The Texas Supreme Court reversed a decision to award a claimant lifetime income benefits. She claimed that she injured her back at work and the injury affected both of her feet to the point where she could not use them.

Gloria De La Cruz worked at Kona Kreek restaurant as a cook when she fell in early 2004 and injured her left knee and her back. The restaurant had workers’ compensation insurance and she received compensation, she returned to work as light duty in March of 2004. She found it difficult to do even light duty work and her doctors told her to stop working, and diagnosed her with intervertebral disc herniation. She got disc surgery and she also had arthroscopic surgery on her injured knee. She continued to feel numb and pain in her legs and eventually filed a claim for lifetime income benefits. She said her injury caused such damage to her feet that she couldn’t even use them and it was permanent damage. She was originally denied at her hearing but she appealed up to the district court which awarded her the benefits.

The insurer for Kona Kreek, Dallas National Insurance Company challenged this decision which the appeals court affirmed, but since she did not provide sufficient factual evidence that her injury caused such impairment they were allowed to take their case up to the Supreme Court.

The Texas Lifetime Income Benefits Act does state that for a total loss of use of a body part to be compensable, the injury must have caused that loss, and an injury to another body part that resulted in a total loss of this other body part may not be compensable. Pain is not considered an injury.

Using those qualifications, the court reversed the lower court’s decision and denied De La Cruz lifetime income benefits. They said there is no evidence that her feet were involved in the original accident or harmed in the original accident. In the eyes of the court her problems with her feet were a reflection of the nerve injuries in her back, but that did not qualify her for lifetime income benefits.