Pamela Pryor v. City of Memphis

This appeal involves Appellant City of Memphis’ (“the City”) decision to deny Appellee Pamela Pryor’s application for On-the-Job-Injury (“OJI”) benefits arising from the death of her husband while he was employed as a firefighter. On appeal, the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) upheld the City’s denial of the OJI claim citing the absence of an autopsy report as required by the City’s OJI policy. On review, the trial court reversed the ALJ’s decision on its finding that the City’s OJI Policy PM 74-02(3), which required claimant to procure an autopsy, conflicted with the statutory presumption given firefighters in Tennessee Code Annotated section 7-51-201, and remanded the case to the ALJ to conduct a new hearing on the merits. Discerning no error, we affirm and remand.