Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Margaret Hogue

ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
DIVISION III

WAL-MART STORES, INC.

APPELLANT

V.

MARGARET HOGUE

APPELLEE

CA03-638

December 10, 2003

APPEAL FROM THE ARKANSAS WORKERS' COMPENSATION COMMISSION [NO. F007957]

AFFIRMED

John Mauzy Pittman, Judge

The appellee in this workers' compensation case was employed by Wal-Mart on July 12, 2000, retrieving boxes from the attic of the store. While doing so, appellee stepped on an exposed circuit box, sustaining an electrical shock powerful enough to throw her several feet. Appellee was knocked unconscious, struck some boxes, and fell to the floor. Within twenty-four hours of her electrical shock and fall, appellee developed severe low back pain and, soon thereafter, persistent symptoms down her leg consistent with back injury. This pain persisted until she underwent spinal surgery, which relieved most of her symptoms.

Wal-Mart conceded that the direct effects of the electric shock were compensable, but refused to pay benefits related to appellee's back injury on the ground that she had a prior, nonwork-related back injury in 1989. After appellee prevailed on her claim before the administrative law judge, Wal-Mart appealed the award to the Full Commission, which likewise found that appellee's back condition and resultant disability stemmed from the injury she

sustained in the service of Wal-Mart on July 12, 2000. Wal-Mart has now appealed to this Court from the decision of the Full Commission, arguing that there is no substantial evidence to support the Commission's finding that appellee is entitled to medical treatment for her back injury and concomitant temporary total disability benefits for the period from October 18, 2000, through August 22, 2001. We find no merit in Wal-Mart's arguments, and we affirm.

The standard of review applicable to determining the sufficiency of the evidence in workers' compensation cases is a narrow one, and it is quite clear. We do not examine all of the evidence presented below and attempt to decide, on the basis of a cold record, which witnesses were most credible and which party presented the more convincing case. We do not, in fact, weigh the evidence at all. Instead, we examine only the evidence that supports the Commission's finding. We then view that evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commission's decision and, on that basis, we decide whether fair-minded people reasonably could arrive at the same conclusion that the Commission did. If the Commission's conclusions are not unreasonable, we must affirm even if we disagree with the Commission's assessment of the weight of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses, and even if we would reach a contrary result were we to decide the matter de novo. See generally Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Brown, ___ Ark. App. ___, ___ S.W.3d ___ (June 25, 2003); Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Sands, 80 Ark. App. 51, 91 S.W.3d 93 (2002); Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Leach, 74 Ark. App. 231, 48 S.W.3d 540 (2001); Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Brown, 73 Ark. App. 174, 40 S.W.3d 835 (2001); Hayes v. Wal-Mart Stores, 71 Ark. App. 207, 29 S.W.3d 751 (2000).

It is likewise well-settled that the employer takes the employee as he finds him and that an aggravation of a preexisting noncompensable condition by a compensable injury is, itself, compensable. Oliver v. Guardsmark, Inc., 68 Ark. App. 24, 3 S.W.3d 336 (1999). In the present case, there was indeed evidence that appellee had sustained a noncompensable back injury in1989. In finding that appellee's current back condition and concomitant disability resulted from her compensable injury, the Commission noted that her physician, Dr. Bruffett, stated that, although appellee had a prior degenerative back condition, her work-related fall could have aggravated her prior condition so as to require the treatment he administered. To discover whether her compensable injury was in fact the result of her current back condition, Dr. Bruffett said "one would need to look at her previous history with regards to her back to determine how significant a problem this was prior to the injury at work."

Appellant argues that Dr. Bruffett's opinion was too indefinite to establish a causal relationship between her back condition and her compensable injury. We do not agree. Although it is true that expert opinions based upon "could," "may," or "possibly" lack the definiteness required to meet the claimant's burden to prove causation, Frances v. Gaylord Container Corp., 341 Ark. 527, 20 S.W.3d 280 (2000), we see no such lack of definiteness in Dr. Bruffett's opinion. Instead, Dr. Bruffett noted what was medically possible and, in his capacity as a medical expert, gave the Commission a definite and precise method for determining the question of causation in this case. In its opinion, the Commission employed that method by doing exactly what Dr. Bruffett recommended, i.e., looking at appellee's previous history with regard to her back. It noted that there was no evidence that appellant suffered from any back symptoms requiring medical treatment from 1989 until she was injured working for Wal-Mart in 2000, and that there was to the contrary evidence that appellee was capable of working 80-hours per week, and was in fact doing so for Wal-Mart at the time of her electric shock and fall. It also noted that appellee began to experience severe lower back pain within twenty-four hours of her compensable injury, and that her back symptoms persisted until she underwent spinal surgery. On this basis, the Commission concluded that appellee's current back condition and the disability flowing therefrom were the result of her compensable injury. The Commission's findings of fact are supported by the evidence and, because fair-minded persons could quite clearly arrive at this conclusion, we affirm.

Affirmed.

Robbins and Roaf, JJ., agree.