Court of Appeals Affirms Industrial Award, Partially Reverses Penalty Award

Claimant in Drahozal v. Envoy Air, Inc., No. 20-0027 (Iowa App. April 28, 2021) alleged that she was permanently and totally disabled due to frostbite in her fingers and a subsequent mental health injury and complex regional pain syndrome resulting from the initial work injury.  The commissioner found that claimant had suffered an 80% industrial disability due to the physical and mental health injuries, awarded healing period benefits and awarded penalty benefits for eleven delayed payments of benefits.  Penalty benefits for the mental health claim were denied.  Following appeals by both parties, the district court affirmed the decision of the commissioner in its entirety.

The Court of Appeals first addressed claimant's allegation that she was permanently and totally disabled.  Claimant had argued that due to her hand injuries, depression, age and education, there were no jobs in the community for which Drahozal could reasonably compete.  The claimant alleged she was an odd lot employee, but the commissioner concluded that claimant had not produced evidence she was not employable in the Cedar Rapids labor market.  The court affirmed without much in the way of additional analysis, simply indicating that substantial evidence supported the decision of the commissioner.  

The court also affirmed the denial of penalty benefits based on claimant's mental health diagnosis, finding that because defendants had the opinions of doctors finding no causation on this issue, the claim was fairly debatable.  A denial of a second period of penalty benefits, based on claimant's having reached MMI, was also affirmed by the court on substantial evidence grounds.

On defendants' cross-appeal, the court affirmed the decision of the agency that claimant had suffered an industrial injury as a result of claimant's depression, again finding that substantia evidence supported the decision of the agency.

Finally, defendants' alleged that eleven late healing period benefit payments should not have led to the imposition of a $3611 penalty.  The court concluded that penalty was appropriate on the first payment of benefits, which was issue two weeks late.  Five of the late payments were issued on Monday, the day after the compensation week.  Claimant argued successfully that these payments should have been made by the end of the compensation week and that defendants had not demonstrated the payments were mailed on the date they were issued.  The court found that if the five checks were mailed the day they were issued, they were timely under Robbenolt, which held that if a certain day (Monday in this case) was the first day of the compensation week, full payment of weekly compensation was due the following Monday.  The court concluded that claimant had the burden of demonstrating that the checks were mailed late and since they were dated on Monday, they were timely.  The court therefore reversed the penalty award on these five weeks of benefits.  Four other payments were made two to three days late.  Defendants argued that these payments were "minimally late" but the court notes that the statute does not turn on the length of delay in making the correct compensation payment.  Any delay, under Robbenolt, entitles the employee to benefits in some amount.  Penalty for these weeks of benefits was affirmed.  The final late payment was a result of the rating for claimant's hands.  The rating was issued on January 25, but a lump sum payment was not made until March 31.  These penalty benefits were also affirmed.  The court also noted that the penalty benefits awarded were within the statutory limits.  Overall, penalty benefits were reduced to $2790.15.