Ex parte Michael Lancaster, Jr., [Ms. CL-2025-0486, Sept. 19, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. Civ. App. 2025). The court (Moore, P.J.; Edwards, Fridy, and Bowden, JJ., concur; Hanson, J., dissents) denies Michael Lancaster, Jr.’s (“the employee”), mandamus petition directing the Tuscaloosa Circuit Court to require his employer, Hunnicutt Mobile Home Service, Inc., to provide him a second panel of four physicians pursuant to Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-77(a) of the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act (“the Act”).
The court rejects Lancaster’s argument that where an employee suffers to distinct injuries requiring treatment by different specialists, he should be allowed an additional panel of four physicians when dissatisfied with the care provided by the physicians selected by the employer. The court holds
The plain language of § 25-5-77(a), and the legislative history behind that language, permits only one panel of four physicians to be provided to an injured employee. This court cannot, in the guise of liberal construction, amend the statute to provide for an additional panel of four. See generally Mallisham v. Kiker, 630 So. 2d 420, 423 (Ala. 1993). Perhaps, as a matter of fairness, § 25-5-77(a) should include a provision allowing for multiple panels of four when an injured employee requires multiple physicians in multiple specialties to treat his or her work-related injuries, but “this court may not correct that perceived inequity by reading into the Act a substantive rule of law that its language does not fairly support.” Fab Arc Steel Supply, Inc. v. Dodd, 168 So. 3d 1244, 1258-59 (Ala. Civ. App. 2015). This court cannot invade the function of the legislature to amend a law that it perceives to be antiquated or deficient. See Brookwood, 895 So. 2d at 1006; see also Ala. Const. 2022, Art. III, § 42(c) (providing, in pertinent part, that “the judicial branch may not exercise the legislative or executive power”). The decision whether an injured employee should receive more than one panel of four physicians rests exclusively with the legislature, not this court.
Ms. **14-15.
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