Lisa Whited v. Tn. Woolen Mills, Inc., et al.

This workers' compensation appeal has been referred to the Special Workers' Compensation Appeals Panel of the Supreme Court in accordance with Tenn. Code Ann. _ 5-6-225(e)(3) for hearing and reporting to the Supreme Court of findings of fact and conclusions of law. Plaintiff injured her right arm, shoulder and neck while working on an assembly line at defendant's woolen mill. The trial court awarded her 5 percent permanent vocational disability. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. At the time of trial, plaintiff was 27 years old with a high school education and a variety of work experience, including fast food clerk, grocery store clerk, newspaper deliverer, tobacco stripper, and factory worker. All of these jobs have required steady use of her hands and arms. On August 1, 1994, plaintiff was sitting in a chair at her sewing work station when she found that a blanket she was working on was hung on a cart. As she pulled the blanket, it snagged. She pulled firmly and when the blanket came loose, she "snapped back in her chair," and felt pain in her right arm, shoulder and neck. She was referred by defendant to Dr. Johnson, who gave her physical therapy and medication and, after having no success, referred her to another company- approved physician, Dr. Roy Clarence Terry, an orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Terry testified by deposition that he performed an arthroscopy and removed the ends of two bones in plaintiff's shoulder which were impinging on each other. Although plaintiff improved after surgery, she remained unable to fully raise her right arm, to lift things above her head, or to move her arm in all directions. She has continued to have severe pain in the arm. Dr. Terry discovered that she also had a symptomatic disc herniation in her neck, caused by the same accident. He assessed nine percent permanent partial disability to the body as a whole. She was totally unable to work when he last saw her, in June 1995, but he expected that with time she would be able to work with limitations. Defendant asked Dr. Leon Ensalada, a medical doctor who is board-certified 2