Many disputes over physician choice in workers’ compensation arise when an injured worker seeks treatment from a doctor of his or her own choosing. Hayes v. Christian Retirement Homes, Inc.,...
Iowa Supreme Court: Employer Not Bound by Opinion of Its Own Treating Physician Iowa Supreme Court: Employer Not Bound by Opinion of Its Own Treating PhysicianCourt Applies Massachusetts Law to Maine Injury, Rejects Immunity Defense in Multi-State Staffing Arrangement A New Hampshire contractor that likely would have enjoyed workers’ compensation immunity under Maine law lost...
Maine Supreme Court: Massachusetts Law Strips Staffing Client of Workers’ Compensation Immunity Maine Supreme Court: Massachusetts Law Strips Staffing Client of Workers’ Compensation ImmunityNew York’s Court of Appeals recently affirmed an Appellate Division order blocking defendants in a personal injury action from using a Workers’ Compensation Board causation determination as collateral estoppel, holding...
NY High Court Holds JIWA Bars Collateral Estoppel Effect of Pre-Enactment Workers’ Comp Decisions NY High Court Holds JIWA Bars Collateral Estoppel Effect of Pre-Enactment Workers’ Comp DecisionsIn a case involving a Nebraska truck driver-farm laborer whose treatment for metastatic cancer was allegedly postponed by complications associated with a compensable hip injury and its resulting treatment, the...
Nebraska Supreme Court Affirms Denial of Death Benefits Where Work Injury Delayed Cancer Treatment Nebraska Supreme Court Affirms Denial of Death Benefits Where Work Injury Delayed Cancer TreatmentIn a carefully crafted decision dealing with a chronic problem both within and without the workers’ compensation world—long-term opioid use—the Supreme Court of Minnesota held an injured workers treatment with...
MN High Court Says Injured Worker Failed to Establish Exception Allowing Long-Term Opioid Use MN High Court Says Injured Worker Failed to Establish Exception Allowing Long-Term Opioid UseConstruing 19 Del. C. § 2353(b), which bars an employee’s right to compensation for an injury if the injury results, inter alia, from “the employee’s deliberate and reckless indifference to...
Delaware Worker’s Running in Workplace Bars Claim for Injuries Delaware Worker’s Running in Workplace Bars Claim for InjuriesFinding that a physician-patient relationship did not exist between a doctor hired by the workers’ compensation carrier to perform an independent medical examination of the claimant, the Supreme Court of...
Utah IME Physician May Not Be Sued by Workers’ Comp Claimant Utah IME Physician May Not Be Sued by Workers’ Comp ClaimantIn a decision not designated for publication, a Virginia appellate court affirmed a finding of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission that an injured employee’s work-related accident had caused only a...
Half of Virginia Claimant’s PPD Apportioned to Pre-Existing Condition Half of Virginia Claimant’s PPD Apportioned to Pre-Existing ConditionConstruing Virginia’s intentional violation of a known safety rule statute [Va. Code § 65.2-306(A)], a state appellate court affirmed an award of workers’ compensation benefits to an employee who sustained...
Virginia Claimant Did Not Violate Known Safety Rule in Connection with Injury Virginia Claimant Did Not Violate Known Safety Rule in Connection with InjuryReiterating New York’s special “gray area” rule, pursuant to which injuries sustained in public areas near the employment—but not on the employer’s premises—are nevertheless compensable where the risks of street...
NY Court Agrees Claimant’s Injuries Occurred Within “Gray Area” of Employment NY Court Agrees Claimant’s Injuries Occurred Within “Gray Area” of EmploymentA New York appellate court affirmed a determination by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that the surviving spouse of a deceased worker failed to establish—by competent medical evidence—that his wife’s...
Surviving Spouse Fails to Show Causal Connection Between NY Injury and Decedent’s Subsequent Death Surviving Spouse Fails to Show Causal Connection Between NY Injury and Decedent’s Subsequent DeathThe Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court held a WCJ appropriately relied upon the medical opinion of the employer’s examining physician in which the doctor opined that the workers’ compensation claimant had made...
PA Claimant’s Benefits Terminated: 18 Months of Home Remedies Did Not Constitute Medical Treatment PA Claimant’s Benefits Terminated: 18 Months of Home Remedies Did Not Constitute Medical TreatmentA New York appellate court affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that denied a claim for consequential Lyme disease in spite of an opinion offered by an...
NY Worker Fails to Establish Claim for Lyme Disease NY Worker Fails to Establish Claim for Lyme DiseaseAn Ohio appellate court affirmed the denial of workers’ compensation benefits to a home health care aide who sustained a T12 vertebrae compression fracture when she slipped and fell on...
Ohio Home Health Aide’s Injuries Outside Client’s Residence Not Compensable Ohio Home Health Aide’s Injuries Outside Client’s Residence Not CompensableA Virginia appellate court, yet again reiterating the state’s version of the “actual risk rule” [see Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 3.04] affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation...
Virginia Worker’s Fall on Workplace Steps is Not Compensable Virginia Worker’s Fall on Workplace Steps is Not CompensableIn a split decision, an Arizona appellate court affirmed a finding by the state’s Industrial Commission that a police officer failed to establish a compensable workers’ compensation claim based on...
AZ Police Officer’s PTSD Claim Fails Since Stress was not Unexpected AZ Police Officer’s PTSD Claim Fails Since Stress was not Unexpected
New Comments