Soileau v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

260 So. 3d 688
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 6, 2018
Docket18-284
StatusPublished

This text of 260 So. 3d 688 (Soileau v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Soileau v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 260 So. 3d 688 (La. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinions

PICKETT, Judge.

A workers' compensation claimant appeals a judgment that allows her employer to require her to use a pharmacy it owns and operates for all of her prescription needs. For the following reasons, we reverse the judgment.

FACTS

In June 2008, Elizabeth Soileau was injured in the course and scope of her employment with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. In September 2016, Ms. Soileau obtained a judgment against Wal-Mart ordering that she "is entitled to prescriptions of Hydrocodone, Lyrica, Celebrex, and Voltaren gel." The following June, the supreme court decided Burgess v. Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans , 16-2267 (La. 6/29/17), 225 So.3d 1020, in which it held that Louisiana workers' compensation laws do not allow an employee to choose the pharmacy she wants to use for her prescription needs. Two months later, Wal-Mart notified Ms. Soileau that she could no longer use the pharmacy she was using for her prescriptions and that she could only use "a Wal-Mart or Sam's Club Pharmacy" for her future prescriptions needs.

After Wal-Mart failed to fill two of the prescriptions that are the subject of the September 2016 judgment, Ms. Soileau filed a motion seeking to compel Wal-Mart to designate a pharmacy other than Wal-Mart or Sam's Club for her prescriptions. She acknowledged in her motion that the *690Burgess decision authorized Wal-Mart to require her to use a specific pharmacy but argued that Wal-Mart's requirement that she use only pharmacies it owns and operates exceeds the scope of Burgess for a number of reasons, e.g., it created a conflict of interest for pharmacy personnel between its employer and her.

Wal-Mart opposed Ms. Soileau's motion, arguing that Burgess does not restrict an employer's authority to designate a pharmacy, that any problems Ms. Soileau experiences with Wal-Mart or Sam's Club pharmacy services can be addressed under La.R.S. 23:1201(E), and that she previously used its pharmacy for her prescription needs. For reasons urged by Wal-Mart, the workers' compensation judge (WCJ) denied Ms. Soileau's motion.

Ms. Soileau filed a writ application with this court, seeking reversal of the WCJ's judgment. This court denied the writ application, finding the judgment "addresse[d] the merits of the only remaining matters" pending before the workers' compensation court and instructed Ms. Soileau to comply with the rules applicable to appeals. Ms. Soileau then appealed the WCJ's judgment.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR

In her sole assignment of error, Ms. Soileau urges that "[t]he [WCJ] erred in expanding the application of Burgess v. Sewerage & Water [Board] of New Orleans , 16-2267 (La. 6/29/2017), 225 So.3d 1020, to allow an employer to force its employee in a workers' compensation case to receive pharmaceutical treatment at its own facility."

DISCUSSION

Is a Claim at Issue?

Wal-Mart argues that Ms. Soileau does not present a claim that needs to be decided. This argument is based on the fact that she testified at trial that two prescriptions she sought to have filled at Wal-Mart's pharmacy were not filled; however, she does not seek an order that the prescriptions be filled and that she be awarded penalties and attorney fees.

In Abbott v. Parker , 259 La. 279, 308, 249 So.2d 908, 918 (1971), the supreme court explained that a justiciable controversy exists, when "an existing actual and substantial dispute, as distinguished from one that is merely hypothetical or abstract, and a dispute which involves the legal relation of the parties who have real adverse interests." Ms. Soileau presents an actual dispute-whether Wal-Mart has the right to require that she obtain her prescriptions from its pharmacy, and she seeks relief in the form of a judgment ordering Wal-Mart to designate a pharmacy other than one that it owns to handle her prescription needs. Therefore, her claim presents a justiciable issue.

Conflict of Interest

In Burgess , the supreme court determined that the legislature granted workers' compensation claimants the right to choose their treating physician, La.R.S. 23:1121(B), but not the right to choose their pharmacy. The court considered the split among the appellate courts on this issue and adopted the reasoning set forth by this court in Sigler v. Rand , 04-1138 (La.App. 3 Cir. 12/29/04), 896 So.2d 189. Distinguishing a claimant's right to choose her physician from the right to choose her pharmacy, the supreme court observed:

Reliance on jurisprudence concerning choice of physician is misguided. Unlike La. R.S. 23:1121(B) governing choice of physician, the legislature has not afforded the employee an absolute right to select a pharmacy under La. R.S. 23:1203(A) . This distinction is logical considering the importance of the doctor-patient *691relationship. Unlike a patient's personal relationship with his doctor, there is no meaningful difference relative to which pharmacy is used to dispense a prescription drug that would mandate employee choice under the LWCA.

Burgess , 225 So.3d at 1027 (emphasis added). The court further observed that regardless of what pharmacy the employee used, the medication was whatever her physician ordered.

In reaching this conclusion, the supreme court examined the following directives outlined by the legislature as to how workers' compensation laws are to be construed:

(1) The provisions of this Chapter are based on the mutual renunciation of legal rights and defenses by employers and employees alike; therefore, it is the specific intent of the legislature that workers' compensation cases shall be decided on their merits.
(2) Disputes concerning the facts in workers' compensation cases shall not be given a broad, liberal construction in favor of either employees or employers; the laws pertaining to workers' compensation shall be construed in accordance with the basic principles of statutory construction and not in favor of either employer or employee .
3) According to Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of Louisiana, the legislative powers of the state are vested solely in the legislature; therefore, when the workers' compensation statutes of this state are to be amended, the legislature acknowledges its responsibility to do so.

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Related

Sigler v. Rand
896 So. 2d 189 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2004)
Abbott v. Parker
249 So. 2d 908 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1971)
Darvel Burgess v. Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans
225 So. 3d 1020 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 2017)
Fru-Con Construction Corp. v. Moore
81 So. 3d 202 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
260 So. 3d 688, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/soileau-v-wal-mart-stores-inc-lactapp-2018.