Victoryland v. Arnold

• Court: Alabama Court of Civil Appeals
• Writing for the Court: MOORE, Presiding Judge.
• Citation: 410 So.3d 1138
• Docket Number: CL-2024-0217
• Decision Date: 16 August 2024
• Parties: VICTORYLAND v. Patricia Dianne ARNOLD

410 So.3d 1138

VICTORYLAND

v.Patricia Dianne ARNOLD

CL-2024-0217

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

August 16, 2024

Linda W. Pope and Jared N. Wood of Pope, McMeekin, Wood & Swiney, P.C., Birmingham, for appellant.

Ted L. Mann, Courtney Hutchinson Ealy, and Jerry T. Crowell HI of Mann & Potter, P.C., Birmingham, for appellee.

MOORE, Presiding Judge.

Victoryland (“the employer”) appeals from an amended judgment entered by the Macon Circuit Court (“the trial court”) on February 13, 2024, denying the employer’s petition to be relieved of liability for future medical expenses for a work-related back injury sustained by Patricia Dianne Arnold (“the employee”). We affirm the judgment.

Background

On August 19, 2006, the employee fell while working for the employer, injuring her lower back (“the 2006 work-related injury”). On May 8, 2008, the employee commenced a civil action against the employer in which she sought benefits from the employer pursuant to the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act (“the Act”), Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-1 et seq. The parties reached an agreement that settled the workers’ compensation claim, which was approved by the trial court in a judgment entered on June 16, 2009 (“the 2009 judgment”). The 2009 judgment provides, among other things, that liability for reasonably necessary medical expenses proximately resulting from the 2006 work-related injury is to be “open,” i.e., the employer would remain liable for such medical expenses arising after the 2009 judgment.

On June 15, 2022, the employer filed a “motion for relief of order to provide future medical benefits under [the Act].” In that motion, the employer alleged that the employee had been involved in a motorvehicle accident on October 4, 2018 (“the 2018 motor-vehicle accident”) and that the employee had recovered damages in a settlement with the third parties who were responsible for the 2018 motor-vehicle accident. In the “motion,” the employer argued that the trial court should determine that it no longer owed the employee medical benefits pursuant to the 2009 judgment because, it said, the 2018 motor-vehicle accident was an intervening and superseding cause of her lower back problems and because the employee was judicially estopped from asserting that she continued to need medical treatment on account of the 2006 work-related injury. On April 10, 2023, the trial court purported to resolve that controversy by entering a judgment summarily denying the “motion.” The employer timely appealed from that judgment.

In Victoryland v. Arnold, 394 So. 3d 570 (Ala. Civ. App. 2024) (“Arnold”), this court, citing Total Fire Protection, Inc. v. Jean, 160 So. 3d 795, 799 (Ala. Civ. App. 2014), held that the employer’s “motion” was, in substance, a petition filed pursuant to Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-81, a part of the Act, to resolve a controversy between the parties regarding the employee’s right to future medical treatment under the 2009 judgment. In Arnold, this court reversed the judgment and remanded the case with instructions for the trial court to enter written findings of fact and conclusions of law as required by Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-88, a part of the Act.

On February 13, 2024, the trial court complied with our remand instructions by amending the judgment to make the required findings of fact and conclusions of law. In the amended judgment, the trial court, applying the standard adopted by our supreme court in Ex parte Pike County Commission, 740 So. 2d 1080 (Ala. 1999), determined that the 2018 motor-vehicle accident was not an intervening and superseding cause that relieved the employer of liability to pay for the employee’s medical treatment for her lower back condition. The trial court also determined that the employee was not judicially estopped from claiming a right to continued medical benefits under the 2009 judgment. Accordingly, the trial court again denied the employer’s petition to terminate its liability for future

medical benefits. The employer timely appealed the amended judgment.

Issues

On appeal, the employer argues that the trial court should have determined that it no longer owes the employee medical benefits pursuant to the 2009 judgment because, it says, (1) the 2018 motor-vehicle accident is the intervening and superseding cause of her lower back condition and (2) the employee should be judicially estopped from claiming the benefits of the 2009 judgment.

Standard of Review

Section 25-5-81(e), Ala. Code 1975, a part of the Act, provides:

“(1) In reviewing the standard of proof set forth herein and other legal issues, review by the Court of Civil Appeals shall be without a presumption of correctness.

“(2) In reviewing pure findings of fact, the finding of the circuit court shall not be reversed if that finding is supported by substantial evidence.”

[1] On appeal, a trial court’s findings of fact are conclusive on this court if they are supported by substantial evidence. Edwards v. Jesse Stutts, Inc., 655 So. 2d 1012 (Ala. Civ. App. 1995). “Substantial evidence” is “ ‘evidence of such weight and quality that fair-minded persons in the exercise of impartial judgment can reasonably infer the existence of the fact sought to be proved.’ ” Ex parte Trinity Indus., Inc., 680 So. 2d 262, 268 (Ala. 1996) (quoting West v. Founders Life Assurance Co. of Florida, 547 So. 2d 870, 871 (Ala. 1989)); see also Ala. Code 1975, § 12-21-12(d).

Analysis

I. Intervening and Superseding Cause

[2] In Ex parte Pike County Commission, Fred Green injured his lower back and abdomen in a series of work-related

accidents occurring between 1991 and May 1995. In September 1995, while at home, Green lifted a 12-pound baby and experienced a further onset of lower back and abdominal pain. Diagnostic testing after the baby-lifting episode revealed that Green had a herniated disk. Green’s employer, the Pike County Commission, denied that the herniated disk was compensable. Green commenced a civil action seeking workers’ compensation benefits for the injury. In a deposition taken in that action, Green’s treating neurosurgeon opined that the previous work-related accidents had caused the herniated disk and that the baby-lifting episode had exacerbated the symptoms from the injury. The Pike Circuit Court determined that Green had suffered a “recurrence” of his workrelated injuries when lifting the baby and awarded Green workers’ compensation benefits for the injury. On appeal, this court affirmed the judgment. See Pike County Comm’n v. Green, 740 So. 2d 1076 (Ala. Civ. App. 1998).

Our supreme court granted the Pike County Commission’s petition for the writ of certiorari to review this court’s decision. The supreme court determined that the Pike Circuit Court and this court had erred by applying the “last injurious exposure” rule to determine the compensability of the injury, because, it said, that rule applies to disputes involving successive work-related injuries to determine which of two or more employers or workers’ compensation insurance carriers should be responsible for the medical treatment and compensation owed to the injured employee. Our supreme court said:

“The considerations that apply to place workers’ compensation responsibility on the current insurer ‘are inapplicable when the subsequent injury is [not work-related].’ Warpinski v. State Indus. Ins. Sys., 103 Nev. 567, 569, 747 P.2d, 229 (1987). Instead, such cases are governed by the ‘successive-compensable-injury’ test. When determining whether a successive injury is compensable, the general rule is that ‘[w]hen the primary injury is shown to have arisen out of and in the course of employment, every natural consequence that flows from the injury likewise arises out of the employment, unless it is the result of an independent intervening cause attributable to [the] claimant’s own intentional conduct.’ 1 [Arthur Lar son & Lex K. Larson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law,] § 13.00 [(1998)]. “In applying this rule to a factually similar case, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia held:

“ ‘[I]f a worker’s compensation claimant shows that he received an initial injury which arose out of and in the course of his employment, then every normal consequence that flows from the injury likewise arises out of the employment. If, however, a subsequent aggravation of the initial injury arises from an independent intervening cause not attributable to the claimant’s customary activity in light of his condition, then such aggravation is not compensable.

“ ‘Thus, the fact that the claimant is injured and then returns to work does not mean that he is foreclosed from demonstrating that the original injury became aggravated by some routine event which triggered its recurrence. Such routine event is ordinarily one where the claimant is doing an activity that would be customary in light of his condition.’

“Wilson v. Workers’ Compensation Comm’r, 174 W.Va. 611, 616, 328 S.E.2d 485, 490 (1984); see also Lou Grubb Chevrolet, Inc.v. Industrial Comm’n, 174 Ariz. 23, 26, 846 P.2d 836, 839 (Ariz. App. 1992) (‘[An] employee’s reasonable conduct in causing a later nonindustrial injury does not relieve the employer of liability if the later injury is the “direct and natural result” of the compensable work injury.’). Thus, ‘a subsequent injury, whether an aggravation of an original injury or a new and distinct injury, is compensable if it is the direct and natural result of a compensable primary injury.’ 1 Larson, supra, § 13.11.”

740 So. 2d at 1084. The supreme court determined that Green was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for the herniated disk under the successive-compensable-injury test because the injury was a direct and natural result of his workrelated accident and his later act of lifting the baby, being “customary in light of [his] condition,” was not an intervening and superseding cause of his condition. Id.

In the amended judgment in this case, the trial court applied the successive-compensable-injury test from ...