Minnig, Katalin v. Walmart Associates, Inc.

2020 TN WC 25
CourtTennessee Court of Workers' Compensation Claims
DecidedFebruary 14, 2020
Docket2014-01-0015
StatusPublished

This text of 2020 TN WC 25 (Minnig, Katalin v. Walmart Associates, Inc.) 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
Minnig, Katalin v. Walmart Associates, Inc., 2020 TN WC 25 (Tenn. Super. Ct. 2020).

Opinion

FILED Feb 14, 2020 10:37 PM(ET) TENNESSEE COURT OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION CLAIMS

TENNESSEE BUREAU OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION IN THE COURT OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION CLAIMS AT CHATTANOOGA

Katalin Minnig, ) Docket No.: 2014-01-0015 Employee, ) v. ) Walmart Associates, Inc., ) State File No.: 74443-2014 Employer, ) and ) New Hampshire Ins. Co., ) Judge Thomas Wyatt Carrier. ) )

COMPENSATION ORDER GRANTING SUMMARY JUDGMENT

This case came before the Court on Walmart's Motion for Summary Judgment. Walmart argued it is entitled to summary judgment on Katalin Minnig's petition to set aside the Court's order approving the settlement of her back-injury claim. Ms. Minnig argued summary judgment is inappropriate because mental confusion from Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder {PTSD) affected her understanding that the settlement included her back claim. She also asserted that her former attorney and Walmart committed fraud by negotiating a settlement of her back claim against her instructions.

For the following reasons, the Court grants Walmart's motion and dismisses Ms. Minnig's claim.

History

Ms. Minnig brought three workers' compensation claims during her employment at Walmart. Two claims primarily involving her left wrist arose before the creation of the Court of Workers' Compensation Claims. 1 Thus, the Court does not have jurisdiction over them. The Court does have jurisdiction over the third claim, involving Ms. Minnig's back.

1 Ms. Minnig claimed that the latter of these claims also involved alleged feet and psychological injuries.

1 Ms. Minnig reached maximum medical improvement for her wrist injuries during the pendency of her back claim. Walmart initially accepted Ms. Minnig's back claim but later denied it after receiving a physician's opinion that the injury was not work-related. At or around this time, Ms. Minnig retained Attorney W. Holt Smith to represent her. The parties eventually scheduled a Benefit Review Conference for July 22, 2015.

Ms. Minnig and Mr. Smith disagree about the extent of Mr. Smith's representation at the time of the BRC. Ms. Minnig admitted into evidence Mr. Smith's letter to her dated July 6, 2015, which read, in part, "[a]ccording to your instructions, we will no longer represent you in the back injury case. I recommend that we proceed with the wrist injury case." 2 Mr. Smith testified by affidavit that, before the BRC, Ms. Minnig "had asked me to agree to represent her in all three (3) of her pending workers' compensation claims and I agreed."

Ms. Minnig, Mr. Smith, and Walmart's lawyer, Mary Elizabeth Maddox, attended the BRC on July 22, 2015. Ms~ Minnig asserted in her petition and an affidavit that she did not expect the BRC to include the back claim because she had not reached maximum medical improvement from that injury. However, Walmart made a offers to settle all of Ms. Minnig's claims. At the BRC, Ms. Minnig and Mr. Smith executed Mediated Settlement Agreements for an $18,000 settlement of the wrist claims and a $7,000 settlement of the back claim. All three settlements closed future medical benefits.

Six days later, Ms. Minnig Mr. Smith, and Ms. Maddox presented the three settlements for approval. 3 Ms. Minnig, Mr. Smith, and Ms. Maddox presented the Court separate, signed Settlement Agreements for each claim that set forth terms identical to those in the signed Mediated Settlement Agreements. The parties designated the back settlement "doubtful and disputed" because of the adverse causation opinion on which Walmart denied the claim.

The Settlement Agreement covering the back claim contained language that, by signing the agreement, Ms. Minnig acknowledged she had the opportunity to ask questions during the approval hearing; entered into the agreement voluntarily and with full knowledge of her rights and responsibilities; and knowingly waived her right to proceed to trial. The agreement also included language that Ms. Minnig's signature acknowledged that she received notification about ''the possibility or probability of later manifestations of injury, future medical expenses and additional lost time," and that she "voluntarily" agreed to resolve the claim "for all time."4 2 Walmart objected to the admission of the letter on hearsay groWlds. The Court overrules the objection because the letter is consistent with Mr. Smith's affidavit testimony, which Walmart submitted, and thus offered for reasons other than the truth of the matter asserted 3 The Wldersigned conducted the approval hearing. He considered the back settlement m1der his authority as a Workers' Compensation Judge and the wrist settlements Wlder his authority as a Specialist 4 for the Bureau. 4 The agreements Ms. Minnig signed on the wrist claims contained almost identical language. Ms. Minnig initialed questionnaires on the wrist claims acknowledging, among other matters, her Wlderstanding of the finality of the

2 The Court interviewed Ms. Minnig in person, in the presence of counsel, during the approval hearing. It informed her of her right to try her claims in court; that the settlements required her to waive all other claims, including future medical benefits; and that, if she prevailed at trial, the Court would award future medical benefits. The Court entered an order approving the back settlement after Ms. Minnig voiced understanding and agreement to the proposed settlement terms and the information the Court discussed with her.5

Following the approval hearing, Ms. Minnig received checks from Walmart totaling $25,000. She executed them and received the net proceeds after deduction of attorney's fees and expenses.

Four years passed before Ms. Minnig petitioned to set aside the settlement. She claimed she filed the petition less than a year after she read her settlement papers and "discovered" they included her back claim. She asked the Court to set aside the approval order because PTSD prevented her from competently participating in the approval hearing. She alleged that her PTSD made it difficult to think clearly while in the presence of male authority figures. She did not submit medical or psychiatric evidence supporting her PTSD-related allegations.

Ms. Minnig also alleged fraud as a basis for setting aside the approval order. She claimed that she never gave Mr. Smith authority to represent her in, or negotiate a settlement of, the back claim. She also asserted that the inclusion of settlement papers on her back claim at the approval hearing constituted fraud because she had no reason to expect that Mr. Smith would fail to follow her instruction against negotiating the back claim. She also alleged that she did not expect to address the back claim at the BRC and approval hearing because she believed an employee could not settle a claim before attaining maximum medical improvement for the underlying injury.

In support of summary judgment, Walmart relied on the affidavits of Attorneys Smith and Maddox to negate Ms. Minnig's alleged grounds for reopening her back claim. On the incapacity issue, both attorneys testified that they personally observed Ms. Minnig during the BRC and approval hearing and detected no indication of diminished mental capacity.6 In fact Mr. Smith testified, "I did not coerce, mislead or otherwise force or control Ms. Minnig's actions or decision." Walmart also submitted the sworn report of a physician who concluded, after performing a review of records, that Ms. Minnig did not

settlements and her waiver of the right to trial. 5 The Court followed the same procedure in approving the wrist settlements, except that, in the wrist settlements, it personally asked Ms. Minnig the questions on the questionnaires and obtained her initials after she answered the ~uestions . Ms.

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Bluebook (online)
2020 TN WC 25, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/minnig-katalin-v-walmart-associates-inc-tennworkcompcl-2020.