Ackley v. Labor Comm'n & Lowe's

1

2024 UT App 119

Lillian Ackley, Petitioner, v. Labor Commission and Lowe's, Respondents.

No. 20220966-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah

August 22, 2024

Original Proceeding in this Court

Stony V. Olsen and Michael Gary Belnap, Attorneys for Petitioner

Mark D. Dean and Kristy L. Bertelsen, Attorneys for Respondent Lowe's

Judge Michele M. Christiansen Forster authored this Opinion, in which Judges David N. Mortensen and Ryan M. Harris concurred.

OPINION

CHRISTIANSEN FORSTER, JUDGE

¶1 Lillian Ackley once again challenges the Utah Labor Commission's (the Commission) denial of her claim for workers' compensation benefits and asserts that the Commission erred in its application of the idiopathic fall doctrine to her workplace accident. On remand from this court, the Commission determined that the conditions of Ackley's employment at Lowe's did not increase her risk of being injured in a fall. We clarify our holding in our previous opinion and again set aside the Commission's decision with instructions for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

¶2 The facts supporting Ackley's claim for benefits have already been recounted in this court's decision in Ackley's first petition for judicial review. See Ackley v. Labor Comm'n, 2021 UT App 42, ¶¶ 2-6, 487 P.3d 882. We therefore repeat only those facts most pertinent to the issues raised in this current case.

¶3 In December 2014, Ackley fell to a concrete floor while she was working at Lowe's. See id. ¶ 2. Ackley had been in the process of labeling a hammer when it began to slip, and she "grasped it more tightly" with her right hand. Id. The act of exerting greater force on the hammer aggravated a ganglion cyst on Ackley's third finger of her right hand, causing it to burst. Id. The ruptured cyst caused Ackley extreme pain and loss of consciousness, leading Ackley to fall to the concrete floor. Id. Ackley suffered multiple serious injuries as a result of her workplace accident, including "a closed head injury, a torn rotator cuff in her right shoulder, a non-healing scalp lesion, hearing loss, and left-shoulder pain." Id. "Ackley had surgery to repair her torn rotator cuff, and the injury to her ear eventually prompted the need for a hearing aid. Doctors who evaluated Ackley agreed that the fall led to the injuries identified above." Id.

¶4 To pay for her injuries, Ackley filed a claim for benefits with the Commission, alleging that her work activities led to her injuries. Lowe's did not dispute that Ackley fell and was injured while at work but argued that Ackley's fall was caused by a preexisting condition, which rendered her injuries noncompensable. See id. ¶ 3.

¶5 Ackley's claim proceeded to a hearing before an administrative law judge (the ALJ). See id. ¶ 4. The ALJ "found that Ackley was injured when she gripped the hammer and experienced intense pain associated with irritation to the ganglion cyst, causing her to black out and fall," but determined that "Ackley bore the burden of demonstrating that her workplace activities both medically and legally caused the injuries for which she sought workers' compensation benefits." See id. "The ALJ concluded that although Ackley had shown medical causation, she failed to demonstrate legal causation because the exertion of gripping a hammer is 'both usual and ordinary' and 'comparable to the exertion associated with typical nonemployment activities'" and thus denied Ackley's claim for benefits. Id.

¶6 Ackley appealed this denial to the Commission, where she argued that "the ALJ erred in focusing only on the act of gripping the hammer as the cause of her injuries rather than the entirety of the accident," such as the presence of a concrete floor. See id. ¶ 5. "The Commission rejected Ackley's arguments and affirmed the ALJ's decision, stating that 'the absence of a legal causal connection between [Ackley's] employment and the intense right-hand pain she cited as the reason for losing consciousness and falling to the floor severs any causal connection between her work activity of gripping the hammer and her subsequent injuries from falling.'" Id. "The Commission also rejected the applicability of the idiopathic^[1] fall doctrine to Ackley's claim, noting that the doctrine requires a worker to fall 'because of strictly idiopathic factors rather than a pre-existing condition aggravated by a work activity.'" Id. (quoting 1 Lex K. Larson Larson's Workers' Compensation Law § 7.04[1][b] (2020) (explaining that an idiopathic fall is one caused by an employee's preexisting internal weakness or disease)).

¶7 Then, Ackley filed a motion for reconsideration before the Commission. Id. ¶ 6. Citing Tavey v. Industrial Commission, 150 P.2d 379 (1944), "the seminal Utah case for the idiopathic fall doctrine," Ackley "urged the Commission to reconsider its decision 'because Utah courts have stated that a fall, regardless of the cause of the fall, is an accident by itself.'" Ackley, 2021 UT App 42, ¶ 6. The Commission agreed that Ackley's fall was idiopathic in nature but went on to analyze Ackley's injury based on "whether it was caused by work-related exertion." Id. "Ultimately, the Commission determined that any increased risk of injury Ackley faced was because of her ganglion cyst and not because of any workplace requirement," and thus denied her motion for reconsideration. Id.

¶8 Ackley then sought judicial review of her claim by this court. This court determined that Ackley's fall was idiopathic and that the Commission incorrectly focused on the question of whether gripping the hammer was an unusual or extraordinary exertion. See id. ¶ 28. We recognized that the determination of whether employment conditions increased or aggravated an employee's risk of injury from a fall to level ground is factual and should be decided on a case-by-case basis. See id. We therefore set aside the Commission's denial of benefits and remanded the matter for the Commission to determine whether the work conditions at Lowe's placed Ackley at an increased risk of suffering injury from her fall. See id. ¶¶ 21, 25.

¶9 Following remand and further evidentiary hearing, the Commission once again denied Ackley workers' compensation benefits based on the presumption that "[g]enerally, idiopathic conditions . . . that manifest in the work setting are not compensable." Though it recognized that the inquiry before it was "whether the conditions of the floor and [Ackley's] surrounding work area contributed to the hazard of her fall and increased her risk of injury," the Commission determined that "the evidence in the record does not support the conclusion that [Ackley's] employment placed her in a position increasing the dangerous effects of her idiopathic fall." The Commission stated as follows:

If the court [of appeals] believes a fall similar to the one suffered by [Ackley] should be considered compensable due to the hardness of the floor and what the court perceives as similar effects between striking one's head against a concrete floor and against a comparably hard object such as a metal cabinet or shelf, it is the court's prerogative and its place to clearly implement such a standard. It is also possible that the court-as suggested by [Ackley]- determines that the mere presence of increased risk is sufficient to causally connect her idiopathic fall to her employment even if she does not come in contact with the hazards that pose the increased risk. The Commission does not read the court's order of remand as clearly implementing either one of those scenarios, however.

(Emphasis added.)

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶10 Ackley seeks judicial review of the Commission's latest decision denying her claim for workers' compensation benefits. On review, we consider again whether the Commission erred when it denied Ackley's claim for benefits related to her injuries resulting from an idiopathic fall at her workplace. In this context, we review the legal determinations of the Commission under a correction-of-error standard. "In the context of a legal-cause analysis in fall cases, the legal effect of a given set of facts depends on whether the injury was caused by an employee's employment and employs an objective legal standard that we are in a better position to analyze than the Commission. Thus, our review is non-deferential." Ackley v. Labor Comm'n, 2021 UT App 42, ¶ 7, 487 P.3d 882 (quotation simplified).

ANALYSIS

¶11 We take responsibility for previously returning this matter to the Commission with less than clear instructions on how to proceed. As discussed below, we now determine that compensation can be awarded in idiopathic fall cases like Ackley's if an employee can demonstrate that the hardness of the workplace floor increased the severity of the injuries caused by an idiopathic fall.

¶12 Under the Utah Workers' Compensation Act, "[a]n injured employee is entitled to benefits if the employee is 'injured . . . by accident arising out of and in the course of the employee's employment.'" Ackley v. Labor Comm'n, 2021 UT App 42, ¶ 8, 487 P.3d 882 (quoting Utah Code § 34A-2-401(1)). To succeed on a claim for benefits then, first "the employee bears the burden of proving he or she was injured 'by accident.'" Id. (quoting Utah Code § 34A-2-401(1)). And second, the employee must prove that the accident "aris[es] out of and in the course of the employee's employment." Utah Code § 34A-2-401(1). That is, "the employee [must] show a causal connection between the injury and the employment." Ackley, 2021 UT App 42, ¶ 8 (quotation simplified).

¶13 Utah's appellate courts have long recognized the general rule "that an employee cannot recover for a physiological malfunction which is not job-induced and which could have happened as easily away from work as at work."...