Yocum v. Greenbriar Nursing Home

• Decision Date: 12 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 100,282.,100,282.
• Citation: 130 P.3d 213,2005 OK 27
• Parties: Vicki (Root) YOCUM, Petitioner, v. GREENBRIAR NURSING HOME, Fire and Casualty Insurance Company of Connecticut, and the Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 213

130 P.3d 213

2005 OK 27

Vicki (Root) YOCUM, Petitioner, v. GREENBRIAR NURSING HOME, Fire and Casualty Insurance Company of Connecticut, and the Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents.

No. 100,282.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

April 12, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

On Certiorari to the Court Of Civil Appeals, Div. 1.

¶ 0 In a proceeding brought before the Workers' Compensation Court, the trial judge denied the claimant's quest for pain management and psychological overlay treatment award. The decision was adopted by a three-judge review panel. The Court of Civil Appeals vacated the panel's order and remanded the claim with directions to give the independent medical examiners' opinions "prima facie effect" and then afford the employer an opportunity to rebut these opinions. On certiorari granted upon the employer's petition.

THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED AND THE CLAIM IS REMANDED TO THE DIVISION OF THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS WHENCE IT CAME FOR RECONSIDERATION OF ALL ISSUES IN A MANNER NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THIS COURT'S PRONOUNCEMENT.

Walt Brune, Walt Brune, P.C., Ponca City, OK, and Fred L. Boettcher, Boettcher Law Offices, Inc., Ponca City, OK, for Petitioner.¹

Steven E. Hanna, Guthrie, OK, for Respondents.

OPALA, J.

¶ 1 The court's certiorari grant stands confined to the single issue whether the Court of Civil Appeals (COCA) erred in its construction of the independent medical examiner (IME) statutory regime, 85 O.S.2001 § 17,² by elevating an IME medical assessment of compensable harm to a higher rank of probative value (for prima facie effect) than all other admissible expert opinions. We answer in the affirmative and retransfer the case to COCA for its reconsideration of all issues in a manner consistent with today's pronouncement.

I THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION

¶ 2 Claimant's (Yocum or claimant) compensable condition stood adjudicated in August 2001 as that of a temporarily totally disabled person from an injury to her neck, back and left shoulder (on 2 February 2000) while working for Greenbriar Nursing Home (Greenbriar or employer). She was found to be in need of further medical treatment. Claimant's physician recommended she undergo a psychological evaluation as well as procedures for pain management. Employer's medical expert reached a contrary conclusion. According to his report (dated 11 March 2002) claimant was neither in need of medical care and maintenance nor of treatment for psychological overlay. The report states that claimant's complaints of anxiety are caused by a pre-existing condition, not by the February 2 injury. The trial judge then ordered four independent medical evaluations to assess claimant's need, if any, for further treatment. These four reports recommended pain management and psychological overlay treatment. On consideration of the entire medical evidence, the trial judge denied the request for treatment, resting his decision on the ground he was "not persuaded... that she has psychological problems caused by the injuries." A three-judge panel of the Workers' Compensation Court (WCC) adopted the trial judge's order. Claimant then sought review of the adverse panel decision in the Court of Civil Appeals (COCA).

¶ 3 COCA vacated the panel's order and remanded the claim for further proceedings before the trial judge. Its decision, which rests on a theory chosen sua sponte for resolution of a first-impression issue,³ holds that by its enactment of the independent medical examiner (IME) system⁴ the Legislature intended to accord prima facie effect to an IME-report assessment. Because COCA concluded that legislative intent to give greater probative value to an opinion by a court-appointed IME is explicitly (or implicitly) reflected in the provisions of 85 O.S.2001 § 17, it addressed to the trial tribunal on-remand directions (a) to give the IME assessments "prima facie effect" on the issues of claimant's need for pain management and psychological overlay treatment, (b) to afford the employer an opportunity to present rebuttal proof "of record and not yet considered" and (e) to "then weigh the evidence before it."

¶ 4 On certiorari granted upon the employer's petition, we now vacate COCA's opinion and, for the reasons to be stated, remand the claim to the appellate tribunal for reconsideration of all the issues before it in a manner not inconsistent with today's pronouncement.

II THE CERTIORARI ARGUMENTS

¶ 5 Employer argues that COCA's elevation of the IME-report assessments (to a higher level of probative value than that accorded other medical opinions) is an impermissible expansion of the statute-ascribed role for court-appointed physicians, which goes far beyond the dimensions contemplated (or intended) by the legislative text. By prescribing a different weight to be given IME opinions, COCA distorts, if not indeed discards, the long-established any-competent-evidence standard for review of the panel's factual resolutions⁵ and invests the court-appointed doctor with "judicial authority" for making findings of fact. Employer asserts that COCA's reliance on Massachusetts and Louisiana law is misplaced. In those states the legislature has explicitly given prima facie effect to an IME-report assessment. Louisiana's workers' compensation system is managed by an administrative agency whose hearing officers—when confronted with disputed medical facts—are statutorily mandated to cede all fact-finding authority to a doctor. Employer claims the Massachusetts IME system is also distinguishable in several respects from that in Oklahoma. According to the employer, even if we assumed COCA was correct concerning the weight to be given an IME opinion, it nonetheless committed fatal error by failing to determine if there is "any competent evidence" to support the panel's findings. Employer urges the panel's denial of the claimant-sought relief is supported by competent evidence.

¶ 6 Claimant, on the other hand, argues the Legislature must have intended for IME opinions to serve as a tie-breaker between dueling "party-sponsored" physicians. She urges us to give legitimacy to the legislative scheme by crafting either (a) a presumption in favor of unanimous IME opinions or (b) a prima facie standard for unanimous IME opinions. According to claimant, a contrary construction will rob core meaning from intended IME utilization. She claims the medical opinion upon which the trial tribunal based its decision lacks probative value when considered in light of all the medical proof as a whole which bears on the medical causation issue. In other words, claimant urges us to review the enactment authorizing the use of IME reports as a legislative call for replacement of the any-competent-evidence standard by the clear-weight-of-the-evidence gauge.

III

THE STATUTORY WORKERS' COMPENSATION REGIME

A. The Institutional Design For A Workers' Compensation Law's Intra-Court Appeal and Its Distinction From the Standard of Review That Governs In The Extra-Court Appellate Process

¶ 7 A resolution of the sole issue on certiorari requires an explanation of the well-and long-established statute-based (a) distinction between an intra-court appeal and an extra-court proceeding for review in the appellate courts⁶ as well as (b) the standard that governs in the appellate courts the review of the trial tribunal's disputed fact findings.

¶ 8 Upon the statute-authorized intra-court appeal, a three-judge panel of the same tribunal may reexamine a trial judge's findings of disputed fact and conclusions of law (85 O.S.2001 § 3.6(A)),⁷ while review before COCA and in this court stands strictly confined to questions of law (85 O.S.2001 § 26(B)).⁸ The three-judge panel's review of the trial tribunal's findings of fact is governed by a clear-weight-of-the-evidence test.⁹ When reviewing the panel's factual resolutions of nonjurisdictional issues, this court and COCA alike must apply the any-competent-evidence standard.¹⁰ If rested on competent evidence,¹¹ findings of nonjurisdictional facts are conclusive and binding on both appellate courts.¹² Any evidence in the record—on the basis of which the trier could have reached a contrary conclusion—is treated in the extra-court process of reviewing a workers' compensation court's findings as without legal effect.¹³ In short, the trial tribunal is the sole judge of the credibility of witnesses and of the weight¹⁴ and value¹⁵ to be accorded to the testimony adduced.¹⁶ Only in the absence of competent evidence may that tribunal's decision be viewed as legally erroneous and hence subject to appellate vacation.¹⁷ It is against this backdrop of long-established statutory jurisprudence that the 1995 IME legislation must today undergo our scrutiny.

¶ 9 The goal of any inquiry into the meaning of a statutory enactment is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the legislature.¹⁸ The law-making body is presumed to have expressed its intent in a statute's language and to have intended what the text expresses.¹⁹ If a statute is plain and unambiguous, it will not be subjected to judicial construction, but will receive the effect its language dictates.²⁰ Only where the intent cannot be ascertained from a statute's text, as when ambiguity or conflict (with other statutes) is shown to exist, may rules of statutory construction be employed.²¹

¶ 10 This court is without authority to rewrite a statute merely because it might not comport with its own notions of prudent public policy.²² We cannot trump a law's validity by employment of some extra-constitutional standards. If the text is plain and unambiguous, our duty stands confined to making it enforceable.

B.

The Use Of The Independent Medical Examiner System—85 O.S.2001 § 17(D)

¶ 11 There is neither legislative mandate for departing from the long-established any-competent-evidence standard of review nor for according an IME-report assessment an elevated (or lowered) rank for probative value. Unlike the ...