Andre W. Williams, Sr. v. City of Richardson, Self Insured

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided August 31, 2021·No. 05-20-00085-CV·Published

Opinion

Affirmed and Opinion Filed August 31, 2021

In The

Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas No. 05-20-00085-CV

ANDRE W. WILLIAMS, SR., Appellant V.

CITY OF RICHARDSON, SELF INSURED, Appellee

On Appeal from the 192nd Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. DC-19-02050

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Before Justices Osborne, Pedersen, III, and Nowell Opinion by Justice Osborne This is a worker’s compensation case. After the Texas Department of

Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation (“Department”) ruled that appellant Andre W. Williams, Sr. “did not sustain a compensable injury on February 29, 2016,” and the Department’s Appeals Panel affirmed that ruling, Williams filed a petition for review in the trial court. The trial court rendered judgment for appellee City of Richardson, Williams’s employer, after a bench trial. In three issues, Williams challenges the trial court’s judgment. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

In his operative petition, Williams alleged he “sustained a compensable injury to the lower back” on February 29, 2016, “while performing duties with his employer, The City of Richardson.” He contended he informed his supervisor “that he was hurt, in pain and needed to go to his Doctor’s immediately.” He alleged that he then informed his supervisor that “he was out on Doctor’s request to rest his lower back and let the swelling go down.” He pleaded that he gave timely notice of his claim to the Department within a year of his injury.

Williams initiated his worker’s compensation claim by filing it in the Department in 2017. His claim proceeded to a contested case hearing before a Department administrative law judge in October 2018. The disputed issues presented for decision were:

1. Did the Claimant sustain a compensable injury on February 29, 2016? . . .

2. Is [the City] relieved from liability under Texas Labor Code Section 409.002 because of the Claimant’s failure to timely notify his Employer pursuant to Section 409.001?

3. Is [the City] relieved from liability under Texas Labor Code Section 409.004 because of Claimant’s failure to timely file a claim for compensation with the Division within one year of the claimed injury as required by Texas Labor Code Section 409.003?

After an evidentiary hearing, the Department ruled in favor of Williams on the third issue, but concluded that “Claimant did not sustain a compensable injury on February 29, 2016,” and that the City “is relieved from liability under Texas

Labor Code Section 409.002 because of Claimant’s failure to timely notify his Employer pursuant to Section 409.001.” The Department issued its “Decision and Order” with these rulings on October 25, 2018 (“Original Order”). The Original Order was signed by the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) who conducted the contested case hearing. It contained a “Discussion” section in which the ALJ noted:

• Williams’s testimony that he “sustained a specific event work injury on February 29, 2016 as a result of riding as a passenger in a front loader for a few hours, because he could not stretch out his legs” was “inconsistent with a lot of the evidence, including evidence coming from Claimant [Williams].”

• Williams’s medical records did not reflect that he had been injured at work on February 29, 2016. In particular, records from a lumbar MRI on the alleged date of injury showed “Bilateral leg numbness for three weeks. No acute injury,” and records from three visits to Dr. Gibbons for back pain in August and September 2016 contain Dr. Gibbons’s note that “Patient firmly states that his low back pain is not the product of a work-related injury.”

• “Claimant’s credibility was called into question” by certain documents he offered as evidence containing “obvious alterations,” including his termination notice from the City.

Williams sought review by the Department’s appeals panel. The appeals panel subsequently notified Williams that the Original Order had become final. See TEX. LAB. CODE § 410.204(c) (appeals panel decisions).

Williams then filed a petition for judicial review of the Department’s decision in the trial court. In his petition, Williams complained that the Original Order contained errors. In response, the City filed a “Motion to Correct Clerical Error and for Judgment Nunc Pro Tunc” in the Department, seeking correction of “six clerical

errors”—all dates—in the Original Order.1 The City filed a copy of this motion in the trial court. The Department signed an order granting the City’s motion on September 5, 2019, ruling that the original Decision and Order was effective October 25, 2018—the date of the Original Order—“as herein modified.” The City filed the Department’s “Order on Motion to Correct Clerical Errors” in the trial court on September 9, 2019, and the case proceeded to trial before the court on October 14, 2019.

Williams, representing himself, contended that he suffered a back injury on February 29, 2016, from “being forced to sit in an uncomfortable position for an extended period of time.” Jose Morino, the City’s human resources director, testified that Williams never reported a work-related injury to the City. He explained that the City learned of the claim after notification from the Department over a year later. Morino testified that Williams received a poor performance review immediately before he stopped coming to work in March 2016, and Williams’s employment was terminated in October 2016.

Williams and Morino were the only witnesses at trial. The relevant facts were vigorously contested, and each party alleged the other had submitted altered medical records and other documents to the Department or to the court.

1 In four places, the Original Order recited the date of the alleged injury as September 29, 2016, not February 29, 2016. In two places, the Original Order recited a date of March 22, 2016, rather than March 2, 2016, as the date when the City advised Williams “that he needed to significantly improve his job performance.” The City attached evidence admitted at the contested case hearing showing the correct dates.

The trial court rendered judgment for the City on October 21, 2019. On November 11, 2019, Williams filed a request for findings of fact and conclusions of law. The trial court responded by letter inviting the parties to submit proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. Neither party responded or filed a notice of past due findings and conclusions, and the trial court did not make any. Williams filed a motion for new trial that the trial court denied by order of December 19, 2018. This appeal followed.

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