Summary
The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the denial of a widow’s application for payment of permanent partial disability compensation accrued before the claimant’s death. The court held that the commission doctor’s report could not support an award because it attributed the claimant’s total impairment to both the allowed occupational condition and nonallowed conditions, without assigning a percentage to the allowed condition alone. Because no other medical evidence supported the application, the commission did not abuse its discretion.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the Industrial Commission abused its discretion by denying the widow's application for payment of permanent partial disability compensation accrued at the time of Dazier's death.
- Whether the commission physician's report constituted some evidence supporting an award when it considered nonallowed conditions and did not allocate any percentage of impairment to the allowed COPD condition.
Holdings
- The physician's report could not support an award because its 100 percent impairment figure included nonallowed conditions and did not identify the percentage of impairment attributable to the allowed COPD condition.
- The widow was not entitled to a writ of mandamus because the commission did not abuse its discretion in denying the application where no competent medical evidence supported the claimed percentage of impairment.
Key quotations
“Contrary to the tenor of the widow-claimant’s brief, the chief impediment to compensation is not statutory, it is evidentiary.” (at 225)
“Consequently, the one-hundred-percent figure could not form the basis of an award, and there was no other percentage figure that could be used, because there was no other medical evidence.” (at 226)
Factual background
Dazier's workers' compensation claim was allowed only for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, after decades of dust exposure as a rock crusher. He applied for permanent partial disability, but submitted no medical evidence, and died before the Bureau's tentative award became effective. The commission relied on a physician's report assigning 100 percent impairment but considering COPD together with nonallowed ischemic heart disease and diabetes, without identifying the percentage attributable to COPD alone.
Procedural history
Paul F. Dazier applied for a determination of permanent partial disability but died before the Bureau of Workers' Compensation's tentative order became effective. His widow sought payment of compensation accrued at the time of death. The district hearing officer denied the application, the staff hearing officer affirmed, and the Franklin County Court of Appeals denied mandamus after finding that the medical evidence did not support an award. The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed.