JEFFREY MOLANDS, Administrator, THE ESTATE OF MARSHA MOLANDS v. ACCESS PROGRAM

2025 TN WC 66
CourtTennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims
DecidedOctober 15, 2025
Docket2017-04-0093
StatusPublished

This text of 2025 TN WC 66 (JEFFREY MOLANDS, Administrator, THE ESTATE OF MARSHA MOLANDS v. ACCESS PROGRAM) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
JEFFREY MOLANDS, Administrator, THE ESTATE OF MARSHA MOLANDS v. ACCESS PROGRAM, 2025 TN WC 66 (Tenn. Super. Ct. 2025).

Opinion

FILED Oct 15, 2025 01:22 PM(CT) TENNESSEE COURT OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION CLAIMS

TENNESSEE BUREAU OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION IN THE COURT OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION CLAIMS AT COOKEVILLE

JEFFREY MOLANDS, ) Docket No. 2017-04-0093 Administrator, THE ESTATE OF ) MARSHA MOLANDS, ) Employee, ) v. ) State File No. 13763-2017 ACCESS PROGRAM, ) Employer, ) And ) BRIDGEFIELD CAS. INS. CO., ) Judge Robert Durham Insurer. )

COMPENSATION ORDER GRANTING BENEFITS

The Court held a Compensation Hearing on September 21, 2025, to determine a threshold issue: whether Ms. Molands’s death arose primarily out of her 2017 work injury. If so, the remaining issues are the amount Mr. Molands may be entitled as Ms. Molands’s sole dependent; whether the benefits should be paid in a lump sum; and whether Access must pay additional temporary total disability and medical expenses related to her post- surgical infections. 1

The Court holds that Mr. Molands is entitled to death benefits, to be paid in installments, and reimbursement for medical and funeral expenses. However, Mr. Molands did not prove entitlement to additional temporary disability benefits.

1 Although the Petition for Benefit Determination was not amended to include Jeffrey Molands as Ms. Molands’s dependent after Mr. Molands filed a suggestion of death, the issue was fully litigated through the presentation of evidence, the parties’ stipulations, the parties’ pre-trial briefs, and argument. Given these circumstances, and that no one objected, the Court holds that the issue was “tried by express or implied consent of the parties” and thus, the issue “shall be treated in all respects as if [it] had been raised in the pleadings.” Tenn. R. Civ. P. 15.02 (2024). 1 History of Claim

Ms. Molands worked as a home health nurse for Access. On February 24, 2017, she suffered low-back and left-shoulder injuries while attempting to remove a patient from a lift. Access accepted Ms. Molands’s claim and authorized Dr. Edward Mackey to treat her back. The parties agreed that Dr. Mackey’s treatment over the next several years was reasonable and necessary.

Except for a few weeks of light duty with Access, Ms. Molands never worked again. Instead, she received social security disability benefits from October 31, 2017, 2

when Access terminated her employment, until her death in 2024.

In early 2018, Dr. Mackey recommended a L4-5 laminectomy, but utilization review repeatedly denied it. Dr. Mackey did not perform surgery until July 2019, at which time Access reinstated temporary total disability benefits. Despite the surgery, Ms. Molands continued to experience symptoms, including a worsening right-foot drop.

Dr. Mackey continued to treat Ms. Molands and placed her at maximum medical improvement on August 6, 2020. He assigned a 14% impairment and permanent restrictions. Access discontinued temporary total disability benefits at that time.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, Ms. Molands complained of worsening back pain and a recurrence of right-leg pain and weakness. Dr. Mackey recommended an L4-5 fusion, but it was not performed until July 19, 2023. At that time, Access reinstated temporary total disability benefits.

Ms. Molands developed a wound infection after surgery. Treatment for complications from persistent sepsis led to multiple hospitalizations and long-term care in skilled nursing facilities. Ms. Molands passed away in a nursing home on April 8, 2024. Access paid temporary total disability benefits until her death.

The parties deposed Dr. Mackey and questioned Ms. Molands’s date of maximum medical improvement and her ability to work. He testified that when he saw her on May 7, 2020, he did not believe she could return to work and neither did she. He also thought it “reasonable to give her additional temporary total disability benefits” due to her inability to work between the date he placed her at maximum medical improvement on August 6, 2020, and her July 2023 surgery.

However, when asked if he “prematurely” placed Ms. Molands at maximum medical improvement in 2020, he responded:

2 The parties provided evidence about Access’s termination of Ms. Molands’s employment. Given that Mr. Molands only sought temporary total disability benefits, the Court will not summarize it. 2 A: I don’t know. Prematurely? It was, you know, a shared decision between her and myself. Obviously, in hindsight, we would have, given her worsening symptoms, go back and revisit that. And I don’t know how that works in terms of work comp law.

Q: Is it your opinion that she would be doing [sic] additional temporary total disability benefits August 11, 2020 through July 18, 2023?

...

A: Again, I would – I would defer to the work comp law on that. But yes, once I’ve decided she need [sic] another surgery, if it’s appropriate, then she would need TTD benefits.

Dr. Mackey completed a physician certification form in April 2024 and again listed Ms. Molands’s maximum medical improvement date as August 6, 2020.

The parties also asked Dr. Mackey about the cause of Ms. Molands’s death at the deposition. He deferred on the cause but said that the MRSA infection had “resolved” when she left the hospital just before her death.

On causation, Mr. Molands introduced the deposition of James Wojcik, M.D., medical examiner, who prepared Ms. Molands’s death certificate. Dr. Wojcik attributed her death to the circumstances that led to her first back surgery, and he listed that on the death certificate as an “accident at work” in February 2017.

He further explained that he wrote on the death certificate that Ms. Molands died of cardiorespiratory arrest because “everybody that eventually dies, eventually dies of cardiorespiratory arrest.” But he then also listed other causes, such as a laminectomy and fusion, that caused her to suffer infections that “actually led to her cardiorespiratory arrest.”

Dr. Wojcik noted that when the hospital discharged Ms. Molands in March 2024, she still had a spinal abscess and sacral osteomyelitis. He said an abscess must be drained before antibiotics can cure the infection because the antibiotics cannot penetrate the abscess cavity. In addition, osteomyelitis, or bone infection, must be cut out of the bone— antibiotics can “almost never” cure it. Thus, he concluded that “it’s probably 90% or greater probability that this infection that she had – and she had multiple sources – eventually, she succumbed to that. She just got to the point that the infection overwhelmed her body.”

On cross-examination, Dr. Wojcik admitted he is not an infectious disease specialist. He said his staff completed much of the death certificate from information

3 gathered from Mr. Molands. He did not talk with anyone before completing the certificate, and he based his opinion as to the cause of death from the hospital’s March discharge summary. He also did not do an autopsy or order toxicology tests because he felt they were unnecessary.

Further, Dr. Wojcik said it was always possible that Ms. Molands died from another cause, but “probably not,” and it was “less likely” than that she succumbed to her infection. Dr. Wojcik described this process as a “death spiral,” where the body eventually becomes overwhelmed by infection and the heart stops. He concluded that even if something other than heart failure caused Ms. Molands’s death, it originated with complications from her post-surgical infection, which was “greater than 50% for sure” the cause of her death.

In addition to medical proof, Mr. Molands testified about his wife’s limitations before she passed away. He said that after losing her job, Ms. Molands never recovered the capacity to work, even before her second surgery. Her physical activities were limited to rising from bed, sitting a while, and then returning to bed.

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2025 TN WC 66, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jeffrey-molands-administrator-the-estate-of-marsha-molands-v-access-tennworkcompcl-2025.