PHILIP WILSON, Petitioner-Appellant, vs. DES MOINES PUBLIC SCHOOLS and EMC RISK SERVICES, INC., Respondents-Appellees.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 7-331 / 06-1433
Filed June 27, 2007
PHILIP WILSON,
Petitioner-Appellant,
vs.
DES MOINES PUBLIC SCHOOLS and
EMC RISK SERVICES, INC.,
Respondents-Appellees.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Richard G. Blane, II,
Judge.
The petitioner appeals from the district court’s order on judicial review
affirming the agency’s denial of benefits. AFFIRMED.
Scott L. Bandstra of Bandstra Law Firm, P.C., Des Moines, for appellant.
Anne L. Clark of Hopkins & Huebner, P.C., Des Moines, for appellees.
Heard by Sackett, C.J., and Vogel and Miller, JJ.
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VOGEL, J.
Phillip Wilson appeals from the district court’s ruling on judicial review
affirming the decision by the Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner
denying benefits.
Because we agree with the district court’s conclusion that
substantial evidence supports the agency’s finding that the record does not
support that an injury occurred which arose out of and in the course of Wilson’s
employment with the Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS), we affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Wilson filed a claim for workers’ compensation in February 2004, alleging
a work-related injury occurred in late January 2003. He claims that while driving
a street sweeper in the course of his duties with the DMPS, he struck a pothole,
lifting him off the seat and hitting his head on the roof of the cab. Wilson claims
that the impact jarred him, causing injury to his back and pain shooting down his
right leg. He alleges that he told his supervisor at the time that he had suffered
an injury but did not follow up with creating or filing an injury report. Wilson
began by seeing Dr. Evans, who referred him to Dr. James R. Skinner in late
April 2003. He complained of numbness and tingling in his right leg from the
knee down, reporting to Dr. Skinner that he had suffered the same symptoms for
the past year while denying any specific trauma to his back or leg. Subsequent
testing revealed multiple lumbar spinal problems, and Wilson was referred to
orthopedic surgeon, Dr. William Boulden. At his visit with Dr. Boulden in midMay 2003, Wilson reported he had back pain for the past one and one-half years
with recently developing numbness and pain in the right leg.
Dr. Boulden’s
diagnosis was multiple levels of congenital and acquired spinal stenosis and he
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recommended epidural steroid injection as treatment, which was performed in
late May. Wilson returned to Dr. Boulden on June 12 and reported that the
injection temporarily alleviated his pain.
Based upon Wilson’s continuing
symptoms, Dr. Boulden believed that spinal decompression surgery, although
elective, would provide greater pain relief and possibly improve Wilson’s quality
of life.
On June 16, Wilson first advised DMPS that he had hurt his back four to
six months prior by hitting a pothole while driving the street sweeper. DMPS sent
Wilson for evaluation to Dr. Bern Boyett, an occupational medicine specialist.
This was the first time Wilson mentioned the street sweeper incident to a
physician as the cause of his back problems, claiming that his pain began about
six months earlier and recently spread to his right leg. He also completed an
injury report with DMPS’s claims’ administrator on June 20, stating although he
was unsure of the injury date, the injury was caused by bouncing up and down
on the street sweeper, and that he had received no treatment for his symptoms.
Dr. Boulden performed surgery, including partial spinal fusion, on Wilson on July
14. Dr. Boulden opined that Wilson suffered a work-related aggravation of a preexisting condition when he struck the pothole while driving the street sweeper.
Wilson was subsequently placed on work restrictions.
Wilson filed a petition for workers’ compensation benefits in February
2004. The contested case proceeded to arbitration hearing before the deputy
commissioner in February 2005.
The deputy’s proposed decision denied
benefits based on Wilson’s failure to prove his back and right leg problems were
caused by a work-related incident. Specifically, the deputy found Wilson and his
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two supporting witnesses lacked credibility as to whether the street sweeper
incident had even occurred in January 2003 when Wilson alleged he was injured.
The deputy thus discounted the medical opinions as to causation because they
were based upon Wilson’s self-reporting the cause of the injury as being from the
street sweeper incident. Finding a lack of credible evidence to support that an
injury occurred, the deputy denied benefits.
Wilson filed an intra-agency appeal, in which the commissioner’s onepage decision stated:
Pursuant to Iowa Code sections 86.24 and 17A.15, I affirm
and adopt as final agency action those portions of the proposed
decision in this matter that relate to issues properly raised on intraagency appeal.
Claimant shall pay the costs of the appeal, including the
preparation of the hearing transcript.
Wilson then filed a petition for judicial review, after which the district court
determined the final agency decision and record were adequate for purposes of
judicial review and the agency’s denial of benefits was supported by substantial
evidence. Wilson appeals.
II. Scope and Standards of Review.
Our review of an industrial commissioner’s decision is for correction of
errors at law. Simonson v. Snap-On Tools Corp., 588 N.W.2d 430, 434 (Iowa
1999). In exercising its judicial review power of a final agency decision, the
district court acts in an appellate capacity to correct any errors of law by the
agency. Iowa Ag Const. Co., Inc. v. Iowa State Bd. of Tax Review, 723 N.W.2d
167, 172 (Iowa 2006). When we review the district court’s decision, “we apply
the standards of chapter 17A to determine whether the conclusions we reach are
the same as those of the district court.” Mycogen Seeds v. Sands, 686 N.W.2d
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457, 464 (Iowa 2004). “If they are the same, we affirm; otherwise we reverse.”
Id. The district court may reverse or modify an agency’s decision if the agency’s
decision is erroneous under a ground specified in the Iowa Administrative
Procedures Act, and a party’s substantial rights have been prejudiced. Iowa
Code § 17A.19(10) (2003).
The reviewing court can only grant the petitioner’s relief from the
commissioner’s decision if a determination of fact by the commissioner “is not
supported by substantial evidence in the record before the court when that record
is viewed as a whole.” Id. § 17A.19(10)(f). This requires that the entirety of the
record, including supporting and detracting relevant evidence, as well as
credibility assessments, be sufficient to allow a reasonable and neutral person to
reach the same conclusion as the agency.
Id.
Evidence is substantial for
purposes of reviewing the decision of an administrative agency when a
reasonable person could accept it as adequate to reach the same finding.
Asmus v. Waterloo Cmty. Sch. Dist., 722 N.W.2d. 653, 657 (Iowa 2006). Just
because the interpretation of the evidence is open to a fair difference of opinion
does not mean the commissioner’s decision is not supported by substantial
evidence. Arndt v. City of Le Claire, 728 N.W.2d 389, 393 (Iowa 2007). An
appellate court should not consider evidence insubstantial merely because the
court may draw different conclusions from the record. Fischer v. City of Sioux
City, 695 N.W.2d 31, 33-34 (Iowa 2005).
III. Adequacy of Record for Judicial Review.
Wilson argues that the record of the final agency decision is inadequate to
allow for proper judicial review, in light of the commissioner’s one-page
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affirmance and adoption of the deputy’s proposed findings and decision, and fails
to comport with Iowa Code section 17A.16(1):
A proposed or final decision shall include findings of fact and
conclusions of law, separately stated. Findings of fact, if set forth in
statutory language, shall be accompanied by a concise and explicit
statement of underlying facts supporting the findings . . . . Each
conclusion of law shall be supported by cited authority or by a
reasoned opinion.
Id.
Wilson’s argument does not comport with Iowa law, however, in which our
supreme court has held that a one-paragraph, wholesale affirmance and
adoption of the deputy’s proposed decision complies with the mandates of
section 17A.16(1):
We have refrained, however, from reading “unnecessary and
burdensome” requirements into the statute. Thus we have held the
commissioner need not discuss every evidentiary fact and the basis
for its acceptance or rejection so long as the commissioner’s
analytical process can be followed on appeal. So also have we
held the commissioner’s duty to furnish a reasoned opinion
satisfied if “it is possible to work backward . . . and to deduce what
must have been [the agency’s] legal conclusions and [its] findings
of fact.”
We believe the standards have been easily met by the agency
here. No purpose would be served by requiring the commissioner
to duplicate the deputy’s effort. We do not read the statute to
require it. When the commissioner’s affirmance rests on review
yielding identical factual findings, and the commissioner’s legal
analysis mirrors that described by the deputy, no further recitals are
necessary to satisfy section 17A.16(1) for purpose of judicial
review. To read into the statute the necessity of a full opinion, as
required by the district court here, exalts form over substance.
Bridgestone/Firestone v. Accordino, 561 N.W.2d 60, 62 (Iowa 1997) (citations
omitted). The deputy’s proposed findings and ruling in this case was a detailed
and well-reasoned six-page decision. We conclude, therefore, the district court
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correctly determined that the agency’s findings of fact and record are adequate
for judicial review and affirm on this issue.
IV. The Injury.
Wilson next contends that the district court erroneously upheld the
agency’s finding that his alleged injury was not work-related. To receive workers’
compensation benefits, a claimant must show by a preponderance of the
evidence that an injury arose out of and in the course of employment. Iowa Code
§ 85.3 (2003); St. Luke’s Hosp. v. Gray, 604 N.W.2d 646, 652 (Iowa 2000). The
words “arising out of” refer to the “causal relationship between the employment
and the injury.” Id. The words “in the course of” refer to the time, place and
circumstances of the injury. McClure v. Union County, 188 N.W.2d 283, 287
(Iowa 1971).
Wilson argues that the deputy commissioner ignored the medical evidence
demonstrating a causal connection between his back and right leg pain and the
street sweeper incident in January 2003. However, his first burden is to prove an
injury even occurred. The deputy commissioner “expressly found that this record
does not support [Wilson’s] allegation that he received an injury that arose out of
and in the course of his employment on or about January 28, 2003, when he hit a
pothole while driving a street sweeper.” Wilson claimed at the hearing that he
notified his supervisor, Bill Padgett, at the time of the alleged incident. Cathy
McKee, a risk manager for DMPS, testified that she inquired of Padgett in June
2003 whether Wilson reported an injury from running the street sweeper, and
Padgett denied recalling such an incident.
Padgett was terminated from his
employment with DMPS in August 2003 after an internal audit determined his
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improper use of a DMPS credit card. Padgett later signed an affidavit stating that
Wilson did report an injury incident in January or February 2003 caused by
operating the street sweeper: “[M]y recollection is that I told him at that time to fill
out an accident form. It is my understanding that a report was never completed, I
do not know why that did not occur.” Padgett did not testify on Wilson’s behalf
before the agency.
Wilson also presented an affidavit and testimony from his co-worker Mike
Still. The deputy discounted Still’s testimony because he was social friends with
Wilson and his retelling of the details of the alleged incident, to which he was not
a witness, was strikingly similar to Wilson’s account.
Still also claimed that
another co-worker was aware of the incident and had even retrieved Wilson from
the street sweeper and brought him back to the garage. This co-worker did not
testify or submit an affidavit. Finally, Wilson testified in very close detail as to the
alleged injury he suffered. Wilson claimed that, although he reported the incident
to Padgett just after it happened, he purposely failed to inform his doctors of the
incident because he feared being taken off work and having his employment
jeopardized. The deputy found this explanation questionable, due to Wilson’s
favorable outcome of a work-related injury claim in 2000. He also found the
detail of Wilson’s descriptions of the incident more than two years later had
increased suspiciously from his “skeletal description” of reports from the summer
of 2003. The fact that Wilson did not mention a work injury to his physicians for
approximately six months, and then only after Dr. Boulton suggested elective
surgery, also detracted from his credibility. The deputy found both Wilson and
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Still’s testimony overall suspect because of “their observed body language, facial
expressions, and speech cadences.”
Contrary to Wilson’s objections, it is not our task to reevaluate the
credibility of the witnesses. See Tim O’Neill Chevrolet, Inc. v. Forristall, 551
N.W.2d 611, 614 (Iowa 1996) (stating under a substantial evidence review it is
not the task of the reviewing court “to weigh the evidence or the credibility of the
witnesses”). It is the agency’s duty as the trier of fact to determine the credibility
of the witnesses, weigh the evidence, and decide the facts in issue. Arndt, 728
N.W.2d at 394-95.
The reviewing court only determines whether substantial
evidence supports a finding “according to those witnesses whom the
[commissioner] believed.” Id. (citation omitted). Based upon the portions of the
record which the deputy deemed credible, there is no evidence that Wilson was
injured as he claimed to be in January 2003 in the course of his employment with
DMPS. All of Wilson’s medical treatment was given on his belated self-reporting
of an unwitnessed, alleged injury and resulting symptoms.
Once Wilson’s
credibility was severely discounted by the deputy, it was unnecessary to consider
the medical testimony because Wilson failed to prove he sustained a workrelated injury. We conclude, as the district court did, that substantial evidence
supports the agency’s determination that an injury did not occur that arose out of
and in the course of Wilson’s employment with DMPS. 1
AFFIRMED.
1
Because of this result, we need not address the remaining issues raised by Wilson on
appeal.
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