Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Caselman

• Decision Date: 26 February 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-0704.,01-0704.
• Citation: 657 N.W.2d 493
• Parties: WAL-MART STORES, INC., Appellee, v. Richard CASELMAN, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

657 N.W.2d 493

WAL-MART STORES, INC., Appellee, v. Richard CASELMAN, Appellant.

No. 01-0704.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

February 26, 2003.

Paul J. McAndrew, Jr., Coralville, for appellant.

Chad M. Vonkampen of Simmons, Perrine, Albright & Ellwood, P.L.C., Cedar Rapids, for appellee.

NEUMAN, Justice.

This appeal challenges the decision rendered on judicial review of an administrative proceeding for workers' compensation benefits. The district court disagreed with the compensation commissioner's factual findings regarding the extent of the workers' disability as well as the commissioner's conclusions regarding its award of penalty benefits. The question on appeal is whether the district court applied the proper standard of review and whether the record, properly reviewed, supports the commissioner's decision.

In keeping with Iowa Code section 17A.19(10)(f) (Supp.1999), we have examined the "record before the court ... viewed as a whole." Based on our review, we believe that substantial evidence supports the commissioner's findings and award. We therefore reverse the district court's contrary decision and remand for entry of an order affirming the agency.

I. Background.

Rick Caselman has been a truck driver for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., since October 1991. He injured his back in August 1997 while unloading merchandise at a Wal-Mart store in Shenandoah, Iowa. The injury occurred while Caselman was muscling a 130-pound docking plate into place. Conservative treatment using bed rest and anti-inflammatory medications provided only partial relief. An MRI revealed a herniated disc at the L5-S1 level. In October 1997, Caselman underwent surgery for a laminectomy and discectomy. Although the surgery was reportedly successful, continuing back and leg pain has impaired Caselman's ability to return to his former employment with Wal-Mart. The extent of his impairment is the fighting issue on this appeal.

The parties agree that Caselman's work injury caused some degree of industrial disability. Our factual focus, therefore, must be on the extent of his loss of earning capacity. Thilges v. Snap-On Tools Corp., 528 N.W.2d 614, 616 (Iowa 1995); Guyton v. Irving Jensen Co., 373 N.W.2d 101, 103 (Iowa 1985). As this court said in Guyton,

[b]odily impairment is merely one factor in gauging industrial disability. Other factors include the worker's age, intelligence, education, qualifications, experience, and the effect of the injury on the worker's ability to obtain suitable work. When the combination of factors precludes the worker from obtaining regular employment to earn a living, the worker with only a partial functional disability has a total industrial disability.

Guyton, 373 N.W.2d at 103 (citations omitted); accord IBP, Inc. v. Al—Gharib, 604 N.W.2d 621, 632-33 (Iowa 2000).

With these principles in mind, we turn to the record made before the agency.

A. Facts. Caselman was forty-three years old at the time of the hearing. He is a high school graduate but academics have never been his strong suit. He graduated thirty-fifth out of a class of thirty-eight. All of his adult employment has involved unskilled manual labor, most of it physically demanding. He has worked over twenty years as a truck driver, including a two-year period when he owned his own rig. As a younger man he held a number of minimum-wage jobs including grounds maintenance, pizza cook, and service station attendant.

For roughly a year following his hiring by Wal-Mart in 1991, Caselman hauled freight out of the company's terminal in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. He then drove a Wal-Mart moving van for several years, loading, transporting, and unloading household furnishings for company executives and managers who had been transferred to new locations. During 1995 he resumed freight-hauling out of the company's terminal in Ottawa, Kansas, until, in August 1995, he began driving "claims" runs. This assignment, which involved picking up returned merchandise from a variety of Wal-Mart stores, continued until August 1997 when the injury occurred which is the focus of this appeal.

By all accounts, Caselman has been a valued Wal-Mart employee. Yearly written evaluations based on customer service, safety, team participation, technical skills and driver traits routinely rank him in the "highly effective" category. The general transportation manager at the company's Ottawa terminal described him as a "good driver" with a "very good work record." Evidently a strong and relatively healthy person before his work-related injury, Caselman's work history reveals that he took only one day of sick leave in all his prior years with Wal-Mart. He has been financially rewarded for his hard work, earning nearly $90,000 in gross wages during the year before he injured his back.

Post-surgery is another story. Caselman returned to work at Wal-Mart on December 1, 1997 doing light work at the distribution center. By late January 1998 his surgeon, Dr. Parkins, authorized his return to driving, with a limitation in hours behind the wheel and a weight-lifting restriction. That worked well. Accustomed to working ten-hour days, Caselman drove out and back for a total of six hours on the road (with breaks), finishing up the day with four hours in the office or guard shack. In mid-February, Dr. Parkins released Caselman without restrictions. He resumed full duty, able to secure runs that put him on the road only five hours each way. That changed in early March. Caselman was dispatched on a long run, seven hours in one direction, and the pain in his back and leg returned. He was unable to sleep due to the pain. Despite his protest, Wal-Mart continued to dispatch Caselman on long runs. He was told that giving him shorter runs would show unacceptable "favoritism." His pain worsened over the month and his right leg began cramping and falling asleep. On March 31, as he was driving into Kansas City from St. Louis, his leg went to sleep and he "could not control it." He parked his truck, notified Wal-Mart and was relieved of his duty. He has not worked since that day.

Shortly after the incident in Kansas City, Caselman was examined by a Wal-Mart physician, Dr. David Edalati. The doctor's report recounted Caselman's leg numbness, and directed that unless Caselman could be limited to four-hour drives he should be taken off work for one week. He also ordered an examination by Caselman's orthopedic surgeon. Within the week, Caselman was examined by the surgeon, Dr. Parkins. The doctor reported that Caselman "generally does well... when he does not have to drive more than three hours in one direction for a total of 6 hours per day." He entered a work restriction consistent with that finding.

When Caselman returned to Wal-Mart he was told that its policy had changed and he could not return to work unless he could perform 100 percent. He was encouraged to quit and take long-term disability. A memo in Wal-Mart's file reveals a request that Dr. Parkins consider cutting back on his restriction, thereby permitting Caselman to "drive 4 hours, rest, then drive 4 more hours." The memo goes on to state that "Wal-Mart will accommodate light duty for one month" but if the restrictions are permanent "then we will need to do a rating. Even though long hauls are not done much he still has to be able to drive for 8 hrs." A few days later, Dr. Parkins re-examined Caselman, and amended his restrictions accordingly. In October 1998, Dr. Parkins reported that Caselman had reached maximum medical improvement (MMI) and gave him a permanent partial impairment rating of "12% of the body as a whole."

At Wal-Mart's request, Caselman also received an independent medical evaluation of his back injury by Dr. David Clymer. His report essentially mirrored Dr. Parkin's findings and recommendation with respect to MMI, impairment rating and restrictions—driving limited to four hours each way with a rest period, a thirty-pound weight-lifting restriction, and a twelve percent permanent impairment of the whole body. His report, however, tended to emphasize the subjective nature of Caselman's low back discomfort and leg pain, speculating it is probably related to "some ongoing nerve irritation due to fibrosis at the site of the disc and previous surgical exploration."

Dr. Keith Riggins performed an independent medical evaluation at Caselman's request. An orthopedic surgeon who retired due to his own physical disability, Dr. Riggins is a fellow of three separate academies: Orthopedic Surgeons, Disability Evaluating Physicians and Occupational and Environmental Medicine. On examining Caselman, he noted certain self-limitation or "variability" in Caselman's range of motion which he suspected was due to segmental instability in the spine. That suspicion was not born out by later x-rays. Dr. Riggins nevertheless described Caselman as

compromised in his ability to engage in activities which require:

-repetitive or persistent forward flexion of the trunk or placing the trunk in ungainly positions.

-lifting weights greater than 20 lbs. maximum.

-lifting weights greater than 10 lbs. on a frequent basis.

Weights lifted should be confined to the interval between knee and shoulder, not picked up from the floor and not placed above shoulder level.

Dr. Riggins gave Caselman an impairment rating of eleven percent "of the whole person."

Two vocational rehabilitation specialists offered their assessments of Caselman's vocational options. Dan Zumalt, selected by Wal-Mart, reported that Caselman was most highly motivated to return to his former job as a truck driver with Wal-Mart. Zumalt recognized, however, that Caselman's work restrictions likely prevented his return there. Zumalt did not believe Caselman was suited, intellectually or physically, for other types of work. So Zumalt explored thirty other truck driving opportunities in the region. He concluded that twenty-one (70%) would not accommodate the driving time and weight limitations imposed by...