Court of Civil Appeals reverses PTD award for Scheduled Member Injury

On June 19, 2015, in Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v Stephen Dale Bush, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals reversed a judgment awarding the employee permanent total disability (PTD) entered by Judge Pat Ballard of Jefferson County. The employee suffered a right knee injury, which resulted in a torn medial and lateral meniscus. The injury was surgically treated by Dr. Edward Kissel. The Trial Court found that the employee would have dysfunction in the joints, muscles, lumbar vertebrae, and equilibrium as a result of the injury and awarded Permanent Total Disability.

The Court of Civil Appeals reversed, holding that nothing in the evidence submitted at trial established the pain or other symptoms form the knee injury extended to or interfered with the efficiency of other parts of the employee's body. The trial judge relied upon his own observations to support his finding of total disability when he stated the employee was "very careful, deliberate and unsteady in the manner in which he would ambulate around the courtroom" and the employee "would shift and carry his weight in such a manner that seemed to place additional strain on his lower back".

The Appellate Court rejected these finding by stating:

"In an appropriate case, it appears that a trial court could also use its own observations of an employee's gait and the overall condition of his or her body to verify the employee's testimony that the pain, swelling, instability, and sleeplessness resulting from an injured extremity affects his or her body as a whole. See Bell v. Driskill, 282 Ala. 640, 213 So. 2d 806 (1968), overruled on other grounds, Ex parte Drummond Co., supra; see also Ex parte Hayes, 70 So. 3d 1211 (Ala. 2011). However, we have not located any caselaw holding that a trial court may premise a finding of medical causation solely on its own observations of an employee without any further supporting evidence, much less make a finding disputed by the other evidence in the record."

The entire text of the opinion is available by clicking HERE.