Opinion
42139.
ARGUED JULY 6, 1966.
DECIDED SEPTEMBER 6, 1966. REHEARING DENIED SEPTEMBER 20, 1966.
Workmen's compensation. Gordon Superior Court. Before Judge Davis.
Greene, Neely, Buckley DeRieux, J. Douglas Stewart, for appellants.
L. D. Skaggs, for appellee.
An unreversed award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation finding that the claimant has suffered an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment and awarding compensation for a specific cause of disability which has then ceased but denying compensation for another alleged cause of disability is res judicata that such second cause of disability is not compensable, and upon a hearing based upon an alleged change in condition evidence which merely shows that the second cause of disability is more disabling than at the time of the first award will not authorize an award of additional compensation.
ARGUED JULY 6, 1966 — DECIDED SEPTEMBER 6, 1966 — REHEARING DENIED SEPTEMBER 20, 1966 — CERT. APPLIED FOR.
On February 24, 1964 a deputy director of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation, after a hearing, rendered an award in which he found that the claimant suffered a compensable accident on May 17, 1963, and awarded compensation for a period ending July 24, 1963. The deputy director also found in such award that although the claimant may have been suffering from some difficulty at the time of the hearing there was no evidence that such difficulty was related to his original injury. Such award stands unreversed. Thereafter, the claimant filed a request for a hearing based on a change in condition and as a result of such hearing another deputy director rendered an award granting additional compensation which award was adopted by the full board on appeal and thereafter affirmed by the superior court. It is to this latter judgment that the employer and insurer appeal.
An award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation unreversed is res judicata of all matters therein adjudicated and cannot be challenged or changed except upon a showing of change in condition. See Carney v. Travelers Ins. Co., 101 Ga. App. 42 ( 112 S.E.2d 69), and citations.
The first award standing unreversed which denied the claimant compensation for the difficulties from which he was then suffering established that such condition was not compensable, and the evidence upon the second hearing, based upon a change in condition, which only established that such condition had become worse did not authorize the award of compensation. The superior court erred in affirming the award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation.
Judgment reversed. Hall and Deen, JJ., concur.