After careful consideration, we deem appropriate and hereby affirm and adopt the administrative law judge's findings with respect to the nature and extent of permanent partial disability employee sustained as a result of the primary injury. The administrative law judge determined that employee is not permanently and totally disabled. We acknowledge that the record contains evidence to support this finding by the administrative law judge, but we disagree for the following reasons.
At the hearing, employee described his subjective complaints and limitations at length; his testimony is accurately recounted in the administrative law judge's award. While the administrative law judge found lacking in credibility a restriction from employee's primary care physician, Dr. Farmer, that employee must be permitted to lie down during the day, she did not indicate whether she believed employee's own testimony that he has a need to lie down during the day. After careful consideration, we find employee's testimony to be credible on this point. We note that employee cited pain as the primary factor motivating his need to lie down during the day; we note also employee's credible testimony that his pain stems from the effects of the primary injury as well as a preexisting right lower extremity injury. Employee also cited fatigue referable to his preexisting cardiac condition as contributing to his need to lie down during the day.
Considering these factors, and in light of the absence of any opinion from a treating or evaluating physician linking employee's need to lie down during the day to the effects of the primary injury considered in isolation, we find that employee's need to lie down during the day does not result solely from the effects of the primary injury, but instead from a combination of his pain resulting from the primary injury and his preexisting right lower extremity injury, as well as fatigue caused by his preexisting cardiac condition.
The administrative law judge accurately recounted the testimony from employer's vocational expert, Mr. England. We supplement her findings by noting that Mr. England credibly opined (and we so find) that the only transferable skills employee has from his past vocational history are his ability to drive trucks and his knowledge of the trucking industry. We note also that Mr. England appeared to focus on identifying jobs that employee could hypothetically perform within the physical restrictions imposed by the various treating and evaluating physicians, rather than the more relevant question (for our purposes, at least) whether employee could effectively compete for and obtain such jobs on the open labor market. Ultimately, Mr. England conceded that if Dr. Volarich's opinions were accepted by the fact-finder, employee would be considered permanently and totally disabled from a medical standpoint as a result of the primary injury in combination with his preexisting conditions of ill-being; Mr. England made clear that he wasn't arguing with Dr. Volarich's medical findings.
We supplement the administrative law judge's findings referable to the testimony from employee's vocational expert, Mr. Dolan, as follows. Mr. Dolan was seemingly unaware of the extent of employee's preexisting disability referable to the right lower extremity, and did not recall if he asked employee whether his preexisting cardiovascular issues affected his vocational abilities in the time period leading up to the primary injury. Given these deficiencies, we are not persuaded by Mr. Dolan's ultimate opinion assigning permanent total disability to the primary injury alone. We do, however, find Mr. Dolan's testimony persuasive to the extent he opined that it's very unlikely any employer would
hire employee given the restrictions assigned by Dr. Volarich referable to the primary injury and employee's preexisting conditions of ill-being.
We note that both vocational experts agreed that a need to lie down during the day would preclude employee from securing work in the open labor market. In light of the foregoing considerations, we ultimately find most persuasive the opinion from Dr. Volarich (and so find) that employee is permanently and totally disabled as a result of the effects of the primary injury in combination with employee's preexisting disabling conditions of ill-being.