Sandra Warren v. American Alliance Insurance

This is an appeal by the employer, Premier Manufacturing Corporation, and its insurer, American Alliance Insurance Company, from an award in favor of the plaintiff, Sandra Warren, based upon a finding that the plaintiff had a work-related permanent partial disability of 39 percent to the body as a whole. The trial court found that the plaintiff had pre-existing spondylolisthesis, which was asymptomatic until the work injury of April 23, 1998, and which was exacerbated and advanced to the point of making it symptomatic. The chancellor held that the two and one-half (2.5) times cap established in Tennessee Code Annotated _ 50-6-241(a)(1) applied in this case. In two issues, the defendant argues that: (1) the evidence preponderates against the trial court's finding that the plaintiff's injuries were compensable; and (2) the evidence preponderates against the trial court's holding that the plaintiff had a permanent partial vocational disability of 39 percent to the body as a whole. We find that the judgment of the trial court is affirmed as modified.