Summary 2010 WY 128

Summary of Decision issued September 22, 2010

Summaries are prepared by Law Librarians and are not official statements of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Case Name: Ball v. State, ex rel., Wyo. Workers’ Safety & Comp. Div.

Citation: 2010 WY 128

Docket Number: S-09-0165

Appeal from the District Court of Laramie County, the Honorable Edward L. Grant, Judge.

Representing Ball: George Santini of Ross, Ross & Santini, LLC, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Representing State: Bruce A. Salzburg, Attorney General; John W. Renneisen, Deputy Attorney General; James M. Causey, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Cara Boyle Chambers, Assistant Attorney General.

Facts/Discussion: Ball appealed the district court decision reversing an OAH order awarding benefits for medical treatments Ball received for a hernia. Ball suffered the hernia when a spinal cord stimulator, implanted to treat chronic back pain form an earlier compensable work-related injury, malfunctioned and shocked him causing him to stand rapidly and then fall.

Second compensable injury rule: The Division contended the second compensable injury rule is a common law remedy that conflicts with the hernia statute and thus cannot be applied to a hernia injury. The Court disagreed. Under the second compensable injury rule, a subsequent injury or condition is compensable if it is causally linked to the initial compensable injury. It is a causation analysis and not a court-created benefit or remedy.
Hernia statute: The hernia statute unambiguously requires an employee’s injury to satisfy all criteria in the statute to be compensable. The statute does not create any exceptions to its application, and the Court would have to read terms into the statute to create an exception for hernias that are second compensable injuries. The present dispute is centered on the meaning of the phrase: “in the course of employment” as it is used in the third element of the hernia statute. Ball contended that the phrase meant a hernia is compensable if it is found to be causally related to the employee’s original work injury, assuming all of the other elements of the statute are met. The Division contended that the phrase meant the hernia must have been the original injury and must have occurred in the workplace to be compensable. The Court found Ball’s position to be the more persuasive as it is in keeping with the plain language and context of the hernia statute as well as the legislative intent. The Division’s proposed bright line rule, that a hernia must occur in the workplace and be the original work injury, disregarded the merits of an actual causal relationship between a hernia injury and the employee’s work and thus achieved a result opposite of that intended by the legislature.
Quasi-employment doctrine: The hearing examiner did not rely on the quasi-employment doctrine in finding a causal connection between Ball’s original work injury and his hernia. There was therefore, no error related to that doctrine.

Conclusion: The hearing examiner’s finding that the authorized medical treatment for Ball’s original work injury caused his subsequent hernia is uncontested, and the district court erred in holding that benefits were barred on the ground that the second compensable injury rule could not be applied.

Reversed and remanded.

J. Golden delivered the decision.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/2ft9mf2 .

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