Montana: Amendment Modifying Definition of “Physician” Should be Applied Retroactively

The Supreme Court of Montana held the Workers’ Compensation Court had committed error when it held a chiropractor could not make a medical determination regarding a claimant’s 1991 work-related injury where the Montana statute in question, Mont. Code Ann. § 39-71-116(30)(b), was revised so as to include chiropractors within the definition of “treating physician,” at least for purposes relevant in the case at bar. The Court observed that in EBI/Orion Grp. v. Blythe, 281 Mont. 50, 931 P.2d 38 (1997), it had ruled the amendment was procedural in nature and could be retroactively applied to an injury that occurred before the amendment. The employer argued that Blythe had been impliedly overruled by Fleming v. International Paper Co., 2008 MT 327, 346 Mont. 141, 194 P.3d 77. The high court disagreed with the employer and said that Blythe was good law and controlled the outcome here.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Murphy v. WestRock Co., 2018 MT 54, 2018 Mont. LEXIS 67 (Mar. 20, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 94.02.

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