Whirlpool Corp. v. Wilson

952 So. 2d 267, 2006 Miss. App. LEXIS 844, 2006 WL 3290717
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedNovember 14, 2006
Docket2005-WC-01366-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 952 So. 2d 267 (Whirlpool Corp. v. Wilson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whirlpool Corp. v. Wilson, 952 So. 2d 267, 2006 Miss. App. LEXIS 844, 2006 WL 3290717 (Mich. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

952 So.2d 267 (2006)

WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION, Appellant
v.
Mary J. WILSON, Appellee.

No. 2005-WC-01366-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

November 14, 2006.

*268 Kenneth Harold Coghlan, Oxford, attorney for appellant.

Keith Sanders Carlton, Corinth, attorney for appellee.

Before LEE, P.J., IRVING and ISHEE, JJ.

ISHEE, J., for the Court.

¶ 1. On July 20, 1999, Mary J. Wilson injured her lower back while inspecting a microwave for her employer, Whirlpool Corporation (Whirlpool). The Mississippi Workers' Compensation Commission (Commission) affirmed the decision of the administrative judge awarding permanent total disability benefits to Wilson on the grounds that Whirlpool failed to provide Wilson with suitable post-injury employment, and that Wilson reasonably but unsuccessfully attempted to find subsequent gainful employment. The Circuit Court of Lafayette County affirmed the Commission's decision. Aggrieved, Whirlpool appeals. Whirlpool asserts the following issues for this Court's review, which we list verbatim:

I. Whether Wilson proved that she had a permanent medical impairment.
II. Whether Wilson proved that she had a loss of wage-earning capacity as she failed to engage in any meaningful job search.

Finding no error, we affirm the decision of the circuit court.

FACTS

¶ 2. Wilson was a fifty-six-year-old resident of Thaxton, Mississippi at the time of the administrative judge's decision. She graduated from high school in 1965 and did not receive any further education or vocational training. Prior to her employment with Whirlpool, Wilson was occupied as a housewife and mother, until 1984, when she began work, at the age of thirty-eight, sewing garments at Riviera Shirt Company (Riviera). Wilson's work with Riviera lasted five years, and it occasionally required her to lift as much as twenty-five to thirty pounds.

¶ 3. Wilson began working for Whirlpool at the plant in Lafayette County in 1990. Initially, Wilson was assigned to numerous positions within Whirlpool. After working for Whirlpool for about one year, Wilson was assigned to an inspection/repair position. With the exception of several months following her injury, Wilson retained her inspection/repair position throughout the remainder of her employment with Whirlpool. According to Wilson, her duties in the inspector/repair position included standing for all ten hours of each work day, pushing and pulling microwave/oven combo units weighing as much as seventy to 100 pounds, and occasionally lifting microwave components weighing thirty to forty pounds.

¶ 4. On July 20, 1999, Wilson injured her lower back as she was pulling a microwave into her inspection area.[1] On May *269 22, 2000, Wilson filed a petition with the Commission, asserting that she received a compensable injury to her lower back. Whirlpool admitted that Wilson received a compensable injury, but denied that Wilson suffered a permanent disability or loss of wage-earning capacity. A hearing on the matter was held on April 2, 2003.

¶ 5. During the hearing, the deposition of Dr. Thomas L. Windham, Wilson's primary treating physician for her lower back injury, was admitted into evidence. Dr. Windham first examined Wilson on August 6, 1999, less than a month after her injury, and examined her on numerous occasions until June 27, 2000. Dr. Windham initially believed that Wilson suffered from a lumbar disc rupture, but after conducting a myelogram/CT scan, Dr. Windham concluded that Wilson suffered from something more like chronic back strain. Dr. Windham also testified during deposition that Wilson's disk protrusion was to the left, but she complained of leg pain on the right. Over the course of Dr. Windham's treatment of Wilson, he prescribed pain and nerve pills, as well as a series of epidural nerve block injections and a regimen of physical therapy. On October 4, 1999, Dr. Windham released Wilson to return to work at light duty only. When Wilson returned to Dr. Windham with ongoing complaints on November 2, 1999, Dr. Windham determined that her condition was unchanged. Consequently, he recommended that she undergo a functional capacity evaluation.

¶ 6. The functional capacity evaluation indicated that Wilson needed therapy, or "work hardening," in order to get back into her regular work. After a course of "work hardening" therapy, which brought about no improvement, Dr. Windham referred Wilson to Dr. Dowen Snyder for a second opinion. Dr. Snyder recommended that Wilson continue light duty work, if available, and that she adjust her lifestyle in order to deal with the pain. On February 22, 2000, Dr. Windham wrote a letter to the insurance case manager stating that Wilson reached maximum medical improvement on October 4, 1999, without an impairment rating or permanent work restrictions.

¶ 7. A second functional capacity evaluation was performed on June 21, 2000. The recommendations included aquatic physical therapy in order to decrease weight and increase functional abilities, as well as treatment for depression and a chronic pain program. The evaluation also concluded that Wilson was not able to return to her regular duties and that she was only able to lift at the sedentary range, i.e., lift while seated.

¶ 8. Wilson was also examined by Dr. Richard Sharp, a physical medicine specialist, on March 25, 2002. Dr. Sharp's report was also entered into evidence during the hearing. In the report, Dr. Sharp determined that Wilson had many pain syndromes and that additional injections might be helpful. Dr. Sharp also determined that, if Wilson declines further injections, she would be at maximum medical improvement. Dr. Sharp concluded that Wilson, due to the condition of her lower back, had a five percent whole person impairment. Nonetheless, the administrative judge determined that Dr. Sharp's examination of Wilson was "too far removed from Dr. Windham's last examination in June of 2000 for his opinions to be of any real probative value."

*270 ¶ 9. Wilson testified that, after her injury, she was provided with light duty work at Whirlpool, which primarily involved producing labels for products on a computer. Wilson further testified that she worked in this position for several months, until April of 2000, when her supervisors, Carol Pringle and O'Neal Warren, told her that they had received a letter from Dr. Windham stating that she had been released to work without restrictions. Consequently, Pringle and Warren told Wilson that she had to return to work on the assembly line, which had no light duty positions.

¶ 10. Wilson testified that, after the meeting with Pringle and Warren, she returned to Dr. Windham, as it was her understanding that she was to be restricted to light duty. On April 7, 2000, Dr. Windham gave Wilson a return-to-work slip, which restricted her to light duty. Wilson testified that she gave the slip to Whirlpool's workers' compensation supervisor, John Roberts, and that she discussed the light duty restriction with Pringle and Warren. According to Wilson, Pringle and Warren responded that, regarding the job on the assembly line, she could "either take it or leave it." Wilson then visited her family practitioner, Dr. William Spencer, who, on May 15, 2000, also provided her with a return-to-work slip restricting her to light duty. Wilson testified that she once again provided her supervisors with the documentation, and that they informed her that she could either go back to full duty on the assembly line or leave her employment.

¶ 11.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

City of Jackson v. Brown
235 So. 3d 190 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2017)
Leflore County Board of Supervisors v. Golden
169 So. 3d 882 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2014)
Herbert v. City of Horn Lake
138 So. 3d 943 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2013)
Johnson v. Sysco Food Services
122 So. 3d 159 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2013)
Flowers v. Crown Cork & Seal USA, Inc.
168 So. 3d 1009 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2013)
Smith v. Tippah Electric Power Ass'n
138 So. 3d 934 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2013)
Harrison County Board of Supervisors v. Black
127 So. 3d 272 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2013)
Moore's Feed Store, Inc. v. Hurd
100 So. 3d 1011 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2012)
Nicholson v. INTERNATIONAL PAPER CO., INC.
51 So. 3d 995 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2010)
Gill v. HARRAH'S ENTERTAINMENT, INC.
35 So. 3d 1227 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2010)
Goolsby Trucking Co., Inc. v. Alexander
982 So. 2d 1013 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2008)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
952 So. 2d 267, 2006 Miss. App. LEXIS 844, 2006 WL 3290717, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whirlpool-corp-v-wilson-missctapp-2006.