Kentucky: Res Judicata is no Defense to Change in Condition Petition

An injured employee could reopen her claim based upon an alleged change of condition—her petition was not barred by the doctrine of res judicata—where the core issue was the employee’s contention that her degree of disability was to be reviewed as of two different dates, held a Kentucky appellate court. Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the court acknowledged that the doctrine of res judicata generally applied within the context of workers’ compensation law, but stressed that where, as here, the claimant presented evidence that her condition had worsened, an earlier finding as to the level of that disability was not binding at a later point in time. The court stressed that applying the res judicata doctrine blindly would mean a claim could never be reopened for a change in condition, a result never intended by the Legislature.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Jimenez v. Lakshmi Narayan Hosp. Grp. Louisville, 2021 Ky. App. LEXIS 98 (Sept. 10, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 127.07.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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