Thomas Wood, Appellee, v. SB (2026)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

SB Manufacturing, Inc., challenges the Workers Compensation Appeals Board's decision affirming an administrative law judge's award of benefits to Thomas Wood, its longtime employee. For its principal point, SB Manufacturing offers an extended argument that Wood is an unreliable historian about what happened and his account of a workplace injury must be dismissed as unbelievable. But the ALJ and the Board credited Wood and the opinion of an independent medical examiner in making their decisions. In workers compensation appeals, we do not reweigh the evidence generally or second-guess credibility determinations specifically. Turner v. Pleasant Acres, 62 Kan. App. 2d 122, Syl. ¶ 1, 506 P.3d 963 (2022). SB Manufacturing alternatively presents two oblique and unpersuasive statutory arguments for reversing the Board. We, therefore, affirm the Board and the underlying award to Wood.

Factual and Procedural History

Wood worked for SB Manufacturing for about 16 years and was assigned to the paint department doing what we gather to be somewhat strenuous labor. The record evidence shows that Wood suffered a back injury around March 9, 2022. He went to a chiropractor and, according to her, explained that he hurt his back when he fell into a bathtub at home. The chiropractor referred Wood to an affiliated medical doctor, who treated Wood with an injection of Toradol. Wood received no other documented treatment for that injury. In depositions SB Manufacturing took in this case, several coworkers testified they regularly assisted Wood with some of his more physically demanding work duties after that because he said he had significant back pain.

Wood reported a work injury to his supervisor on August 20, 2022, recounting that he injured his back the preceding afternoon while lifting a spring-loaded door. No one witnessed the injury. Wood described significant symptoms and sought medical treatment. SB Manufacturing assigned Wood light duty for about five-and-a-half hours a day rather than his customary work for eight hours a day.

In his deposition, Wood testified that he injured his back at work on March 9 while lifting a tire and reported the injury to two of his supervisors. One of the supervisors testified that Wood never reported that he hurt himself on the job in March, and no company records document such a report from Wood. The company records do show that Wood was taking vacation time between March 7 and March 11. The supervisor testified that Wood asked for the time off because he had hurt his back. Wood recounted that he took vacation time to recuperate from the back injury.

After reporting his injury in August, Wood saw Dr. Steven Ericksen at the company's request. Dr. Ericksen assigned a two percent impairment of the body as a whole to Wood and indicated Wood required no work restrictions. Wood saw Dr. Pedro A. Murati for an evaluation, as his workers compensation lawyer suggested. Dr. Murati assigned a 17 percent impairment, recommended significant work restrictions, and concluded Wood would need additional treatment. Dr. Murati found the August injury to be the prevailing cause of Wood's disability largely because he received little treatment after the March injury.

Given the marked disparity in the evaluations from Dr. Ericksen and Dr. Murati, the ALJ ordered an independent medical examination by Dr. David Hufford. Dr. Hufford assigned Wood an 11 percent whole body impairment, recommended significant work restrictions, and concluded Wood likely would require additional medical treatment. Dr. Hufford determined Wood's August accident to be the prevailing cause of his injury. Over the course of the medical examinations, Wood described significant continuing back pain radiating into his right leg, limiting his mobility and his ability to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk.

The ALJ found the August injury to be compensable and entered an award that included future medical treatment, as necessary, and lost income. The Board affirmed in an 18-page opinion. Both the ALJ and the Board credited Dr. Hufford's conclusions over those of the other physicians who examined Wood. SB Manufacturing has not disputed the computation or dollar amount of the award, so we do not recite them here.

Analysis

This court reviews workers compensation cases under the Kansas Judicial Review Act, K.S.A. 77-601 et seq. Our review is limited to the grounds for reversal identified in K.S.A. 77-621(c). Pertinent here, they include errors of law and insufficiently supported factual findings. K.S.A. 77-621(c)(4), (c)(7). If an appellate challenge turns on an interpretation of a statute or another question of law, we review anew without deference to the Board's decision. Redd v. Kansas Truck Center, 291 Kan. 176, 187-88, 239 P.3d 66 (2010).

When a party disputes the Board's factual findings, we ask whether the findings are supported by substantial evidence measured against the record as a whole. K.S.A. 77-621(c)(7); Graham v. Dokter Trucking Group, 284 Kan. 547, 553, 161 P.3d 695 (2007) (Substantial evidence “furnishes a basis of fact from which an issue can be resolved reasonably.”); Lytle v. Mies & Sons Trucking, No. 105,067, 2011 WL 4035779, at *2 (Kan. App. 2011) (unpublished opinion) (“Substantial evidence has relevance to the matter at hand and affords some tangible support for the agency conclusion, as opposed to being merely vaporous or tinselly.”). Evidence crosses that threshold if a reasonable person might accept it as sufficient to support the stated conclusion. Herrera-Gallegos v. H & H Delivery Service, Inc., 42 Kan. App. 2d 360, 363, 212 P.3d 239 (2009).

In looking at the factual basis for the administrative findings, we consider all of the admitted evidence. K.S.A. 77-621(d). So long as that inquiry yields some evidence materially supporting the factual finding, we are to accept the Board's determination. The governing statute expressly directs that we do “not reweigh the evidence or engage in de novo review.” K.S.A. 77-621(d). Accordingly, we do not reconsider how the ALJ or the Board resolved conflicting evidence, including the credibility of witness testimony. Turner, 62 Kan. App. 2d. 122, Syl. ¶ 1 (In a workers compensation appeal, “[i]t is not the role of the appellate courts to reweigh the evidence or to make credibility determinations.”); Scheuerman v. Learjet, Inc., No. 109,400, 2014 WL 1795999, at *4 (Kan. App. 2014) (unpublished opinion) (“We will neither reweigh the evidence presented to the Board nor parse the Board's credibility determinations.”); Lytle, 2011 WL 4035779, at *2-3. The standard requires us to give wide deference to the administrative findings.

As the party challenging the administrative decision on appeal, SB Manufacturing bears the burden of establishing reversible error. K.S.A. 77-621(a)(1).

As we have suggested, SB Manufacturing assails Wood as being utterly unbelievable. It emphasizes his testimony that he was injured on March 9, when the company records show he had then taken vacation time. But Wood qualified the timeframe in his deposition testimony, saying he didn't recall the precise date in March. The bigger discrepancy, however, would appear to be his conflicting descriptions of how he was injured in March. There is evidence he contemporaneously told the chiropractor that he fell at home. But he later testified the injury occurred at work. SB Manufacturing submits Wood so lacked credibility that the ALJ and the Board could have and should have found the August accident never happened.

SB Manufacturing also argues Dr. Hufford's medical evaluation is suspect because he concluded the August accident was the precipitating cause of Wood's injury at least in part because Wood received only limited treatment for the March accident, even though several coworkers testified Wood needed help with some tasks between March and August. When Dr. Hufford offered his expert opinion, he was unaware of that testimony.

We recognize those are colorable arguments that SB Manufacturing raised during the administrative proceedings. But the arguments bear on the credibility of Wood and the reliability of Dr. Hufford's expert opinion. The factfinders—the ALJ and the Board—weighed SB Manufacturing's contentions and judged them unpersuasive. We have no license on appellate review to breathe legal life into them. We would be impermissibly reweighing the evidence to give SB Manufacturing's arguments primacy when the ALJ and the Board rejected them.

In its decision, the Board acknowledged Wood as “a dubious historian,” especially about the March accident. But the Board credited Wood's account of the August accident in that he described a mechanism of injury consistent with the symptoms he reported to the physicians who examined him in this case. And the Board noted that he did not waver in his description of the August accident. The Board discounted SB Manufacturing's challenge to Dr. Hufford's opinion insofar as the record evidence failed to establish a preexisting condition resulting from the March accident, especially given Wood's lack of ongoing treatment after the one visit he made to the chiropractor. Those circumstances might bear on the weight to be given the respective medical opinions, but they do not wholly undermine any of those opinions, including Dr. Hufford's.

We would be overstepping our appellate authority under K.S.A. 77-621 to reject those findings on this record. Even if we were disposed to assess the conflicting evidence differently had we been on the Board—and we don't mean to imply we are—that would put us in the role of factfinders rather than appellate reviewers for correctable errors. In short, the Board's findings rest on substantial record evidence, and we will not disturb them.

On appeal, SB Manufacturing tersely presents two alternative arguments for reversing the Board. First, SB Manufacturing submits Wood and his lawyer violated K.S.A. 44-536a(b) by initially making a claim for benefits based on the March accident in addition to the August accident and should be appropriately sanctioned. The statute grants ALJs and the Board the authority to penalize parties and their lawyers for asserting claims or legal arguments unwarranted under the facts or the governing law. The measure essentially replicates K.S.A. 60-211, permitting a district court to impose sanctions for frivolous filings. Under K.S.A. 44-536a(d), appropriate sanctions may include attorney fees and other expenses a party incurs in responding to a frivolous filing.

Wood, through his lawyer, sought and was allowed to withdraw the claim for the March accident relatively early in the case and before the ALJ entered the award. In that respect, SB Manufacturing argues that Wood should not have been allowed to withdraw the March claim.

The Board rejected SB Manufacturing's request for relief under K.S.A. 44-536a, noting Wood's deposition testimony that the March accident occurred while he was at work. The Board further held that a party may abandon a claim and pointed out that Wood never received any benefits based on the March accident.

On appeal, SB Manufacturing offers no authority for the proposition that a workers compensation claim, once filed, cannot be withdrawn. The notion seems counterintuitive and would obligate the parties to litigate claims an injured worker no longer wished to pursue—wasting the time and resources of the lawyers, ALJs, and the Board. Moreover, SB Manufacturing never explains how an appropriate sanction for the March claim would extend to reversing the award to Wood for the August claim.

For the first time on appeal, SB Manufacturing also relies on K.S.A. 44-5,120. The statute deals with complaints of workers compensation fraud submitted to either the workers compensation director or the insurance commissioner and their authority to investigate and to seek appropriate relief. Again, SB Manufacturing never explains how K.S.A. 44-5,120 would warrant reversing the Board's decision here. As such, we consider the argument neither fully briefed nor persuasive. See Russell v. May, 306 Kan. 1058, 1089, 400 P.3d 647 (2017) (insufficiently briefed points “ ‘raised only incidentally’ ” deemed “waived or abandoned”).

Finally, SB Manufacturing contends the Board erred in upholding the ALJ's denial of its requests to redepose Dr. Hufford and to withdraw some of its stipulations. The Board found those decisions to be within the ALJ's broad discretion in managing their docket generally and in making procedural rulings in particular cases on that docket. We find the Board's characterization of the issue to be appropriate. See Rogers v. ALT-A&M JV, 52 Kan. App. 2d 213, 217, 364 P.3d 1206 (2015) (ALJ's decision on extending terminal date, like requests for continuances, reviewed for abuse of discretion). An abuse of administrative discretion entails decision-making that is “unreasonable, arbitrary[,] or capricious” as set out in K.S.A. 77-621(c)(8). Woessner v. Labor Max Staffing, 312 Kan. 36, 50-51, 471 P.3d 1 (2020). Four justices in Woessner wrote or joined in two concurring opinions; but those separate opinions do not question the abuse of discretion standard articulated in the lead opinion. SB Manufacturing had the burden to prove an abuse of discretion. K.S.A. 77-621(a)(1).

We see no abuse of discretion and affirm on that basis. Here, the ALJ and the Board understood the factual circumstances and acted within the legal boundaries of their authority. We are not prepared to say the underlying rulings were so off the mark as to be an abuse of discretion—they were not unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious. See In re Tax Application of Emporia Motors, Inc., 30 Kan. App. 2d 621, Syl. ¶ 2, 44 P.3d 1280 (2002) (agency determination “unreasonable” if it falls “outside the realm of fair debate” and “arbitrary” or “capricious” if it is “unreasonable and without foundation in fact”); see also Abbey v. Kansas Board of Examiners in Optometry, No. 126,120, 2024 WL 1281066, at *3 (Kan. App. 2024) (unpublished opinion) (applying Emporia Motors standard); Johnson v. Topeka Community Healthcare, No. 108,789, 2013 WL 3331102, at *3 (Kan. App. 2013) (unpublished opinion) (applying Emporia Motors standard in workers compensation case). SB Manufacturing's requests were made late in the process and would have measurably delayed the ALJ's decision on Wood's claim, most obviously with scheduling and taking a second deposition of Dr. Hufford. Neither the ALJ nor the Board relied on the disputed stipulations as critical or integral to the merits resolution of Wood's claim, so we see no material prejudice to SB Manufacturing in that respect.

We would come to the same conclusion if we were to apply the comparable standard for abuse of judicial discretion to what are essentially procedural rulings by decision-makers in a quasi-judicial process leading up to a final agency action. See Lott-Edwards v. Americold Corp., 27 Kan. App. 2d 689, Syl. ¶ 2, 6 P.3d 947 (2000) (“The Workers Compensation Board functions as a quasi-judicial body.”); Martinez v. Haverkamp Brothers Inc., No. 128,693, 2026 WL 124316, at *10 (Kan. App. 2026) (unpublished opinion) (acknowledging Board's quasi-judicial function). A judicial decision-maker exceeds that discretion if: (1) They rule in a way no one else would in comparable circumstances; (2) they ignore controlling facts or rely on unproven factual representations; or (3) they act outside the legal framework appropriate to the issue. Jennings v. Shauck, 318 Kan. 711, 714, 547 P.3d 524 (2024). To reiterate, the Board and the ALJ were aware of the factual circumstances and their authority, and their decisions were not so far afield that we would characterize them as unreasonable outliers.

Affirmed.

Per Curiam: