## Facts

- Donald Grantham, an employee of Cherry Hospital, suffered a severe work-related head injury and was found permanently and totally disabled under the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act.
- Before the injury, Grantham worked two jobs; after the injury, his household income fell substantially despite workers’ compensation benefits.
- Grantham and his family incurred about $27,865.07 in ordinary consumer debt to cover routine living expenses.
- Grantham’s physician recommended inpatient rehabilitation, but Grantham chose outpatient rehabilitation at lower cost to the employer/insurer.
- The physician testified that stress from the family’s consumer debt was the biggest obstacle to rehabilitation and that paying it off would most help rehabilitation.
- Grantham sought an order requiring the employer to pay the consumer debt as a “rehabilitative service” under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-29.
- A deputy commissioner ordered payment of the consumer debts as rehabilitative services; the Full Commission affirmed.
- Cherry Hospital appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-29 authorizes the Industrial Commission to require an employer to pay an injured worker’s ordinary consumer debts as “rehabilitative services” in a total and permanent disability case.
2. Whether the Commission abused its discretion by treating consumer-debt payment as a rehabilitative service under § 97-29.

## Decision

- The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed the Commission to the extent it ordered payment of Grantham’s ordinary consumer debts.
- The court held that § 97-29 does not authorize consumer-debt payment as “rehabilitative services.”
- The court concluded the Commission’s order exceeded statutory limits and therefore constituted an abuse of discretion.

## Legal Principles

- Industrial Commission decisions are reviewed for abuse of discretion; reversal is warranted when the decision is manifestly unsupported by reason or so arbitrary that it could not result from reasoned decision-making.
- Although the Workers’ Compensation Act is construed liberally in favor of injured employees, liberal construction does not permit creation of new benefit categories lacking a reasonable basis in statutory text.
- “Rehabilitative services” in § 97-29 must be interpreted in context with listed items such as nursing services, medicines, travel for care, and medical or hospital treatment, indicating medically oriented or closely related services.
- Ordinary consumer debt relief is too remote from medical treatment or rehabilitative care to fall within “rehabilitative services,” even if debt-related stress affects rehabilitation.

## Conclusion

The court limited “rehabilitative services” under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-29 to medical or closely related rehabilitative care and held that the Industrial Commission may not require an employer to pay a permanently disabled employee’s ordinary consumer debts as part of workers’ compensation benefits.


Grantham v. Cherry Hosp., 98 N.C. App. 34, 389 S.E.2d 822 (1990)