stroke; however, certain medical records were introduced including a letter from Reynolds' treating physician. As to the cause of the stroke, the physician's letter merely stated: "The stroke Mr. Reynolds suffered is not directly related to any work related injury, but is simply the result of arteriosclerosis." The physician's letter does not address the role stress or fatigue may have played in causing Reynolds' stroke or aggravating his condition. See Griggs v. Lumbermen's Mut. Cas. Co., 61 Ga.App. 448, 6 S.E.2d 180 (1939) aff'd 190 Ga. 277, 9 S.E.2d 84 (1940) (employer assumes risk that job requirement may aggravate employee's pre-existing disease or condition). Reynolds, acting pro se, did not offer any expert medical evidence. The ALJ determined, using "natural inferences" and his own "human experience" as well as the testimony of Reynolds and his brother, that Reynolds' stroke was a work-related injury.

On appeal, the employer asserts that, in determining the cause of an injury attributed to work-related fatigue or stress, a factfinder cannot rely on inferences drawn from his own experience or on the observations of credible lay witnesses if there is conflicting expert medical evidence as to the injury's cause.

While we agree with the employer's position that injuries allegedly caused by work-related fatigue and stress should be closely scrutinized, the issue of whether these injuries should be compensable is not before us. It has already been decided. Ga. Bureau of Investigation v. Worthington, 149 Ga.App. 628, 255 S.E.2d 99 (1979) (stroke-like injury precipitated by stress is compensable). Our role is simply to determine if any evidence supports the ALJ's determination. If so, it is our duty to affirm. Guye v. Home Indem. Co., 241 Ga. 213, 215, 244 S.E.2d 864 (1978).

Georgia law recognizes three forms of competent evidence for establishing a causal connection between work activities and cardiovascular problems such as heart attack and stroke: (1) medical opinion, (2) lay observation and opinion and (3) the "natural inference through human experience." Heirs and Potter, Ga. Workers' Compensation--Law and Practice, § 6-2 citing Guye, supra, and Carter v. Kansas City Fire, etc., Ins. Co., 138 Ga.App. 601, 226 S.E.2d 755 (1976). The position advanced by the employer would carve out an exception to the general rule with regard to stress- and fatigue-related injuries. It is our opinion that such an exception is not desirable nor is it permissible under Georgia law.

As Presiding Judge McMurray previously recognized: "Neither law nor medicine are exact sciences, and we have not reached that degree of certainty where a medical expert can state a definite and certain diagnosis that the claimant's [injury that was allegedly stress-related] did not arise out of and in the course of his employment." Zippy Mart v. Fender, 170 Ga.App. 617, 619, 317 S.E.2d 575 (1984) (injury precipitated by job-related stress was compensable). If we recognize that medical science cannot always provide a definite answer as to the role stress or fatigue may have caused in an injury, then we certainly cannot permit medical evidence alone to be considered conclusive on that issue in this matter.

The present case aptly demonstrates the dangers in allowing such weight to be attributed to medical evidence. The medical records in question offered only a cursory one-sentence pronouncement as to causation and did not clearly address Reynolds' claim that his job-related stress and fatigue caused, contributed to or aggravated his injury. ² Using the employer's reasoning, even though the medical evidence was scanty at best, the trier of fact would be required to accept the same and ignore the testimony of two credible lay witnesses as well as his own experience. This would also be the case where the trier of fact did not believe the expert's testimony.

Longstanding Georgia law provides factfinders freedom to accept or reject evidence as they see fit, particularly expert opinion evidence. " '[Expert] testimony is not conclusive or controlling and is submitted for whatever the [factfinder] considers it to be worth. The [factfinder] can consider such expert opinion testimony by reference to their own experience and may discard the opinion of experts entirely.' [Cit.]" (Emphasis supplied.) Wilson v. Professional Ins. Corp., 151 Ga.App. 712, 713, 261 S.E.2d 450 (1979). The exception which the employer seeks to create interferes with the rights, duties and obligations of the trier of fact and would result in a judicial determination of the credibility of evidence. If that is to be the state of the law, then there is no reason to have a trier of fact, as they would be bound to accept as true that which they do not believe.

In light of the above, we hold that the ALJ's "natural inference" did not disappear and the testimony of credible lay witnesses was not rendered meaningless simply because limited medical evidence was offered that supported a different conclusion as to an injury's cause. The right of the trier of fact to assess the credibility of evidence should not be so limited or second-guessed, and this court is not free to substitute its judgment for that of the ALJ in this matter. Hughes v. Cobb County, 264 Ga. 128, 130, 441 S.E.2d 406 (1994).

Judgment affirmed.

BIRDSONG and POPE, P.JJ., and JOHNSON and RUFFIN, JJ., concur.

BEASLEY, C.J., concurs specially.

McMURRAY, P.J., concurs in judgment only.

ANDREWS, J., dissents.

SMITH, J., not participating.

BEASLEY, Chief Judge, concurring specially.

This case illustrates again the necessity to revamp the appellate procedure for workers' compensation cases. Although the superior court heard the appeal from the appellate division within 60 days from the date the notice of appeal was filed, the court failed to file its order within 20 days of the date of the hearing, as required by OCGA § 34-9-105(b). The record reflects that the judge signed the detailed order on the twentieth day after the hearing, but that the order was not filed with the clerk until the twenty-second day after the hearing. Because the superior court order was not timely entered pursuant to OCGA § 34-9-105(b), the appellate division was affirmed by operation of law and the superior court order was a nullity. Buschel v. Kysor/Warren, 213 Ga.App. 91, 93, 444 S.E.2d 105 (1994). Thus, the preparation for the hearing, the hearing itself, the court's consideration of the case taken under advisement, and the order are for nought.

Even though the application for appeal pursuant to OCGA § 5-6-35 purported to be from the superior court order, it was sufficient to invoke this Court's jurisdiction. Lanier v. Jim Brown Dev. Corp., 199 Ga.App. 255, 404 S.E.2d 626 (1991); OCGA § 34-9-105(d).

This brings about the anomaly of an application for discretionary review of a void order, which we granted so as to review the much earlier award of an administrative tribunal. The law, of course, does not provide for an application to this court, under OCGA § 5-6-35 or any other statute, for review of the award of the workers' compensation board. Yet that is in effect what we have permitted, timing it from the date of the superior court order which is legally void.

This procedure puts the case into the same posture as one where appellant simply bypasses the superior court altogether and we ignore the procedural law. See Atlanta Family Restaurants v. Perry, 209 Ga.App. 581, 582-585, 434 S.E.2d 140 (1993) (Beasley, J., concurring specially). There is no sanction on parties or superior court for refusing or failing to abide by the appellate procedure provided by the legislature. It has simply been made optional, and an appellant who merely permits the time for appeal to the superior court to expire obtains a quicker review by this court.

When judicial resources are strained and the cost of litigation is substantial and delay itself harms--conditions which all exist now and bear no hope of subsiding--the provision for two appellate reviews of a contested workers' compensation case is wasteful and unnecessary. Besides, as shown by this case and Atlanta Family Restaurants, supra, and many others, the procedure provided by law is not always adhered to. This ongoing problem deserves legislative...