New York: Board's Abandonment of Labor Market Decision Affirmed in Spite of Medical Evidence of Disability

Stressing that the issue of abandonment of the labor market is an issue for the Board, a New York appellate court affirmed the denial of disability benefits to a worker who sustained a clearly compensable injury--she was struck by falling scaffolding at the employer's work site--and in spite of the fact that her medical expert opined that the worker was temporarily totally disabled. The Board found she had abandoned the labor market before the physician rendered an opinion. The Board stressed, and the appellate court agreed, that the worker's wage loss was not caused by the injury, but by her decision to withdraw from the working economy. Substantial evidence supported the Board's finding, held the appellate court.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the 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 Matter of Castro v. Baybrent Constr. Corp., 2020 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5679 (Oct. 8, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 84.04.

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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