h This workers’ compensation case involves compensability for physical and mental injuries sustained by a fifty-eight-year-old truck driver when he was forced off the road by another semi that turned into his vehicle. On direct appeal, the appellant employer argues that the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission erred in finding that the appellee employee sustаined a nineteen-percent anatomical impairment as a result of his shoulder injury, in finding that the employee sustained
The first three issues to be decided are challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the Commission’s findings of fact. In determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings of the Cоmmission, we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the Commission’s findings and affirm if they are supported by substantial evidence, i.e., evidence that a reasonable person might accept as adequate to support a conclusion. Morales v. Martinez,
With regard to the Commission’s finding of the extent of appellee’s anatomical impairment, appellant employer argues that the evidence does not support a finding of |anineteen-percent anatomical impairment because the twenty-five-percent anatomical impairment rating assigned by Dr. J.K. Smeltz included thirteen percent fоr range of motion, which cannot properly be considered in determining the extent of an impairment. It is true that range-of-motion tests that are susceptible to the patient’s contrоl may not be considered in determining compensability, see Mays v. Alumnitec, Inc.,
Next, appellant employer asserts that the Commission’s finding of sixty-percent wage-loss disability was “simply baseless,” without “real justificаtion or opinion to support it.” We disagree. In support of its finding, the Commission considered the employee’s nineteen-percent anatomical impairment resulting from his shoulder injury; the fаct that the employee was terminated following his accident although he was not issued a citation for the incident; the employee’s age of fifty-nine and the likelihood that he will be unable to return to his life’s work as a commercial truck driver; and the admitted fact that the employee suffered a psychological injury as a result of the accident. The Commission’s finding is thus squarеly based on the wage-loss factors enunciated in Glass v. Edens,
Appellant employer also contends that the evidence does not support the finding that the Second Injury Fund bears no liability in this case. It argues that the Fund must necessarily bear some liability because of the employeе’s preexisting injuries and medical conditions, notably a low-back injury sustained in 1982 for which he was assigned a five-percent physical impairment rating. This is simply not logical because it takes no account of the possibility that the employee’s compensable injury was of itself sufficient to cause the employee’s wage-loss disability without regard to his previous condition.
| ¡jSeсond Injury Fund liability becomes a question only when (1) the employee has suffered a compensable injury at his present place of employment, (2) the employee had a prior permanent disability or impairment when he sustained the most recent injury, and (3) the prior disability or impairment combined with the recent compensable injury to produce the employee’s current disability status. Mid-State Construction Co. v. Second Injury Fund,
On cross-appeal, appellee/cross-ap-pellant argues that the limitation in Ark. Code Ann. § ll-9-113(b)(l) (Repl.2002), allowing an employee only twenty-six weeks of disability benefits for a claim based on a mental injury or illness, is unconstitutional because there is no rational basis for treating mental injuries differently than physical injuries in this regard. This argument is premised on article 2, section 3 of the Arkansas Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law.
Next, appellee/cross-appellant argues that, although he has already received more than twenty-six weeks of temporary-total disability benefits, he is entitled to an additional twenty-six weeks of benefits for his mental injury. We do not agree. Arkansas Code Annotated section 11-9-113(b)(1) provides that “[n]otwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, where a claim is by reason of mental injury or illness, the employee shall be limited to twenty-six (26) weeks of disability benefits.” The statute is clearly designed to limit the duration of compensatiоn for mental injuries, not to extend it beyond that to which the claimant is already entitled.
17Finally, appellee/cross-appellant argues that the Commission erred in failing to find that he was pеrmanently and totally disabled. This argument goes only to the weight of the evidence on this point, rather than to its sufficiency, and therefore states no grounds for reversal. Barksdale Lumber Co. v. McAnally, supra.
Affirmed on direct appeal; affirmed on cross-appeal.