Employee Joseph Fields, (“Fields”) filed a Complaint against
his employer Sexton Lawn & Landscape, for workers’ compensation benefits
relating to right leg and lower back injuries he allegedly received from a brown
recluse spider bite on August 13, 2015, while in the course and scope of his
employment with Sexton Lawn & Landscape.
Fields claimed that the bite wound became infected and required
extensive medical treatment, including multiple surgeries. He also alleged the spider bite and resulting
surgeries caused a permanent altered gait resulting in a claimed lower back
injury. Fields further claimed that he had not been able to return to work
since the subject incident and that he was 100% permanently and totally
disabled.
It was undisputed that Fields had not returned to work since
the subject spider bite incident and that he had been awarded Social Security
Disability Insurance benefits by the time the case went to trial. However, Sexton Lawn & Landscape denied
that Fields suffered any disability as a result of the subject spider bite
injury. It argued that the wound injury,
which was to his scheduled member foot, not leg, had completely resolved and
that his claimed lower back injury was personal in nature, unrelated to the
subject incident and not compensable under the Alabama Workers’ Compensation
Act.
The case was tried on July 16, 2018, before Judge J. Clark
Stankoski in Baldwin County, Alabama. On
September 8, 2018, the Court entered its Final Judgment finding that Fields
suffered only an injury to his scheduled member right foot, but that he did not
suffer any permanent impairment as a result of same. Furthermore, the Court found that Fields did
not suffer a compensable back injury as a result of the subject incident and
was not entitled to any benefits under the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act,
whatsoever, as a result of his claimed back injury.
