Hon. Frank v. Williams, Iii,

This workers' compensation appeal has been referred to the Special Workers' Compensation Appeals Panel of the Supreme Court in accordance with T.C.A. _ 5-6-225(e)(3) for hearing and reporting to the Supreme Court of findings of fact and conclusions of law. Plaintiff filed suit in 1989 for work-related injury to his left hand and alleged a related psychiatric disability. By final judgment entered September 5, 1991, the trial court awarded accrued and future medical and psychiatric benefits and permanent partial disability to his hand but found he had failed to prove any permanent psychiatric disability. The judgment was not appealed. On January 2, 1995, plaintiff filed this suit alleging that (1) under T.C.A. _ 5-6-231 he was entitled to modification of the 1991 final judgment due to increased psychiatric impairment, or (2) in the alternative, he was entitled to benefits for a new accidental [psychiatric] injury which occurred on September 2, 1994. The trial court found that plaintiff had failed to prove that he gave timely notice to the employer of a new work-related accident, had failed to prove a new compensable injury, and was barred from reopening the prior case for modification of the award owing to the doctrine of res judicata and the statute of limitations, since the denial of permanent psychiatric disability in that case was never appealed. The plaintiff appeals, insisting that notice of a new injury was provided to the defendant in a letter to the employer from his doctor and by comments made by the plaintiff at work, and that a particular stressful incident at work was a sufficient mental stimulus to constitute a new psychiatric injury. Defendant insists the trial judge correctly decided those issues and correctly held that the denial of permanent psychiatric disability in 1991 was not subject 2