Yeatman v. Northern Oklahoma Resource Center of Enid

• Decision Date: 13 April 2004
• Docket Number: No. 98951,98951
• Citation: 89 P.3d 1095,2004 OK 27
• Parties: BETTY YEATMAN, Petitioner, v. NORTHERN OKLAHOMA RESOURCE CENTER OF ENID, COMPSOURCE OKLAHOMA, and THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT, Respondents.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

2004 OK 27

89 P.3d 1095

BETTY YEATMAN, Petitioner, v. NORTHERN OKLAHOMA RESOURCE CENTER OF ENID, COMPSOURCE OKLAHOMA, and THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT, Respondents.

No. 98951

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

April 13, 2004

Walt Brune, Ponca City, and Fred L. Boettcher, Ponca City, for Petitioner.

Darren Derryberry and Victor Trautmann, Oklahoma City, for Respondents.¹

OPALA, V.C.J.

¶1 This certiorari presses two questions for our decision: (1) Whether the Court of Civil Appeals (COCA) erred when it sustained the Workers' Compensation Court's (WCC) refusal to recognize an order made approximately five-months earlier? and (2) Did COCA err when it placed upon the claimant the burden of proving her continued temporary total disability? We answer both questions in the affirmative.

I. THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION

¶2 Betty Yeatman (Yeatman or claimant), an employee of Northern Oklahoma Resource Center of Enid (with CompSource, its insurance carrier, collectively respondent or employer), injured her shoulder² on 20 April 1998 while lifting a patient from bed to place him in a wheelchair. Respondent began paying TTD benefits on 27 April 1998.³

¶3 Claimant's injury was conservatively treated for approximately one year. On 26 April 1999 Yeatman's treating physician suggested arthroscopic surgery might be indicated but noted a complicating factor that was not work related — a seizure disorder — that he recommended must first be evaluated by a neurosurgeon.⁴ His report added that claimant was limited in her ability to function. Yeatman was scheduled in June 2000 to undergo brain-lesion surgery to alleviate her seizures when she discovered that she had breast cancer. She subsequently underwent surgery first for breast cancer in June 2000 and then for the brain lesion in August 2001. She had no further treatment for her shoulder condition.

¶4 The record reveals employer's concerns about claimant's failure to receive treatment for her shoulder injury after 26 April 1999 and its concomitant payment of TTD.⁵ On 27 February 2001 Yeatman requested additional TTD benefits. The Workers' Compensation Court issued a 4 April 2001⁶ order requiring respondent to continue payment of TTD benefits for up to an additional 52 weeks but deferred to a future hearing any demand for TTD overpayment.⁷ Employer stopped paying benefits on 29 December 2001, urging that its duty to pay them ended by operation of law in accordance with the terms of 85 O.S. Supp. 1997 § 22.2(b).⁸ It then moved on 10 January 2002 for an order terminating temporary compensation. Employer's motion noted it had "terminated TTD as respondent received no extension of benefits or any medical [treatment] to support continued benefits."⁹ Claimant timely moved for a hearing on her objection to the termination. On 6 May 2002 she requested that the court hear both TTD and permanent partial disability (PPD) benefit issues.¹⁰

¶5 Before Yeatman's hearing she went to two evaluating physicians, neither of whom had seen her previous to their examinations. Claimant's rating doctor found her temporarily totally disabled from the date of injury through the date of the examination, 20 February 2002. Respondent's physician made no mention of temporary total disability period but found Yeatman had achieved maximum benefit from medical treatment and was unlikely to benefit from continued therapy.¹¹ These evaluations were admitted in evidence at the 28 August 2002 hearing. Each party interposed a probative-value objection to the other's medical reports. Yeatman testified at the hearing that she no longer desired shoulder surgery but, as COCA correctly noted, nothing was elicited about the time when she made that decision.

¶6 On 18 September 2002 the trial judge adjudicated the extent of Yeatman's permanent partial disability and awarded her PPD benefits.¹² She further ruled Yeatman to have been temporarily totally disabled for only one year — from the time of her injury to 26 April 1999. The order held respondent was entitled to a credit for TTD overpayment from 26 April 1999 (one year after the date of her injury) to 29 December 2001 (the date respondent quit paying benefits). Claimant then sought intra-court review contending the decision was contrary to the clear weight of the evidence. In a two-to-one decision a three-judge panel of the WCC sustained the trial judge's order.¹³ Claimant sought review of the adverse panel decision.

The Court of Appeals' Pronouncement

¶7 Yeatman sought relief from the panel's order urging (1) her intervening medical conditions, which prolonged the period of temporary total disability, do not afford a legally tenable basis for terminating temporary total disability, citing Thomas v. Burggraf Restoration,¹⁴ (2) the overpayment credit to her employer is not supported by competent evidence and (3) the WCC failed to adjudicate her claim for TTD benefits from 29 December 2001 (the date respondent stopped paying TTD) to 20 February 2002 (the date her rating physician determined she was no longer in a healing period).

¶8 Employer responded that (1) the totality of the evidence supports the trial tribunal's order granting it credit for overpaid TTD (2) claimant's TTD benefits expired by operation of law¹⁵ and the burden of proof would hence rest on the claimant if additional compensation is sought (3) the principles that deal with intervening medical conditions are not applicable here and (4) because claimant failed to raise (before the three-judge panel) her request for TTD benefits from 29 December 2001 to 20 February 2002, COCA may not now address them on appeal.

¶9 The Court of Civil Appeals (COCA), Div. III, sustained the panel's ruling. It concluded that Thomas — a case dealing with the impact of intervening medical conditions which prolong TTD — was not apposite to the resolution of this controversy. Thomas teaches that a claimant receiving previously awarded TTD does not forfeit these benefits when a medical condition, not caused by claimant, requires that the treatment being provided be postponed. Yeatman, according to COCA, failed to show she was in a healing period during the second 52 week period, the time of her intervening illnesses.¹⁶ The Thomas principles are hence inapplicable. Further Yeatman did not postpone treatment, according to COCA, but decided not to pursue further treatment. She hence elected to seek PPD benefits, meaning that in law she had reached maximum medical improvement. Because Yeatman's last treatment for her shoulder injury was within the first fifty-two week period,¹⁷ COCA ruled the trial tribunal was correct in not authorizing TTD beyond that period.

¶10 COCA next addressed Yeatman's contention that the employer's TTD overpayment credit does not rest on competent evidence. According to her, this is so because her employer failed to present any evidence that shows her TTD status has ended. Only the report submitted by Yeatman's evaluating physician defined the length of her TTD period.¹⁸ COCA ruled that Yeatman's inability to show she was temporarily totally disabled during the second 52-week period is exactly the competent evidence that supports the overpayment.¹⁹

¶11 Lastly, because COCA agreed that claimant was not temporarily totally disabled after 26 April 1999, it held the WCC's failure to address her claim for TTD benefits from 29 December 2001 to 20 February 2002 to be moot.²⁰

The Parties' Certiorari Arguments

¶12 Yeatman's certiorari petition and brief challenge both the panel order and COCA's opinion. She maintains respondent has failed to submit any evidence that proves she was no longer temporarily totally disabled,²¹ and that COCA's conclusion — that she abandoned treatment for her shoulder — is unfounded by proof. She continues to assert that the Thomas principles are applicable to her situation. Yeatman further urges that COCA's analysis impermissibly places on her the burden of proving she was in a healing period. Because the April 2001 order awards her TTD, she contends the only way payments could be discontinued during the period over which it extends is by termination based upon a medical report that finds TTD to have ended. The burden of proving termination (during a period covered by an order for continuing TTD) rests on the employer in accordance with the terms of 85 O.S. Supp. 1997 §1.1B²² and 85 O.S. Supp. 1997, Ch.4, App. Rule 15.²³

¶13 Employer continues to maintain that claimant's TTD benefits do not simply extend for an indefinite period until the employer provides evidence supporting its earlier termination. Rather, she is required periodically to provide medical proof to support her claim for continuing TTD, in accordance with the terms of 85 O.S. Supp. 1997 § 22.2(b) and extant jurisprudence.²⁴ Yeatman failed after 26 April 1999 to present any medical evidence that shows her to be in a healing period. If claimant desires to seek additional benefits, the burden of proof and persuasion must now fall on her.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶14 The dispositive issues pressed on certiorari call solely for resolution of legal questions. Review of contested law is governed by a de novo standard.²⁵ In its re-examination of the trial tribunal's legal rulings an appellate court exercises plenary, independent and nondeferential authority.²⁶

III. TODAY'S FIRST ISSUE IS TO BE RESOLVED BY THE PRINCIPLES APPLICABLE TO AN ORDER'S REVIEWABILITY

¶15 Resolution of the first question in today's controversy — whether the trial tribunal erred when it overlooked the binding effect of its April 2001 order extending TTD — requires that we address a rule of law not raised by either party²⁷ — that which governs reviewability of a compensation order. A worker's quest to receive compensation for an on-the-job injury is a statutory public-law proceeding, not a private dispute.²⁸ When resolving a public-law question, we are free to choose sua sponte the dispositive public-law theory although the wrong one is advanced.²⁹

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