Travelodge and Royal Ins. v. Pierre-Gilles

• Decision Date: 15 October 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-2848,PIERRE-GILLE,A,92-2848
• Citation: 625 So.2d 1280
• Parties: 18 Fla. L. Weekly D2254 TRAVELODGE AND ROYAL INSURANCE, Appellants, v. Lamercieppellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1280

625 So.2d 1280

18 Fla. L. Weekly D2254

TRAVELODGE AND ROYAL INSURANCE, Appellants, v. Lamercie PIERRE-GILLES, Appellee.

No. 92-2848.

District Court of Appeal of Florida First District.

Oct. 15, 1993.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 22, 1993.

Mark S. Spangler of Rissman, Weisberg, Barrett & Hurt, P.A., Orlando, for appellants.

John Hugh Shannon, Lakeland, for appellee.

WEBSTER, Judge.

In this workers' compensation case, the employer and carrier seek review of an order finding that claimant had sustained a compensable injury resulting in a permanent partial impairment; retroactively authorizing chiropractic treatment; and awarding temporary total disability and wage loss benefits. The employer and carrier argue that the record does not contain competent substantial evidence to support the finding that claimant sustained a compensable injury. Because the order includes several findings which are not supported by competent substantial evidence, and because it lacks additional required findings, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

There is substantial evidence in the record to the effect that, on the day of the alleged accident, claimant appeared to be suffering from flu-like symptoms. Claimant, who was employed as a maid and spoke little or no English, was found later in the day, semiconscious and lying on a bed in one of the rooms which she had been assigned to clean. She was warm, and was perspiring. Claimant was taken by ambulance to a hospital emergency room, where she was examined by Dr. Quigley, a physician board-certified in emergency medicine. Based upon a history obtained through an interpreter and the examination (which revealed that claimant was suffering from classic flu symptoms, including fever, a cough, general malaise and dehydration), Dr. Quigley concluded that claimant was, in fact, suffering from the flu. Nobody suggested to Dr. Quigley that claimant had fallen, or that she had injured her back. When asked, Dr. Quigley said that her examination revealed nothing to suggest that claimant had injured her back.

Notwithstanding the foregoing evidence, claimant maintains that she had not had the flu (and, in fact, had not been ill at all); but that she had fallen and injured her back. Approximately two weeks after the alleged accident, claimant went to see Dr. Merritt, a chiropractor, complaining of low back pain, which claimant said had begun immediately after a fall approximately two weeks earlier, in a room which she was cleaning. Dr. Merritt diagnosed claimant as suffering from "[l]umbar facet syndrome, cervicocranial syndrome [and] cervical spine sprain/strain grade two." According to him, claimant had sustained a 5-percent permanent impairment of the body as a whole; was capable of only light-duty work; and would require chiropractic treatment on a continuing basis.

In addition to the testimony of Drs. Quigley and Merritt, Dr. Uricchio (a board-certified orthopedic surgeon) and Dr. Kaye (a chiropractor), both of whom performed independent medical examinations, testified. Neither was able to detect any objective manifestation of trauma or permanent impairment. Both believed claimant's protestations of pain to be affected.

The judge of compensation claims made no finding regarding the nature of the injury supposedly sustained by claimant. However, from the findings that were made, we presume that he concluded that, as the result of the fall which claimant alleged had occurred, claimant sustained the injuries about which Dr. Merritt testified.

The judge of compensation claims addressed Dr. Quigley's testimony as follows:

I find that Dr. Quigley's testimony is in conflict with the other facts in this case, and that the conclusions Dr. Quigley made were based upon erroneous facts, and most particularly the [c]laimant's condition at the time that she was presented for medical care at the emergency room at Sandlake [sic] Hospital.

This is a particularly puzzling finding, because Dr. Quigley's diagnoses were based principally upon her physical examination of claimant. According to Dr. Quigley, claimant presented in the midst of a flu epidemic with all of the classic symptoms of the flu; and nothing about the examination suggested that claimant had anything...