willing to record what he said. Specifically, employee provided medical reports in which he described his accident, the post-accident drug test, the nurse's notation that she called and spoke to a manager at employee's work to report an accident, the employee claim form filed by Mr. Sauer, and the recorded interview, and the notes Katie Martz posted on the insurer's computer.
We find, based upon the aforementioned evidence and the record as a whole, that employee met his burden of proving that on June 18, 2010, he sustained an accident, as defined by § 287.020.2 RSMo.
Having found that an accident occurred, we must now turn to the issue of whether the injury arose out of and in the course of employment.
Dr. Bowen issued an opinion stating that the June 18, 2010, accident was the prevailing factor in aggravating a preexisting condition resulting in his current medical condition. Dr. Doll diagnosed a mild left lumbar strain related to the work accident.
Dr. Bowen did not believe employee was at maximum medical improvement and wanted to try additional treatment options including intrascapular injections. Dr. Doll, on the other hand, opined that employee is at maximum medical improvement and sustained no permanent partial disability attributable to the alleged June 2010 incident.
Based on all of the evidence presented, we find that employee's accident on June 18, 2010, was the prevailing factor in causing employee's injury on that day. Therefore, we find that employee's injury is medically causally related to the June 18, 2010, work-related accident.
In addition to the aforementioned, we find Dr. Bowen's opinion that employee has not achieved maximum medical improvement more convincing than Dr. Doll's opinion stating the opposite. Therefore, we order employer to provide all future medical care reasonably required to cure and relieve the effects of the injury.
With regard to employee's claim for temporary total disability benefits, we do not believe employee met his burden of proving he was totally disabled from June 30, 2010, through April 10, 2011. Section 287.020.6 RSMo defines "total disability" as the "inability to return to any employment and not merely [the] inability to return to the employment in which the employee was engaged at the time of the accident."
Employee began working for Manpower approximately two weeks after he stopped working for employer. Employee effectively represented that he was able to do any work at that time because he did not give his work restrictions to Manpower. Employee may have been given lifting restrictions, but failed to prove he was "totally disabled" from June 30, 2010, through April 10, 2011.
Lastly, with respect to employee's claim for costs under § 287.560 RSMo, employee failed to meet its burden of proving that employer defended this claim without reasonable ground. Costs should only be invoked where the employer offers "absolutely no ground, reasonable or otherwise," for refusing benefits clearly owed to a claimant because his injury was indisputably work-related. Landman v. Ice Cream Specialties, Inc., 107 S.W.3d 240, 250 (Mo. banc 2003). In this case, employer refused employee benefits because it believed, based on its witnesses' testimony, that employee did not suffer a work-related accident. Employer's refusal to provide benefits was not egregious.