Fireman's Fund Insurance v. Taylor Barton Mills

This workers' compensation appeal has been referred to the Special Workers' Compensation Appeals Panel of the Supreme Court in accordance with Tenn. Code Ann. section 5-6-225(e)(3) for hearing and reporting of findings of fact and conclusions of law. In this appeal, the employee contends the evidence preponderates against the trial court's finding that his injury was caused by intoxication. The panel concludes the judgment should be reversed. On February 15, 1995, the employee or claimant, Mills, was working at his job as a machinist using a large lathe to bore a specifically sized hole into a fifty inch bull gear. After stopping the lathe to take a measurement, he accidentally - perhaps negligently - brushed against the lathe's starter button. The lathe started and the claimant's clothing was caught in the turning lathe. As a result, he was injured. Tests done at the University of Tennessee Medical Center shortly after the accident revealed a high level of cannaboid concentration from probable chronic use of marijuana. The claimant admits to being a chronic user of marijuana and had admittedly smoked two or three "joints" on the evening before the accident. Additionally, two witnesses testified that they thoughtthey saw him from some one hundred feet away, sharing a joint with another employee on the morning of the accident, before beginning work. The claimant and other employee denied it. The employer knew Mills was a heavy marijuana user and had fired him for thirty days on a previous occasion for "suspected" use of the substance, but re-hired him 3 days later at a higher rate of pay. An expert, without examining the claimant, opined from lab test results that marijuana intoxication was a possible contributing cause of his 2