By Jane Salem, staff attorney

Happy New Year!

Once again, I’m starting it out with a look back at last year’s most compelling appellate workers’ compensation opinions, month by month. Some months yielded more than one really juicy opinion. It was hard to decide which one to highlight.

These are “must-reads,” as the title tells you. But also, I literally mean you have to read these and draw your own conclusions. You can’t rely on my interpretations. That’s because I’m a staff attorney, not a judge. Plus, you can’t cite to a blog. But you knew that, right?

Fair warning: this is a longer than usual blog post. Maybe you should get a beverage or use the restroom first.

If you’re ready, let’s dive in.

January: Lawson v. Costar Group, Inc. (Mental injuries)

The trial court granted summary judgment of a “standalone” mental injury claim, meaning it wasn’t accompanied by physical injuries. The Board reversed, reminding that a judge must “view the evidence in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party or draw all reasonable inferences in Employee’s favor,” and the judge cannot weigh evidence at the summary judgment stage.

Importantly, Lawson offers a thorough recap of the law for these types of claims. The Board reiterated the “reasonable person” standard: the factfinder must determine whether a “reasonable person under the type of stress being described by the employee would experience a ‘sudden or unusual’ mental stimulus.” Further, the stress must be “extraordinary and unusual in comparison to the stress ordinarily experienced by an employee in the same type [of] duty.”

February: Torres v. Allvan Corp. (Disputed settlements)

The case posture was unusual. The judge didn’t approve a proposed “disputed” settlement under section 50-6-240(e) and took the rare step of memorializing his reasoning in a written order. The Board affirmed.

Counsel for both parties jointly appealed (also uncommon), arguing that the trial court overstepped. But the Board held that the judge “rightly expressed concern in this compensable claim as to the lack of an expert evaluation addressing [maximum medical improvement] and/or the extent of permanent medical impairment, if any.” Further, the judge didn’t err by requesting additional information necessary for its consideration of whether the proposed settlement was in the employee’s best interest.

March: Mansell v. Southeast Personnel Leasing, Inc. (Temporary disability)

This case involved a worker whom the authorized doctor called “a chronic workers’ comp case.” Ouch. Work on your bedside manner, doc.

The employer furnished treatment for several months for a back injury until the treating physician placed the employee at maximum medical improvement. Several months later, the employee told the physician that his back pain had returned, and he continued treatment before referring him to a neurosurgeon. The employer briefly reinstated temporary disability benefits but then stopped and denied the referral. After an expedited hearing, the judge awarded additional benefits, including disability benefits dating back to the maximum medical improvement pronouncement.

The Board reversed. The problem was the medical proof: the judge must find that the authorized treating physician’s original maximum medical improvement determination was “premature or medically incorrect in some way.” This can be accomplished with a doctor’s statement to that effect and/or objective imaging showing a change in diagnosis, for example. This case didn’t have sufficient proof.

April: Steel v. TForce Freight, Inc. (Costs)

“Court costs are taxed to the employer…” I confess: we use templates, just as you probably do, and this statement is on them.

This opinion instructed that an alleged employer isn’t always liable for costs. The worker here filed the lawsuit then abandoned it. The trial court dismissed the case without prejudice and taxed costs against TForce. TForce said it wasn’t his employer, and no evidentiary hearing found that it was. So why should it pay costs? The Board agreed, reasoning that no authority contemplates the assessment of fees against a party who is “merely forced into the position of responding to” a petition.

May: Rooks v. Amazon.com (Referrals)

Employers, you’ve got to act quickly after an authorized doctor makes a specialist referral.

In this case, the employer didn’t honor a direct referral or offer a specialist panel within three days of an authorized doctor recommending it. Instead, it attempted—unsuccessfully—to set an employer’s examination. Meanwhile, the authorized doctor repeated the referral many times afterward. The trial court held the employer had to honor the referral before setting the employer’s examination, and the Board affirmed.

The Board reasoned that the employer didn’t file its motion to compel its examination until seven months after the original referral. “[T]he trial court determined that both parties bear certain obligations and that Employer must comply with its statutorily-mandated obligation to authorize a referral for treatment before Employee will be compelled to appear for its employer’s examination. Under the circumstances of this case, we agree.”

June: McNicholas v. Whelan Security Co. (Motions to dismiss)

This case tackled Rule 12 motions to dismiss in the workers’ comp context. Under pre-Reform Act law, employees sometimes filed petitions to “toll the statute of limitations.” Once the Court was created, that informally became frowned upon—we didn’t want a file cabinet full of cases with no disputes. (We literally had a cabinet of old law, inactive cases, that had to be closed. I’m just glad that wasn’t my job.)

The employee in this case wrote on her petition that it was filed “to toll the statute of limitations and resolve all permanency-related aspects.” The employer argued the case should be dismissed because she filed it solely to toll the statute. Both the trial court and the Board disagreed.

The Board reasoned that her petition, filed almost one year after the date of the work accident, also alleged disputes over permanent disability and increased benefits. The employee also “correctly noted” that she was subject to losing her right to continued medical benefits with no court order for them.

July: Taylor v. Dale’s Recycling (Heart attack)

Even when I know I wasn’t speeding, it still scares me when I see a police car with the siren blaring and flashing lights in my rearview mirror.

Apparently it was “unusual and stressful” for the worker in this case, too, who shortly after being stopped by police while driving his work truck suffered a heart attack and died. The trial court found the incident compensable, and so did the Board.

A heart attack is compensable where the employee had evidence of preexisting heart disease when it “can be shown to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the aggravation arose primarily out of and in the course and scope of employment.” In addition, if a component of the causation analysis is mental stress, the proof must show that the heart attack resulted from a “stressful incident of abnormal or unusual proportions arising primarily out of the employment rather than the day-to-day mental stresses and tensions experienced by an employee as part of his or her job.”

In this case, just because it was “foreseeable” that a truck driver might have an encounter with police, that didn’t mean that the event can’t also cause unusual or abnormal mental stress. Here, the unusual mental stress combined with evidence of his physical exertion just before the heart attack was enough to support compensability.

August: Russell v. Werner Enterprises, Inc. (Assault)

Police were involved in this case as well, called about a workplace assault.

The employee, a delivery driver, had a disagreement with a retail store manager about the way she was unloading merchandise, and a customer joined the fray and called police. Thinking tensions were de-escalated, the officers left. As the employee finished her work and was also about to depart, the customer’s husband attacked her with a club. The trial court and Board held the claim was compensable.

An “inherent connection to the employment” existed, in that she was performing her work duties as a delivery driver when the conflict with the store manager began. The conflict was over the way she was doing her job. And the customer who “inserted herself” into the conflict did so over the manner in which she was performing her job. The Board didn’t find racial animus or any other “random force” precipitating the assault. Moreover, although caselaw suggests assaults involving “performance, pay, or termination” are inherently connected to employment, those are examples of assaults with an inherent connection to work, not an exhaustive list.

September: Oakes v. Duracap Asphalt Paving Co., Inc. (Scheduling)

Every new case presents a challenge for the judge as to how to move it along in the most efficient way. If the employee is at maximum medical improvement, he’s represented, and all the experts have been hired, the judge might schedule the whole kit and caboodle. Others might set a deadline or two and then a status hearing, to avoid granting future extensions. Or just to make sure the lawyers are diligent.

In this case, after an expedited hearing ordering benefits, the judge set a deadline for written discovery. The employer later moved for summary judgment, but the judge held the motion in abeyance pending a full scheduling order and compliance with the expedited hearing order.

The Board found no abuse of discretion. Rule 56.07 allows a court to order a continuance to “permit affidavits to be obtained or depositions to be taken or discovery to be had or may make such other order as is just.” Further, courts have broad discretion to decide when to entertain a dispositive motion.

October: Hurt v. Vinebrook Homes Trust, Inc. (Discovery)

Want more on civil procedure? This case deals with what’s discoverable under Rule 26.

The employer argued that the employee was working another job while collecting temporary total disability and requested copies of statements for all bank accounts since the date of injury to the present. The trial court denied the motion to compel, balancing the employer’s asserted need for this information against the employee’s right to privacy. Because the employee had produced copies of pay stubs and tax returns, his privacy outweighed the employer’s need to see the statements.

The Board affirmed, noting that caselaw about subpoenas and Fourth Amendment searches and seizures were immaterial.

November: Yeoman v. Transwood Logistics, Inc. (Notice)

This case gives an excellent summary of the law on notice. The employee argued the time to give notice started running once he realized the seriousness of his condition after a fall at work. The notice was more than 15 days after the incident. The Board disagreed.

“[B]oth cumulative trauma cases and occupational disease cases include a ‘discovery rule’ that impacts the employee’s notice requirement in those circumstances,” they reminded. But, “Employee’s lack of knowledge of the nature or extent of his condition is insufficient to establish a reasonable excuse for the failure to give timely notice of a sudden, traumatic accident.”

December: Vanderford v. E.S. Dockery Company (Death benefits)

The Board revisited the issue of compensability in a death case involving an on-the-job heart attack—and as a bonus, gave some guidance on “dependency.”

The employee died after sweeping the floor, and the trial court accepted his expert’s medical causation opinion over the defense’s. The judge also awarded benefits to a minor stepdaughter. The Board affirmed both rulings.

As to the experts, the trial judge held that the employee’s expert gave the more thorough explanation of how his physical activities on the morning of his death triggered the physiological changes that caused his sudden cardiac death, and the Board agreed.

Re the stepchild, the employee’s ex-wife offered unrefuted proof that he was financially responsible for her and raised her as his own. Even after they divorced, the child remained in the couple’s household as a member of the nuclear family and continued to be fully supported by the employee. The Board agreed that the statute doesn’t differentiate between biological and nonbiological children, and that “actual dependency” controls.

Conclusion

You’re still with me? Impressive!

You should also check out:

• Payne v. Signet Jewelers about a verbal altercation between coworkers as a mental injury.
• Markin v. Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division about willful misconduct and what qualifies as “expert testimony.”
• Simpson v. Wiregrass North Central about a trial court’s witness-credibility assessments.
• Allen v. MJ Resurrection, Inc. about an employer’s use of a “waiver” to avoid its obligations under the Workers’ Compensation Law.
• Rainey v. U.S.Xpress, Inc. about the use of circumstantial evidence to challenge an employee’s alleged mechanism of injury.
• McCool v. Professional Care Services about the right to a second opinion when surgery is recommended, as well as for the attorney fee ruling.

Oh, heck, just make a resolution to read them all!

May 2026 bring you health and happiness.