Pavia v. Smitty's Supermarket

366 S.W.3d 542, 2012 WL 525461, 2012 Mo. App. LEXIS 187
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 17, 2012
DocketNo. SD 31275
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 366 S.W.3d 542 (Pavia v. Smitty's Supermarket) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pavia v. Smitty's Supermarket, 366 S.W.3d 542, 2012 WL 525461, 2012 Mo. App. LEXIS 187 (Mo. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

GARY W. LYNCH, Judge.

Smitty’s Supermarket (“Employer”) appeals the decision of the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (“Commission”) dismissing Employer’s motion for a determination of a change in condition. Employer contends that the Commission erred as a matter of law in that it improperly interpreted section 287.4701 by failing to strictly construe it as required by section 287.800, RSMo Cum.Supp.2005, and [544]*544by arbitrarily disregarding competent and substantial evidence proffered by Employer’s medical expert. Finding no merit in Employer’s contentions, we affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background2

Patrick Pavia (“Claimant”) suffered physical injuries at the age of seventeen while working for Employer at its facility in Waynesville, Missouri, on February 26, 1996. At that time, he was working as a bagger and was attempting to reach packages of Kleenex that were stacked in the warehouse area of the grocery store. Claimant stood on a wooden pallet and a fellow employee, an assistant manager, lifted the pallet into the ah' with a forklift. After reaching a height of approximately 15 to 20 feet, Claimant fell off the pallet and onto the floor of the warehouse, where he remained unconscious and unresponsive.

After receiving emergency treatment at a local hospital, Claimant was flown to University Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, where he was diagnosed as having a severe closed head injury, subdural he-matoma, subarachnoid hemorrhaging, and a cervical spine fracture. A halo placement surgical operation was performed for treatment of his cervical fracture. Claimant remained at the hospital until February 29, 1996, when he was transferred from the neurosurgery intensive care unit to the traumatic brain injury program at Rusk Rehabilitation Center. Claimant remained at Rusk Rehabilitation Center until March 22, 1996. He was then enrolled in the Bridge Outpatient Program through the University Hospital and received full-team rehabilitation, occupational therapy consultation, speech and language pathology consultation, social services consultation, physical therapy, therapeutic recreation, rehabilitation nursing, and ophthalmology consultation from April 1, 1996, through May 24, 1996. The Bridge Outpatient Program discharge notes indicated that Claimant continued to display cognitive dysfunction, including distractibility and inattention. Claimant also continued to have difficulty with reading comprehension and mathematic skills. Claimant’s care team recommended that he be scheduled for a full battery of neuropsychological testing in the future.

Claimant filed for workers’ compensation benefits. Following a contested hearing, an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) found, inter alia, that Claimant “suffered a 20% Permanent Partial Disability of the body as a whole at the level of his neck resulting from the C-6 fracture, and a 50% Permanent Partial Disability of the body as a whole referable to [Claimant’s] traumatic brain injury” and determined that he was 70% permanently disabled. Additionally, the ALJ found that Employer’s assistant manager had failed to utilize an available safety cage when elevating Claimant with the forklift and that Employer had not posted notice warning of the dangers of elevating an employee on a forklift without using the safety cage. Accordingly, the ALJ determined that Employer should be assessed a 15% penalty to be added to Claimant’s permanent partial disability award for failure to comply with the safety provisions of section 292.020. Following the ALJ’s decision, Employer filed its application for review before the Commission.

In its Order issued November 6, 2002, the Commission modified the ALJ’s decision. It determined that Claimant was [545]*545permanently and totally disabled and awarded him weekly benefits in the amount of $460.00 per week for life, inclusive of the 15% penalty awarded pursuant to sections 292.020 and 287.120.4, together with additional monies representing the 15% penalty as applied to Claimant’s medical expenses and his temporary total disability payments. This Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Commission’s decision, finding that the Commission’s determinations that Claimant was permanently and totally disabled and that Employer violated the safety standards in section 292.020 were supported by substantial evidence, but finding error in the Commission’s calculation of Claimant’s rate of compensation. Pavia v. Smitty’s Supermarket, 118 S.W.3d 228 (Mo.App.2008). Claimant’s weekly benefits were ultimately reduced.

Sometime during the year after the accident, Claimant got a job at Sellers-Sexton, an automobile dealership in St. Robert. Claimant worked at Sellers-Sexton from 1997 to 1999, when he left to attend school in Springfield. He returned to Sellers-Sexton in 2000 and remained employed there until 2003. During his tenure at Sellers-Sexton, Claimant detailed vehicles for approximately three years, worked in customer service for approximately one year, and was a salesman for approximately one year. At the time of the first award, Claimant was also employed as a bellman at the Holiday Inn in Springfield. Part of his job involved occasionally picking up guests from the airport.

In 2003, Claimant left Sellers-Sexton and began working at the Family Golf Center, his family’s driving range and miniature golf business in Lebanon. He would pick up golf balls, cut grass, and sell golf balls to customers. He did not receive a paycheck. Claimant worked there until 2005 or 2006, when his parents divorced and sold the business.

Shortly thereafter, Claimant got a job with Harris Cabinets, where he worked for approximately two years and earned $9.00 per hour. Claimant was hired after meeting the owner at the Family Golf Center. Claimant’s initial job was a cabinet builder, wherein he constructed “the frames to the front of the cabinets.” This position involved completing “the same tasks over and over and over again[.]” He did not have much to do with the actual measurements. Claimant did spend approximately six months doing installation, but he had difficulty remembering measurements and sometimes put “the wrong piece in the wrong place.” He was ultimately let go from the company due to an economic downturn.

In January 2007, Employer filed with the commission a motion for determination of a change in condition pursuant to § 287.470. The cause was remanded to the Division of Workers’ Compensation for a hearing. The Commission denied Employer’s motion on July 13, 2009, due to Employer’s failure to timely present evidence of Claimant’s alleged change in condition.

Following a brief period of unemployment, in December 2008, Claimant was hired as a manager trainee at Enterprise Leasing in Lebanon. He had applied for the job through the Lebanon Career Center. Claimant was still employed at Enterprise as a manager trainee when, on April 9, 2010, Employer filed a second motion for a determination of a change in condition, pursuant to section 287.470. Employer alleged, inter alia, that it had evidence showing that Claimant’s cognitive condition had improved since the issuance of the original award. The Commission again ordered the cause remanded to the Division of Workers’ Compensation for a hearing, which took place September 20, [546]*5462010. At this time, Claimant was still employed as a manager trainee at Enterprise, even though the usual training period lasts only six months.

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Bluebook (online)
366 S.W.3d 542, 2012 WL 525461, 2012 Mo. App. LEXIS 187, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pavia-v-smittys-supermarket-moctapp-2012.