CALIFORNIA COMPENSATION CASES Vol. 89, No. 7 July 2024 A Report of En Banc and Significant Panel Decisions of the WCAB and Selected Court Opinions of Related Interest, With a Digest of WCAB Decisions...
Havanis v. Calif. Dept. of Transportation (Board Panel Decision) By Hon. Colleen Casey, Former Commissioner, California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board I. Medical apportionment is not the...
By Robert G. Rassp, author of The Lawyer’s Guide to the AMA Guides and California Workers’ Compensation (LexisNexis) Disclaimer: The material and any opinions contained in this treatise are...
Oakland, CA – Private self-insured claim volume in the California workers' compensation system fell 9.5% in 2023, producing the biggest year-to-year decline in private self-insured claim frequency...
By Hon. Susan V. Hamilton, Former Assistant Secretary and Deputy Commissioner, California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board No matter the source of your media consumption, it seems that the topic...
An unruly patient who punched the claimant in her mouth knocked her out of the labor market, according to the Commission which affirmed a total disability award against the second injury fund. Seldon v St. Louis Psychiatric Rehab Center, 2014 Mo WCLR Lexis 110 (lexis.com), 2014 Mo WCLR Lexis 110 (Lexis Advance) (Sept. 16, 2014). The employer had settled before the hearing. A psych nurse was assaulted twice by different patients over a 6 month period. In the first case she was trying to break up a patient fight and was stabbed in the side by a pair of scissors. In a second assault she tried to stop a fight between a patient and the doctor and she had a superficial injury to her mouth. After the first accident she was diagnosed and treated for PTSD and depression. The second accident exacerbated her PTSD. She returned to work for 10 months with the accommodation based on medical restrictions of no patient contact and then retired several years early.
Second injury fund liability requires proof of synergy which historically has been problematic when injuries involve the same body part (back on back, for example) or the same diagnosis (PTSD on PTSD, in this case). The ALJ relied upon expert testimony that the total disability was a combination of the two separate accidents to trigger second injury fund liability. The synergy is not fully explained. Claimant’s expert concluded that the last accident alone rendered claimant 75% disabled. He never rated anything for the first accident. Claimant returned to work after the second accident only in a highly-accommodated position.
Source: Martin Klug, Huck, Howe & Tobin. Read Martin Klug’s Mo. Workers’ Comp Alerts.
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