SANDRA BERGLUND, Employee/Appellant, v. WILDROSE HEALTH CARE, LLC, and BERKLEY RISK ADM’R CO., LLC, Employer-Insurer/Respondents.

The employee appeals from the compensation judge’s determination that she voluntarily resigned from her employment and from the denial of her claim for reinstatement of benefits.  We affirm.

The employee, Sandra Berglund was employed by Wildrose Home Care (“Wildrose”) as a home health aide when she was injured at work on September 1, 2020.  Wildrose provides home care services to persons with disabilities and the employee worked with one of its clients.  The client was confined to a wheelchair and required 24-hour care, including cooking, cleaning, bathing, and toilet assistance.  The employee would occasionally do grocery shopping and take the client to appointments.  On the date of injury, the employee was helping the client use the toilet when she fell and injured her neck, left knee, both shoulders, and her left hand.  The employee sought medical care for her injuries and was taken off work by her doctor.  The employer and its insurer admitted liability for the work injury and began payment of medical expenses and temporary total disability (TTD) benefits.

The employee’s doctor released her to work on February 12, 2021, on a part-time light-duty basis.  She returned to work for two to four hours each day.  The insurer began payment of temporary partial disability (TPD) benefits to the employee based on her reduced hours and wages.  The insurer sent a notice of intent to discontinue (NOID) to the employee on February 23, 2021, advising her that TTD benefits would be discontinued since she had returned to work but that she would be paid ongoing TPD benefits.

The employee testified that she received the NOID in the afternoon of Friday, February 26, 2021.  The employee was upset by the NOID.  She believed the notice meant that she would no longer receive any workers’ compensation benefits.  She called her lawyer but was told that he would not be in the office for several weeks.  That same day, the employee called the Wildrose office and spoke to the on-call nurse and told her that she would not be working her scheduled shifts on Saturday or Sunday.  The employee was reminded that it was important to have staff coverage for home visits, to which the employee responded that she was “done with Wildrose.”  The owner of Wildrose called and texted the employee a number of times that evening but received no answer from the employee.  The employee did not work her scheduled shifts that weekend.

A meeting had been scheduled for the following Monday, March 1, 2021, for the employee to discuss her concerns with a supervisor.  The employee did not come in for the meeting.  Instead, the employee came in the next day, March 2, 2021.  The employee testified that it was her expectation that she would discuss her schedule and assignments at the meeting.  The supervisor testified that it was his position at the meeting that the employee had voluntarily resigned her employment at Wildrose according to her statement to the on-call nurse that she was done with Wildrose, her failure to respond to the calls and texts from the owner, her failure to work her scheduled shifts on Saturday and Sunday, and her failure to attend the meeting scheduled on the day before.  The supervisor gave the employee a letter stating that Wildrose accepted her resignation.

The employee, through her attorney, filed an objection to the NOID, resulting in a hearing before a compensation judge on May 26, 2021.  The compensation judge issued a Findings and Order on June 28, 2021, denying the employee’s claim for reinstatement of her TTD benefits, finding that the employee had voluntarily resigned from her employment at Wildrose on February 26, 2021, and finding that the employee had not made a diligent search for other employment since that time.  The employee appeals.

On appeal, the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals must determine whether “the findings of fact and order [are] clearly erroneous and unsupported by substantial evidence in view of the entire record as submitted.”  Minn. Stat. § 176.421, subd. 1(3).  Substantial evidence supports the findings if, in the context of the entire record, “they are supported by evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate.”  Hengemuhle v. Long Prairie Jaycees, 358 N.W.2d 54, 59, 37 W.C.D. 235, 239 (Minn. 1984).  Where evidence conflicts or more than one inference may reasonably be drawn from the evidence, the findings are to be affirmed.  Id. at 60, 37 W.C.D. at 240.  Similarly, findings of fact should not be disturbed, even though the reviewing court might disagree with them, “unless they are clearly erroneous in the sense that they are manifestly contrary to the weight of evidence or not reasonably supported by the evidence as a whole.”  Northern States Power Co. v. Lyon Food Prods., Inc., 304 Minn. 196, 201, 229 N.W.2d 521, 524 (1975).

A decision which rests upon the application of a statute or rule to essentially undisputed facts generally involves a question of law which the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals may consider de novo.  Krovchuk v. Koch Oil Refinery, 48 W.C.D. 607, 608 (W.C.C.A. 1993), summarily aff’d (Minn. June 3, 1993).

In her appeal, the employee alleges that the compensation judge erred in failing to order recommencement of her TTD benefits.  She makes two arguments in support of her position.  First, she states that she did not voluntarily resign from Wildrose, contrary to the compensation judge’s finding.  Second, she argues that her TTD benefits should have been reinstated after she left the employer because she was cooperating with a QRC at that time.

The employee alleges that she did not tell the on-call nurse during their phone call that she was done with Wildrose.  She concedes, however, that she did say that she would not return to work at Wildrose until her workers’ compensation and pay issues were resolved.  At that point, the employee agrees, she hung up.  Also, the employee did not work her shifts with the client over the weekend.  The employee, in her brief, excuses her failure to respond to the phone calls and texts from the Wildrose owner by citing a lack of proficiency in using her cell phone.  Her testimony and that of her supervisor, however, indicate that her cell phone was her usual method of communicating with the employer.  Substantial evidence supports the compensation judge’s finding that the employee voluntarily resigned from her employment at Wildrose.

A voluntary resignation from suitable employment is not necessarily fatal to a claim for TTD benefits so long as the employee demonstrates a diligent effort to find suitable employment.  Minn. Stat. § 176.101, subd. 1(g); see also Redgate v. Sroga’s Standard Serv., 421 N.W.2d 729, 40 W.C.D. 948 (Minn. 1988).  There is no evidence in the record, however, that the employee sought another job after the March 2021 meeting.  While the employee had worked with a QRC, she testified that she had little discussion with her QRC about returning to work and the last stated rehabilitation goal was returning the employee to work at Wildrose.  No other action to find replacement employment appears to have been taken in the months between March 2021 and the date of the hearing by either the employee or the QRC.  The compensation judge’s conclusion that the employee has not diligently searched for work is supported by the evidence.

The findings appealed by the employee are factual determinations made by the compensation judge after considering the evidence and the arguments of the parties.  In such a case, the question for this court is whether those factual determinations are supported by substantial evidence.  Redgate, 421 N.W.2d at 734, 40 W.C.D. at 957 (“[t]he point is not whether [the appellate court] might have viewed the evidence differently, but whether the findings of the compensation judge are supported by evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate”).  We conclude that substantial evidence exists to support the compensation judge’s factual determinations and affirm her decision.