Genesco, Inc. v. Creamer

584 S.W.2d 191, 1979 Tenn. LEXIS 454
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedJune 25, 1979
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 584 S.W.2d 191 (Genesco, Inc. v. Creamer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Genesco, Inc. v. Creamer, 584 S.W.2d 191, 1979 Tenn. LEXIS 454 (Tenn. 1979).

Opinion

OPINION

HARBISON, Justice.

In this workmen’s compensation case the employer appeals from the Chancellor’s award of benefits to the employee for total and permanent disability. The trial record and supporting medical data are extensive. The principal issue at trial was whether or not a painful condition in the employee’s left foot was or was not causally related to her employment, within the coverage of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Little emphasis has been given by the parties to the fact that the only injury and the only disability established by evidence were to a scheduled member, the left foot, and not to the body as a whole.

After careful examination of the record, which contains highly conflicting medical proof, we are of the opinion that there was material evidence to support the finding of the trial judge that the injury sustained by the employee was work-related and that she is entitled to workmen’s compensation benefits. There is no evidence, however, lay or medical, to take this case out of the schedule contained in the statute, T.C.A. § 50-1007. Accordingly we vacate the award of total permanent disability and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

[192]*192Appellee had been employed in the appellant’s shoe factory in Hohenwald, Tennessee for some thirty-two years when she sustained an accidental injury to her left foot on January 12, 1977. She was then fifty-three years of age. Although she was illiterate, she had been a diligent and competent employee, having performed many different jobs in the plant over her long period of employment. For several years prior to the date of the accident, she had been working in the packing department. This work involved her pushing movable metal racks from place to place within her work area. Near the end of her shift on the date of the accident, January 12, 1977, she severely stubbed or wrenched her left foot while moving an empty rack. She immediately reported her injury to fellow employees.1 Appellee never returned to work following the accident. On the trial date in August 1978, she was able to walk only on crutches and had been in that condition for most of the time since her injury.

Appellant concedes that there was ample material evidence to support the finding of the trial judge that the employee did sustain a traumatic injury on the date claimed, but it insists that there is no evidence that there was any causal connection between that incident and a chronic painful condition in her foot of which she has continuously complained since the date of the accident. It is the contention of the employer that the employee’s left foot became painful because of pre-existing disease or illnesses from which appellee suffered, or that it was the result of a “mechanical problem” in the alignment of the bones in her foot, not related to her employment.

There was medical evidence which would have sustained a finding to that effect, had it been accepted by the trial judge. Appel-lee had been under the care of her family physician, Dr. Parker D. Elrod, since 1960. In the years between that time and the date of the accident, she had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and a mild case of diabetes, as well as other illnesses, any one of which might have been responsible for a painful condition in her foot. She had complained to this doctor of pain in her left foot as late as August 1976.

In November 1976 appellee had been treated by Dr. D. J. Favenesi, and he had performed surgery, removing a neuroma from the foot. Appellee had convalesced from this operation for a period of several weeks during the latter part of 1976 and early 1977. She had returned to work, however, on January 3, 1977 and had worked without pain, difficulty or symptom until she sustained the accidental injury on which the suit is predicated, about eight working days later.

Immediately after the injury, on January 13, 1977, appellee consulted Dr. John G. Shuttleworth. He testified that initially he was not given a history of a traumatic injury on the preceding day, but later testified that appellee did complain of pain of some twenty-four hours duration when he first saw her. He attempted extensive examination and treatment of her left foot, without success. It was his opinion that there was no causal relation or connection between the accident on January 12, 1977 and her subsequent chronic painful and disabling condition.

Because her foot continued to cause extreme pain on weight bearing during the spring and summer of 1977, appellee consulted Dr. Kenneth L. Moore, an orthopedic specialist, in September of that year. He also performed extensive examination and was still treating appellee when the case was tried. Although he did not see the employee for nearly nine months after the accident, it was his professional opinion that there was a causal connection between her injury at work and her subsequent disabling condition. He was cross-examined extensively, and counsel for appellant sought to discredit his testimony. Nevertheless the trial judge concluded that Dr. Moore’s testimony, taken in conjunction with the uncon-[193]*193tradicted lay evidence in the record, constituted material and substantial evidence to connect the employee’s disability with her injury on the job. We concur in that conclusion.

This Court, on appeal of workmen’s compensation cases, does not review the trial evidence de novo as in most non-jury cases under T.C.A. § 27-303. Rather, review is narrowly prescribed under an appeal in the nature of a writ of error, T.C.A. § 50-1018, and our examination of the record is confined to questions of law, including determination of whether there is any material or substantial evidence to support factual conclusions of the trial judge. This involves our evaluation of the entire record, and not just the record at the conclusion of the plaintiff’s evidence as insisted in appellant’s first assignment of error, which is overruled. Appellant’s second assignment of error, that there is no material evidence to support the compensation award is also overruled.

The third assignment of error made in this Court is that the award of total permanent disability was not justified by the evidence. This assignment is sustained, although on grounds somewhat different from those asserted by appellant. As stated previously, the issue of the degree and extent of disability was obscured in the development of medical proof and in the trial of this case, because of the employer’s strong insistence that there was no causal connection between the incident reported on January 12, 1977 and appellee’s chronically painful condition thereafter.

Both Dr. Moore and Dr. Shuttleworth were of the opinion that the painful condition of appellee’s left foot was permanent in nature. Dr. Moore testified that there was a chronic soreness in the foot, particularly on weight bearing, together with an osteoporosis, or loss of calcium in the bone, which is also painful. He felt that these two conditions were closely related to the point of being practically inseparable, and, as previously stated, expressed the opinion that they were the result of the employee’s accidental injury at work.

Only Dr.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
584 S.W.2d 191, 1979 Tenn. LEXIS 454, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/genesco-inc-v-creamer-tenn-1979.