Connecticut: Apportionment Not Allowed For Employee’s Pre-existing Diabetic Neuropathy

The Supreme Court of Connecticut reiterated the general rule that an employer is ordinarily responsible for all the consequences of a compensable injury. Where an employee suffered from diabetic neuropathy that caused impairment to his arms and hands and subsequently suffered injuries to his upper arms and hands in a work-related accident, the employer was responsible for the entire amount of permanent disability. There could be no apportionment for the prior condition under the rule set out in Deschenes v. Transco, Inc., 288 Conn. 303, 953 A.2d 13 (2008). Under Deschenes, apportionment is allowed where the employer proves, inter alia, that a disability resulted from the combination of two concurrently developing disease processes. In short, the employee’s neuropathy had already developed at the moment of the accident injury. It did not concurrently develop.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Sullins v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 2015 Conn. LEXIS 15 (to be released Feb. 17, 2015) [2015 Conn. LEXIS 15 (to be released Feb. 17, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 90.04 [90.04]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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