Rel: July 17, 2026
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter.
ALABAMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS
SPECIAL TERM, 2026
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Ex parte Waterville USA, Inc.
PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS
(In re: Isabell Norton Altamira
v.
Waterville USA, Inc.)
(Baldwin Circuit Court: CV-25-900772)
HANSON, Judge.
This mandamus petition arises from a civil action originally
brought in February 2025 in the Mobile Circuit Court by Isabell Norton
Altamira ("the employee") against Waterville USA, Inc. ("the employer"),
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in which she sought compensation payable under the Alabama Workers'
Compensation Act ("the Act"), Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-1 et seq., on the
basis of a claimed June 2021 workplace accident and resulting injury to
her head, left shoulder, and back. The action was subsequently
transferred, on the motion of the employer, to the Baldwin Circuit Court.
In its June 2025 answer, the employer, among other things, denied that
it was "liable … for medical benefits" under the Act; disputed that the
employee had "suffered any permanent injury as a result of the alleged
accident"; and averred that any disability on the part of the employee was
"not proximately caused by the accident made the basis of the instant
action, but by some other prior, intervening or subsequent cause."
In February 2026, during the pendency of the underlying action in
the Baldwin Circuit Court, the employee filed a "motion to compel
medical treatment," averring that her authorized treating physician had
sought to refer her to another physician for "a second opinion
consultation" but that the employer had not scheduled any appointment
with that other physician; the employee sought an order compelling the
employer "to set a consultation appointment" with the other physician.
The employer filed an immediate objection to the employee's motion in
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which it contended that its previous provision of medical benefits to the
employee had been "without admission of liability" and that, as a result,
it could not be properly compelled to provide medical treatment without
a judicial determination of compensability, pursuant to this court's
holding in Ex parte Publix Super Markets, Inc., 963 So. 2d 654 (Ala. Civ.
App. 2007); the employer filed a more detailed response in opposition to
the employee's motion on April 1, 2026, noting that the treating physician
it authorized had placed the employee at maximum medical
improvement in March 2023 and again positing that no order compelling
further medical treatment would be proper absent proof that the
employee's alleged injury "arose out of and in the course of her
employment and that the medical treatment suggested is 'reasonable and
necessary' " adduced "at a trial on the merits of the case." On April 8,
2026, the Baldwin Circuit Court entered an order summarily granting
the employee's motion to compel, and, after the employer had filed a
motion seeking reconsideration of that interlocutory order, it entered a
subsequent order on May 5, 2026, declining to disturb its April 8, 2026,
order granting the employee's motion to compel.
On May 15, 2026, less than 42 days after the entry of the April 8,
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2026, order, the employer filed in this court a petition for the writ of
mandamus seeking review of that order. That petition was filed within
the presumptively reasonable time for seeking such review, see Rule
21(a)(3), Ala. R. App. P., and no contention has been made that the writ
of mandamus was not timely sought. This court called for an answer
from the employee, which has been filed, and now turns to the merits of
the employer's petition.
In Ex parte Publix Super Markets, supra, this court considered a
mandamus petition arising out of a civil action in which a grocery-store
worker had sought benefits under the Act after purportedly injuring
herself while lifting a case of bottled water in the line and scope of her
employment; after the grocery-store operator had filed an answer
denying the material allegations made in the worker's complaint, the
worker filed a "motion to compel medical treatment," which the trial
court granted after a hearing at which no evidence was adduced. 963 So.
2d at 656-57. In issuing a writ of mandamus directing the trial court to
vacate that order, this court (a) reasoned that, under the Act, "an
employer would not be financially responsible for medical and surgical
treatment obtained by an employee for conditions unrelated to an
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accident arising out of and in the course of the employee's employment";
(b) confirmed that no mechanism authorized "a circuit court … to decide,
on a motion of [an] employee filed before a trial and a determination on
the merits, that [an] employer is compelled to provide medical or surgical
treatment to [that] employee," except on motion for a judgment on the
pleadings under Rule 12(c), Ala. R. Civ. P., or a summary-judgment
motion under Rule 56(c), Ala. R. Civ. P.; and (c) ruled, based upon the
content of the pleadings and the worker's motion, that neither
permissible mechanism had been employed in that case. 963 So. 2d at
658-61. We concluded:
"[I]t appears that the trial court deviated from the procedure
established in the Act and the Alabama Rules of Civil
Procedure by deciding a disputed issue of coverage based on a
motion filed by the [worker] containing only a mere allegation
that she had sustained a work-related accident that caused
injuries requiring medical and surgical treatment. While the
law encourages employers to provide medical benefits
voluntarily, see Rule 409, Ala. R. Evid., nothing in the law
requires employers to furnish medical benefits to an employee
based on the mere allegation that [that] employee requires
medical treatment because of a work-related injury. [A
worker] bears the burden of proving each and every fact
prerequisite to a recovery of medical expenses, including the
essential threshold fact that he or she sustained a workrelated injury that necessitated the medical or surgical
treatment obtained. … Section 25-5-88, Ala. Code 1975,
requires circuit courts to expedite the trial and determination
of workers' compensation cases, but the legislature has not
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endorsed any procedure that would abrogate [a worker's]
burden of proof for the sake of expediency."
963 So. 2d at 660-61.
In the intervening 19 years, we have adhered to the principles set
forth in Ex parte Publix Super Markets regarding the unavailability of
alternate summary procedures with respect to claims of entitlement to
medical or surgical benefits under the Act. Nonetheless, the Baldwin
Circuit Court, for all that appears from the employer's petition and the
employee's answer, held no hearing at which evidence was adduced
supporting or refuting "the essential threshold fact that [the employee]
sustained a work-related injury that necessitated the medical or surgical
treatment obtained," Id. at 661, but summarily directed the employer to
grant the relief sought by the employee in her motion, i.e., requiring the
employer "to set a consultation appointment with" the "second-opinion"
orthopedic practitioner identified by the physician selected by the
employer in the prelitigation stage. The employee admits in her answer
that the order under review was entered "in the pre-trial litigation phase"
and that "there has been no testimony taken and no record other than
the pleadings" made. Moreover, as was true in Ex parte Publix Super
Markets, we can perceive neither an admission in the employer's answer
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in this case that might have warranted a partial judgment on the
pleadings warranting such relief nor any attempt by the employee in this
case to comply with the rules governing summary judgments by
submitting a suitable motion containing, among other things, a
" 'narrative summary of what the [employee] contends to be the
undisputed material facts.' " 963 So. 2d at 660 (quoting Rule 56(c)(1)).
In seeking to distinguish this case from Ex parte Publix Super
Markets, the employee relies upon the doctrine that an employer may not
refuse to honor a referral by an authorized treating physician under the
Act, citing Ex parte City of Prattville, 56 So. 3d 684 (Ala. Civ. App. 2010).
However, the employee overlooks that the pertinent municipal employer
in Ex parte City of Prattville was held to have expressly waived its denial
of compensability of the injury to the worker in question in that case; we
noted that "[t]he [c]ity did not assert to the trial court that the court could
not rule on the [motion to compel medical treatment] because of the
dispute as to compensability" even though, under Ex parte Publix Super
Markets, the municipal employer could have made that defensive
assertion. Ex parte City of Prattville, 56 So. 3d at 689 (emphasis added).
If anything, Ex parte City of Prattville provides additional support for
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the employer's position in this case, i.e., that, notwithstanding its
voluntary prejudgment provision of medical care administered at its
expense by an authorized treating physician, it cannot be compelled
without an evidentiary basis to pay for the "second opinion" sought by
the employee pursuant to that treating physician's referral as long as it
insists upon its right to a resolution of the compensability dispute "via
due process, which ordinarily entails an evidentiary hearing." 56 So. 3d
at 689.
The employee also asserts that the employer is estopped to deny
authorization for the "second-opinion" consultation; she says that the
employer "treated [her claim] as an accepted claim" from the outset and
should not be permitted to "defeat[] the overall beneficent purposes" of
the Act. Employee's answer at 20-21, 26. However, the claimed conduct
relied upon by the employee -- voluntarily providing temporary-totaldisability benefits and medical benefits -- is not, both by rule and statute,
to be construed as prejudicing the employer's right to contest coverage
under the Act. See Rule 409, Ala. R. Evid. ("Evidence of furnishing or
offering or promising to pay medical, hospital, or similar expenses
occasioned by an injury is not admissible to prove liability for the injury"),
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and Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-56 ("Moneys voluntarily paid by the employer
or insurance carrier to an injured employee in advance of agreement or
award shall be treated as advance payments on account of the
compensation" and "shall not be construed as an admission of liability
but shall be without prejudice."); see also Ex parte Sunbelt Transp., Inc.,
23 So. 3d 1138, 1142 (granting mandamus petition to set aside order
compelling medical treatment, noting that, "[a]lthough Sunbelt paid Paul
temporary-total-disability benefits under Florida law, Sunbelt has not
admitted or conceded that Paul's injury is compensable under the Act").
Further, to the extent that the employee relies upon the statement in the
parties' joint status report to the Baldwin Circuit Court to the effect that
"[a]rrangements [we]re being made to schedule an appointment for the"
employee with the "second-opinion" physician, we perceive no basis upon
which this court could conclude that the employer thereby made a
binding judicial admission "expressly for the purpose of relieving the
employee of proving compensability under Alabama law" so as to obviate
the employee's ultimate burden of proof. See Ex parte Sunbelt Transp.,
Inc., 23 So. 3d at 1145 (Moore, J., concurring specially).
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Based upon the foregoing facts and authorities, we conclude that
the April 8, 2026, order of the Baldwin Circuit Court granting the
employee's "motion to compel medical treatment" was entered outside the
discretion of that court. We thus grant the employer's petition and direct
that that order be vacated.
PETITION GRANTED; WRIT ISSUED.
Moore, P.J., and Edwards, Fridy, and Bowden, JJ., concur.
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