Winn Dixie v. Ross

• Citation: 654 So.2d 637
• Decision Date: 09 May 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-1965,94-1965
• Parties: 20 Fla. L. Weekly D1147 WINN DIXIE and Crawford & Company, Appellants, v. Diane ROSS, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 637

654 So.2d 637

20 Fla. L. Weekly D1147

WINN DIXIE and Crawford & Company, Appellants, v. Diane ROSS, Appellee.

No. 94-1965.

District Court of Appeal of Florida First District.

May 9, 1995.

Mary E. Cruickshank of McConnaughhay, Roland, Maida & Cherr, Tallahassee, for appellants.

Glen D. Wieland of Kelaher & Wieland, P.A., Orlando, and Bill McCabe of Shepherd, McCabe & Cooley, Longwood, for appellee.

DAVIS, Judge.

Winn Dixie and Crawford and Company, the employer and servicing agent (e/sa), appeal an order finding that the claimant in this worker's compensation case suffered a compensable injury on June 25, 1990, resulting in a 7 percent permanent impairment. The e/sa paid benefits to the claimant based upon a report of injury asserting a September 30, 1990, date of accident. After the claimant received all of the benefits to which she was entitled, she filed a new claim asserting that the injury actually took place on June 25, 1990. ¹ However, in addition to misrepresenting her date of accident on the notice of injury, the claimant admittedly never told any of the doctors who testified below that she had an industrial accident in June 1990, or that she suffered the type of accident that she now claims took place. Because the record contains no evidence to support the existence of a causal connection between the injury now claimed and the permanent impairment asserted, we reverse. ²

The causal connection between claimant's condition and her alleged injury on June 25th was clearly placed at issue in the hearing below. The order of the Judge of Compensation Claims (JCC) recites that the defenses raised by the e/sa included: "no accident in the course and scope or employment" and "no causal relationship." Further, at the beginning of the hearing, counsel for e/sa made it clear that these issues were still in dispute, stating, "there is no causal relationship between whatever complaint she had after September 30 and this alleged June 25 date ... there is no medical testimony to link up her condition, whatever it may have been, to this June 25 date ..."

This court has recently reiterated: "In the absence of any medical testimony in the record establishing, within reasonable medical probability, a causal relationship between the employment and the medical condition for which benefits are sought, we must reverse the order appealed." Brasington Cadillac-Oldsmobile v. Martin, 641 So.2d 442, 445 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994). See also Olympic Associates v....