Where a trial court’s ruling that a plaintiff’s rotator cuff injury was not caused by a car accident was not supported by the evidence, the ruling was reversed.
In Payne v. Shelby County, Tennessee, No. W2024-00641-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 23, 2025), the plaintiff was riding in the front of a small bus while helping to transport a patient as part of her job as a certified nursing assistant. She was buckled with a lap belt. While stopped at a red light, a deputy sheriff stopped in a car behind the bus began moving and struck the back of the bus. The airbags in the rear car did not deploy, but the car was inoperable and had to be towed.
The plaintiff declined ambulance transport but took herself to a medical center to be examined that day. She complained of neck and low back pain, and she was seen at an emergency room later than evening. The next morning, she went to the recommended follow up visit and complained of back, neck and shoulder pain. Over the next few weeks, the plaintiff was seen for follow up visits, and she eventually saw an orthopedic surgeon. The surgeon clinically diagnosed her with a rotator cuff tear and recommended an MRI. Based on the MRI and clinical findings, the plaintiff had surgery on her rotator cuff three months after the automobile accident.
The plaintiff filed this suit, and the defendant county admitted liability. The only issue, then, was the amount of damages owed to the plaintiff. The plaintiff offered testimony from herself, the deputy driving the other vehicle, her live-in boyfriend, the deputy who investigated the crash, and her surgeon. The surgeon testified that the plaintiff’s injuries, including her torn rotator cuff, were caused by the automobile crash to a reasonable degree of medical certainty.
At the conclusion of the trial, the trial judge took the matter under advisement. He ultimately ruled that while some of the plaintiff’s injuries were caused by the accident, the torn rotator cuff was not caused by the accident, so he refused to award damages based on that injury. This appeal followed, where the ruling was reversed.
After affirming the trial court’s denial of a motion to recuse based on both untimeliness and the lack of an appearance of impropriety, the Court of Appeals analyzed the ruling that plaintiff’s rotator cuff injury was not caused by the accident. The Court cited five reasons given by the trial court for its ruling: 1) that the plaintiff did not complain of shoulder pain at any initial medical appointments, 2) that the surgeon referenced a “work related condition” in his notes that might have referred to something other than the accident, 3) that there was bursitis in the plaintiff’s shoulder, 4) that the surgeon did not know anything about the accident, and 5) that the plaintiff did not report to the providers what she did for a living. The Court of Appeals ruled that the evidence did not support any of these five findings. Instead, the evidence showed that the plaintiff complained of shoulder pain the day after the accident (and several times thereafter). Further, the defendant called no witnesses and offered no proof to rebut the surgeon’s opinion that the rotator cuff tear was caused by the accident.
The Court wrote that this was not a case of the trial court believing one witness over another, as no witness rebutted the plaintiff’s surgeon’s causation testimony. Even if it the ruling were based on implicit credibility determinations, however, the Court explained that the causation finding should be reversed:
After carefully reviewing the entirety of the evidence presented below, we are compelled to reach a different result. We know that the trial court’s decision was based on its erroneous factual findings as to the absence of any complaints of shoulder pain by [the plaintiff] in the two weeks following the accident and at physical therapy, and those findings, and any underlying implicit adverse credibility determinations, related to whether she reported shoulder pain, are clearly disproved by the medical records, which are in accord with her testimony. So, we conclude that the trial court’s related factual finding as to causation is clearly erroneous, even if it was based on an implicit credibility determination.
The trial court’s ruling that the rotator cuff injury was not caused by the accident was reversed. The case was accordingly remanded for the proper calculation of damages.
This case is highly fact specific, but it is an example of how a well-organized appeal focusing on the evidence contradicting a trial court’s ruling can be successful.
This opinion was released 4.5 months after oral arguments in this case.