Opinion
No. 89-86
Submitted February 20, 1990 —
Decided April 18, 1990.
Workers' compensation — Violation of specific safety requirement — Record fails to establish that claimant's injury was the result of employer's failure to comply with a specific safety requirement — Commission need not rule on whether the employer had complied with the cited requirement, when.
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County, No. 87AP-967.
Appellant, Ronald L. Bayless, was injured after catching his left hand and arm in a horizontal screw conveyor during the course of and arising from his employment with appellee Delhi Industrial Products ("Delhi"). Following allowance of his workers' compensation claim, appellant applied to appellee Industrial Commission ("commission") for an additional award, alleging that Delhi had violated specific safety requirement ("VSSR") Ohio Adm. Code 4121:1-5-05(D)(2). That section provides:
"The employer shall furnish and the employees shall use a device to lock the controls in the `off' position or the employer shall furnish and the employees shall use warning tags when the machines are shut down for repair, adjusting, or cleaning."
At a hearing before a commission staff hearing officer, the witnesses agreed that immediately preceding the accident, appellant and plant operator Mark Rowbottom had been cleaning clogged coal dust from the machine's blades. Testimony, however, conflicts as to what followed. Appellant testified that Rowbottom started the machine while appellant was retrieving tools from the machine. Appellant stated that no lockout device or warning tags were used.
Rowbottom, on the other hand, testified that he had disconnected the machine from its power source and locked the control panel prior to cleaning. He stated that he deactivated these safety precautions and started the machine only after having been repeatedly assured by appellant that he was finished and was clear of the machine.
The hearing officer denied appellant's application, finding:
"* * * Proof of record fails to establish that the claimant's injury was the result of the employer's failure to comply with any specific safety requirement * * *.
"* * * It is unnecessary to rule on * * * whether or not * * * [the] employer had in fact complied with the cited requirement for the reason that this matter can be disposed of on the basis of the absence of proximate causal relationship between the alleged violation and claimant's injury.
"The evidence [ sic] purpose of the requirement for lock out devices or warning tags is the prevention of inadvertent or unknowing activation of the machinery while it is being cleaned by another person. The testimony of Mark Rowbottom taken at the formal oral hearing * * * makes it clear that the immediate cause of the injury was a failure of communication between him and claimant, and that the injury would have occurred in exactly the same way whether or not a lock out or warning tags were supplied and used. * * *"
The commission denied rehearing.
Appellant filed a complaint in mandamus in the Court of Appeals for Franklin County alleging that the commission abused its discretion in denying his VSSR application. The appellate court found "some evidence" supporting the commission's decision and denied the writ.
This cause is now before this court upon an appeal as of right.
Robert J. Perry Associates and Joseph C. Mastrangelo, for appellant.
Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., attorney general, Michael L. Squillace and Teresa Oglesby McIntyre, for appellee Industrial Commission.
Arter Hadden, Douglas M. Bricker and Judith E. Trail, for appellee Delhi Industrial Products.
To successfully assert a VSSR, a claimant must establish that the employer's violation of a specific safety requirement proximately caused his or her injury. State, ex rel. Haines, v. Indus. Comm. (1972), 29 Ohio St.2d 15, 58 O.O. 2d 70, 278 N.E.2d 24. Appellant opposes the commission's factual determination and its failure to rule on the issue of employer noncompliance. Neither challenge has merit.
As to the former, resolution of disputed factual situations lies with the commission. State, ex rel. Allied Wheel Products, Inc., v. Indus. Comm. (1956), 166 Ohio St. 47, 1 O.O. 2d 190, 139 N.E.2d 41. As long as its decision is supported by "some evidence," the commission has not abused its discretion. State, ex rel. Burley, v. Coil Packing, Inc. (1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 18, 31 OBR 70, 508 N.E.2d 936. In the present case, Rowbottom's testimony is "some evidence" supporting the commission's factual decision. The presence of contrary evidence is irrelevant since we will not reweigh evidence. Burley.
Appellant also suggests that the commission's factual determination does not excuse the commission from deciding whether Delhi satisfied Ohio Adm. Code 4121:1-5-05(D)(2). This argument, too, is unpersuasive.
Contrary to appellant's suggestion, the commission need not address employer compliance before it may reach proximate cause. Once either element is defeated, further analysis is unnecessary. Here, the commission found no causal relationship between the specific safety requirement and the injury and went no further.
Examining a similar causal question, the appellate court in State, ex rel. Watson, v. Indus. Comm. (1986), 29 Ohio App.3d 354, 357, 29 OBR 483, 486, 505 N.E.2d 1015, 1018, observed that a corollary to an allegation that noncompliance caused injury is a finding that compliance would have prevented it. In the case at bar, the commission could not reach this latter conclusion, because it found that appellant's injury would have occurred in the same manner and to the same extent regardless of employer compliance or noncompliance. It thus found no proximate causal relationship.
Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
MOYER, C.J., SWEENEY, HOLMES, DOUGLAS, WRIGHT, H. BROWN and RESNICK, JJ., concur.