619 N.E.2d 1165 | Ohio Ct. App. | 1993
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *78 Plaintiff-appellant, Theresa Grant, appeals from the trial court's order granting summary judgment in favor of the Industrial Commission of Ohio, and denying her claim for workers' compensation benefits. Her two assignments of error address the same issue — the common pleas court committed error when it restricted her appeal to a purely mental or emotional condition, which is not compensable. We agree. *79
On July 16, 1983, Grant, a clerk in a state liquor store, was the victim of an armed robbery. It was the second time within a year that she had been robbed at gunpoint on the job. On November 14, 1984, Grant filed her application for workers' compensation benefits, describing the nature of the injury as "Anxiety Reaction" to the "Mind." The district hearing officer denied her claim for the reason that Grant alleged a purely emotional condition without a contemporaneous physical injury, which is not compensable under R.C.
In her appeal to the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, Grant's complaint alleged that she suffered "anxiety and depression" caused by the robbery. On January 15, 1987, an assistant attorney general deposed Grant. She testified that during the robbery she ripped her finger by removing a ring at the gunman's command, and then while attempting to open the door with the gun pointed at her back, she aggravated an injury to her arm and shoulder. Dr. Max L. Lurie, a psychiatrist who evaluated Grant on June 8, 1987, was deposed on December 16, 1987. He diagnosed Grant as having developed posttraumatic stress syndrome and a peptic ulcer as a result of the robbery.
On January 26, 1988, upon the evidence gathered in the depositions, Grant moved to amend her complaint to allege that in addition to her psychiatric condition she sustained a contemporaneous arm injury during the robbery, and subsequently, because of her psychiatric condition, she developed an ulcer. On February 23, 1988, the week before the scheduled trial date, the trial court overruled Grant's motion for leave to file an amended complaint. On August 6, 1990, the trial court granted the commission's motion for summary judgment.
In her first assignment of error, Grant contends that the common pleas court erred in denying her motion for leave to amend her complaint. Grant requested leave to recast her claim from a stress-related mental or emotional condition (mental-mental) to (1) a mental or emotional condition resulting from physical injuries to her arm and finger (physical-mental), and also (2) a physical injury manifested by an ulcer occasioned by her mental or emotional condition (mental-physical).
Entitlement to benefits by a claimant is determined by the statutes in effect on the date of the injury. State ex rel. Kirkv. Owens-Illinois, Inc. (1986),
The commission contends that Grant cannot raise new conditions in the common pleas court, not already raised in the administrative proceedings, and that the common pleas court did not have jurisdiction to receive evidence of injuries to her arm and finger or concerning the ulcer. The procedure for an appeal to the common pleas court of "a decision of the Industrial Commission or of its staff hearing officer" is prescribed in R.C.
"(C) * * * Further pleadings shall be had in accordance with the Rules of Civil Procedure * * *. The court, or the jury under the instructions of the court, if a jury is demanded, shall determine the right of the claimant to participate * * * in the fund upon the evidence adduced at the hearing of the action.
"* * * *81
"(F) If the finding of the court or the verdict of the jury is in favor of the claimant's right to participate in the fund, the commission and the administrator shall thereafter proceed in the matter of the claim as if the judgment were the decision of the commission, subject to the power of modification provided by section
An appeal from the Industrial Commission pursuant to R.C.
The several appellate districts that have concluded that a claimant's condition is precluded unless raised before the Industrial Commission do not focus on the nature of the de novo
appeal provided by the legislature in R.C.
Rights under the Ohio workers' compensation system are conferred by Section
In a trial de novo the issues "arise on the pleadings." R.C.
Grant's physical-mental claim and mental-physical claim are both compensable, as long as the claimant can sustain her burden of proof. Therefore, the common pleas court abused its discretion in failing to allow Grant leave to amend her complaint. As provided in R.C.
The Ohio Supreme Court's definition of "abuse of discretion" contemplates an attitude that is unreasonable, arbitrary, or unconscionable. Noting that abuse of discretion usually involves decisions that are unreasonable rather than arbitrary or unconscionable, the Supreme Court has defined "unreasonable" as having "no sound reasoning process that would support that decision." AAAA Enterprises, Inc. v. River Place Community UrbanDev. Corp. (1990),
Grant further asserts that exclusion of mental-mental claims from the workers' compensation system violates the Equal Protection Clauses of the United States and Ohio Constitutions. She argues that no rational basis exists for disparate treatment of the class of mental-mental claimants in furtherance of a legitimate governmental interest. See Morris v. Savoy (1991),
In her second assignment of error, Grant contends that because she was unable to amend her complaint to allege a physical-mental claim and a mental-physical claim under Civ.R. 56, the summary judgment was also error. Summary judgment is a procedural device used to dispense promptly with factually groundless claims. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett (1986),
In her uncontradicted deposition, Grant submitted evidence of her contemporaneous physical injury, which was coupled with the opinion of her psychiatrist that her posttraumatic stress syndrome was occasioned by the injury sustained in the second robbery. Under the test in Ryan v. Connor, supra, there is, likewise, evidence that her alleged emotionally caused ulcer resulted from a greater emotional strain than that to which all workers are occasionally subjected. These are not mental-mental claims based solely on job-related stress.4 The posttraumatic stress syndrome diagnosed by Dr. Lurie was not, as the commission contends, an attempt to raise a new condition in the common pleas court. Despite the new allegation that the condition was caused by a contemporaneous physical injury, the claim continued to be for posttraumatic stress syndrome, the same condition she asserted at the Industrial Commission. SeeDunn v. Mayfield, supra. By contrast, her mental-physical claim for her ulcer may entitle *85
Grant to an additional allowance for a "flow through" condition caused by posttraumatic stress syndrome pursuant to the commission's continuing jurisdiction under R.C.
For these reasons, Grant's assignments of error are well taken. The judgment of the trial court is reversed, and this cause is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Judgment reversedand cause remanded.
SHANNON and UTZ, JJ., concur.