Appeal of Newcomb

690 A.2d 562, 141 N.H. 664, 1997 N.H. LEXIS 18
CourtSupreme Court of New Hampshire
DecidedMarch 12, 1997
DocketNo. 95-608
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 690 A.2d 562 (Appeal of Newcomb) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Hampshire primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Appeal of Newcomb, 690 A.2d 562, 141 N.H. 664, 1997 N.H. LEXIS 18 (N.H. 1997).

Opinion

Johnson, J.

The petitioner, Jonathan Newcomb, appeals the decision of the New Hampshire Compensation Appeals Board (board) denying his claim for workers’ compensation. The board found that the petitioner was not entitled to receive compensation from his former employers, respondents Pizza Hut and Highwatch Neurorehabilitation Center (Highwatch), because he had failed to establish that he was currently disabled by an injury pursuant to RSA 281-A:2, XI (Supp. 1996). We affirm.

On June 20, 1992, the petitioner, then an employee of Pizza Hut in North Conway, injured his knee after slipping on a wet floor at the restaurant. He sought treatment in July 1992 for continued pain in his right knee and eventually received workers’ compensation benefits from Pizza Hut as a result of his injury. X rays taken shortly after his injury proved “unremarkable,” and a subsequent MRI taken in August 1992 showed only a “probable minor bone bruise.” The petitioner eventually underwent diagnostic arthroscopic surgery in September 1992, which revealed no significant abnormalities. At a follow-up visit to his orthopedic surgeon in November 1992, the petitioner reported that he felt “at least 95% better,” and was subsequently released to return to work on November 9, 1992. The petitioner never returned to Pizza Hut and instead began working at Highwatch in December 1992.

According to the petitioner, a few months after beginning his employment at Highwatch, he began to experience elevated levels of pain in his right knee. When he returned to his orthopedic surgeon in September 1993, he complained of “mild discomfort” in his right knee. Because his discomfort did not abate, the petitioner ceased working that month and has since consulted a number of specialists in an attempt to explain his discomfort. Eventually, Dr. Michael O’Connell, an anesthesiologist, diagnosed his ailment as reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD). Dr. O’Connell made his diagnosis by performing a lumbar sympathetic nerve block, which the petitioner alleges is the only diagnostic test available that detects RSD.

The board held a hearing to determine whether the petitioner was disabled as a result of his fall at Pizza Hut or experienced an aggravation of a preexisting knee condition because of his employment at Highwatch. The board denied the petitioner’s claim, ruling that:

[666]*666The preponderance of the evidence does not establish that either the fall at Pizza Hut or the performance of his duties at Highwatch are the legal and medical cause of the claimant’s currently disabling chronic right knee pain because the claimant has not established that he is currently disabled by an injury ....

The board’s ruling was based in part on a finding that:

No physician from New Hampshire’s North Country to Boston’s Lahey Clinic [has] found an objectively diseernable explanation for the claimant’s perceived symptoms. His X-rays, MRI and physical examinations all indicate that ... his right knee . . . [is] without disease, structural damage or any other abnormality. Two of claimant’s examining physicians have, therefore, by this process of exclusion, arrived at a diagnosis of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, which diagnosis is doubted by two others upon the ground of the absence of some diagnostic criteria they assert must be present for the RSD diagnosis to be properly made.

The petitioner’s motion for rehearing was denied, and this appeal followed.

On appeal, the petitioner argues that the board’s ruling that he had not met his burden to prove medical and legal causation constituted reversible error because it was against the weight of the evidence and was not based on competent medical evidence.

Our standard of review is well-settled. “We will overturn the board’s decision only for errors of law, or if we are satisfied by a clear preponderance of the evidence before us that the order is unjust or unreasonable.” Appeal of Kehoe, 141 N.H. 412, 415, 686 A.2d 749, 752 (1996). “Our task is not to determine whether we would have found differently than did the board, or to reweigh the evidence . . . .’’ Appeal of Lalime, 141 N.H. 534, 539, 687 A.2d 994, 999 (1996) (quotations omitted).

The petitioner first argues that the board erred in concluding that he had not met his evidentiary burden to establish medical and legal causation because “no competent contrary evidence was submitted by either [respondent] to diminish the weight of the evidence submitted by the [petitioner]:” “In workers’ compensation cases, a claimant has the burden of proving by competent evidence both the existence of a compensable accidental injury and the extent of his disability. The claimant must prove both medical and legal causation by a preponderance of the evidence.” Appeal of Briand, 138 N.H. [667]*667555, 557, 644 A.2d 47, 48 (1994) (quotations and citations omitted). Once the claimant has established a prima facie case, the burden of production shifts to the respondent. Lalime, 141 N.H. at 537, 687 A.2d at 997. “The burden of persuasion, [however], remains with the claimant . . . ” Id.

Medical causation requires a showing that the injured worker’s disability was actually caused by the work-related event. Appeal of Cote, 139 N.H. 575, 578-79, 660 A.2d 1090, 1093 (1995). Proof of legal causation, on the other hand, entails a demonstration that the injury is work-connected. Id. at 578, 660 A.2d at 1093. Here, the board’s holding that the claimant has not established that he is currently disabled goes to the question of medical causation; namely, whether a work-related activity has caused his perceived disability as a, matter of medical fact. See Appeal of Briggs, 138 N.H. 623, 629, 645 A.2d 655, 659 (1994). The board’s findings of fact are deemed to be prima facie reasonable, see RSA 541:13 (1974), and this presumption can only be overcome by a showing that there was no competent evidence from which the board could conclude as it did. See Appeal of Lambrou, 136 N.H. 18, 20, 609 A.2d 754, 755 (1992).

Therefore, the central inquiry in this case is whether there was competent medical evidence in the record supporting the board’s finding that the petitioner was not currently disabled due to a work-related injury, i.e., that he did not suffer from RSD. This question is best answered by medical experts, and as long as competent evidence supports the board’s decision, we will not reverse its determination even if other evidence would lead to a contrary result. Appeal of Commercial Union Ins. Co., 140 N.H. 429, 433, 666 A.2d 987, 990 (1995).

We find that the board’s ruling was supported by competent evidence in the record. Specifically, respondent Pizza Hut presented the medical report of Dr. John Welch who concluded, after examining the patient, that “the evidence for reflex sympathetic dystrophy is very slim if not non-existent in view of the lack of demonstrable autonomic findings in either leg.” Furthermore, Dr. Edward Tarlov, who evaluated the petitioner at the request of Dr.

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Bluebook (online)
690 A.2d 562, 141 N.H. 664, 1997 N.H. LEXIS 18, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/appeal-of-newcomb-nh-1997.