Iowa Court of Appeals Rules That a Plant Closure Can Be an Economic Change for Purposes of Review Reopening

 Stuart v. Dickten Masch Plastics, LLC, No. 23-0018 (Iowa App. Oct. 25, 2023)

Claimant filed a review-reopening petition after she lost her job due to a plant closure.  Claimant had been "heavily" accommodated at work for her work-related disability, and was allowed to sit during the day and take breaks that  were not available to other workers.  She was unable to find work following the plant closure.  The commissioner ruled that when a worker loses her job as a result of a plant closure, she cannot show the required economic change regardless of any other factors preventing her from finding a new job and denied relief to claimant.

At hearing, claimant testified that following the plant closure, she had attempting to find work, noting that she had sent out two dozen applications and  had only three responses, which were fruitless once the employers learned of her disability. Defendants presented testimony from a vocational expert regarding claimant's employability.   The expert indicated claimant was still employable and had not been applying for suitable jobs.  The deputy concluded that the plant closure had nothing to do with the original injury and thus could not be the source of a review reopening claim.  The deputy did not weigh the evidence regarding claimant's attempts to seek work following the plant closure.  The commissioner affirmed without additional analysis.  The district court affirmed.

The Court of Appeals found that claimant's argument on judicial review was that the commissioner misinterpreted the rerquirements  of the review-reopening statute, which the Court found was a pure legal question governed by the errors at law section of 17A.19(10)(c).  The Court noted that section 86.14 provides that the injured worker has the burden to show a change in condition that was proximately caused by the original injury.  This change can be physical or economic and does not need to be the only cause.  A change in condition caused by the employee's personal decisions unrelated to the work injury does not justify review-reopening.

The crux of the case, according to the Court of Appeals, was the parties views of the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. West Communications v. Overholser, 566 N.W.2d 873 (Iowa 1997).  In Overholser, the commissioner had granted additional benefits to a claimant following a plant closure.  The Supreme Court reversed, finding that the record did not support the contention that claimant's work was modified in any way to accommodate her injury.  The Court also found that there had been no evidence that claimant had been refused employment nor had been unable to obtain a job because of her physical condition.  Claimant argued that the "fact-intensive" review in Overholser should be applied in her case, while defendants argued that the result in Overholser, that a general layoff unrelated to the injury meant that such a layoff could not lead to additional benefits on review-reopening.

The Court concludes that the commissioner's decision was a "short-circuiting of the proper review-reopening analysis" because it did not consider claimant's circumstances.  Overholser, according to the Court, found that the "commissioner must look at the full record to determine whether the workers' 'inability to secure employment after the layoff . . .was proximately caused by her original injury.'"  Thus, the commissioner's finding that the layoff was not the end of the analysis.  "The commissioner still must decide whether Stuart's original injury was another proximate cause of her inability to find work after the layoff."  That decision requires the commissioner to weigh the competing evidence presented about the causes of Stuart's lack of success in her job search.  

Claimant argued that the Court should determine whether claimant was eligible for additional benefits, but the Court declines this invitation inasmuch as the commissioner had not considered the factual premises for the review-reopening claim and there was thus nothing for the Court to review.  The case was remanded to the commissioner for further proceedings,  The commissioner was instructed to decide this issue based on the record made at the original proceeding,