Brown v. Parker Drilling Offshore Corp.

The facts—that Plaintiff had sustained back injuries prior to completing Defendant’s medical questionnaire, that Plaintiff knew at the time he completed the questionnaire that these injuries constituted “back trouble” in the eyes of a past employer (that terminated him for lying about his prior back problems), and that Plaintiff habitually lied about his prior injuries—were established by Defendant at trial. The jury nonetheless found that Plaintiff had not intended to conceal his medical condition from Defendant. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court and found that the jury erred in finding that it was unreasonable for Defendant to withhold benefits, because Defendant’s refusal was based on a reasonable defense: that Plaintiff had willfully concealed his medical condition. Brown v. Parker Drilling Offshore Corp., No. 03-30782, ___ F.3d ___ (5th Cir. Jan. 6, 2002).

Plaintiff injured his back in August 1998, while lifting a sack of corn, and was treated at an emergency room and issued a wheelchair and walker. Ten months later, on June 29, 1999, Plaintiff applied to work as a seaman for LeTourneau, Inc. On his employment application medical questionnaire, Plaintiff checked “No” when asked whether he had ever suffered from “Back Trouble.” Based in part on this representation, LeTourneau hired Plaintiff. In late May 2000, while working for LeTourneau, Plaintiff alleged that he injured his back and was treated by the same treating physician as in his original alleged accident. After the second alleged accident, Plaintiff was terminated from LeTourneau for falsely reporting an on-the-job accident, filing a false accident claim, and failing to disclose his 1998 back injury on LeTourneau’s medical questionnaire.

On August 15, 2000, two months after being fired by LeTourneau, Plaintiff applied to work as a floorhand for Defendant. On Defendant’s medical questionnaire, Plaintiff checked “No” when asked whether he had “Past or Present Back and Neck Trouble.” The form stated above Plaintiff’s signature: �ILURE TO ANSWER TRUTHFULLY MAY RESULT IN THE FORFEITURE OF WORKER’S COMP BENEFITS. I have read the above statements and the answers to the above questions and I certify them to be true and correct.” Based in part on this representation, Defendant hired Plaintiff. On April 20, 2001, while working for Defendant, Plaintiff reported to his superior that he felt back pain while pulling slips out of the master bushings of the rotary table aboard Defendant’s rig. Plaintiff was sent off the rig floor to complete an accident report. During its accident investigation, Defendant came to believe that Plaintiff’s back injury was not sustained aboard the vessel, and that Plaintiff had willfully concealed his prior back injuries. Based upon these beliefs, Defendant withheld payment of Plaintiff’s maintenance and cure benefits.

Plaintiff sued Defendant for (1) negligence under the Jones Act, (2) unseaworthiness under general maritime law, (3) retaliatory discharge, (4) maintenance and cure benefits, and (5) compensatory damages resulting from Defendant’s failure to pay such benefits. Defendant countered that Plaintiff was not entitled to maintenance and cure on the ground that he willfully concealed his past back injuries, and that Plaintiff was not entitled to compensatory damages because Defendant withheld benefit payments in reliance upon a reasonable defense. The jury ultimately returned a verdict finding for Plaintiff in part. Specifically, the jury found that Plaintiff was injured due to Defendant’s negligence, that Plaintiff was entitled to maintenance and cure because he did not willfully conceal his medical condition, and that Plaintiff was entitled to compensatory damages because Defendant unreasonably withheld maintenance and cure benefits. Defendant timely appealed, contending that Plaintiff willfully concealed his medical condition from Defendant, and that Defendant’s withholding of Plaintiff’s maintenance and cure benefits was reasonable.

On appeal, Defendant contended that the jury committed clear error by finding that Plaintiff had not willfully concealed his prior back injuries when he completed Defendant’s medical questionnaire. The Fifth Circuit commenced its analysis by acknowledging that a Jones Act employer is entitled to investigate a seaman’s claim for maintenance and cure benefits and that an employer is allowed to rely on certain legal defenses to deny these claims. As the Court noted, one such defense is that the injured seaman willfully concealed from his employer a preexisting medical condition. The Fifth Circuit reiterated that in order to establish “willful concealment,” an employer must show that:

(1) The claimant intentionally misrepresented or concealed medical facts;

(2) The non-disclosed facts were material to the employer’s decision to hire the claimant; and

(3) A connection exists between the withheld information and the injury complained of in the lawsuit.

Plaintiff offered two explanations for the jury’s finding that he did not intentionally conceal his medical condition. First, he alleged that the question at issue on Defendant’s medical questionnaire was compound. Second, he argued that he did not understand the definition of “trouble.”

Both arguments failed. In fact, as to the compound nature of the question that Plaintiff lied about in Defendant’s medical questionnaire, the Fifth Circuit held that despite the arguably ambiguous nature of the question (and the fact that Plaintiff had never suffered a neck injury), Plaintiff’s acknowledgment that he had been fired from LeTourneau due to his “back trouble” established that he intentionally concealed his medical condition on Defendant’s medical questionnaire. As to Plaintiff’s lack of understanding of the definition of “trouble,” the Court opined that Plaintiff’s understanding of his prior injury as “trouble” seemed to have been established by the circumstances surrounding his termination from LeTourneau. Plaintiff, after all, had been fired for answering “No” on LeTourneau’s medical questionnaire when asked whether he had suffered from “back trouble.” In the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, Plaintiff’s own testimony rendered implausible his explanation that, two months later, he did not understand the definition of “trouble” on Defendant’s medical questionnaire.

The Court further held that the other two elements of the “willful concealment” inquiry, i.e., materiality and causality, were clearly established at trial. As the Fifth Circuit noted, the fact that an employer asks a specific medical question on an application, and that the inquiry is rationally related to the applicant’s physical ability to perform his job duties, renders the information material for the purpose of this analysis. Plaintiff’s history of back injuries is the exact type of information sought by employers like Defendant. And Plaintiff, by his own admission, realized that information about his back condition had been important to one of his past employers. Plaintiff’s counterargument—that he could perform heavy labor tasks for his first few months on the job—was ruled by the Fifth Circuit to be irrelevant: Defendant based its hiring decision (at least, in part) upon whether applicants had “Past or Present Back and Neck Trouble,” not whether they could, on the date of their application, complete difficult manual labor tasks. Materiality was established at trial.

Further, Defendant demonstrated that a nexus existed between Plaintiff’s preexisting injury and his injury supporting this lawsuit. As the Court opined, the requisite causal link is established if the preexisting injury and the new injury are located in the same part of the body. In the present case, the testimony at trial established that Plaintiff suffered a lumbar strain in 1998 and 2000, with possible disc herniation, at L-4/L-5 and L-5/S-1. Even Plaintiff’s expert witness acknowledged that Plaintiff’s prior back strains were to the same lumbar-spine region as his current back problem. The Fifth Circuit ultimately held that because Plaintiff’s injuries were to the same location of the lumbar spine, the causal link between the allegedly concealed information and the new injury was established at trial.

The Fifth Circuit concluded that the jury erred in finding that it was unreasonable for Defendant to withhold benefits because Defendant’s refusal was based on a reasonable defense: that Plaintiff had willfully concealed his medical condition. The Court reasoned that the jury could not rationally have determined that Defendant was unreasonable in relying on this defense, so their finding constituted clear error. Based on the conclusion that the jury’s finding that Plaintiff did not willfully conceal his back injuries was a clear error, the Fifth Circuit vacated the jury’s verdict and Plaintiff’s case was dismissed with prejudice.