Ohio: Claimant Suffers Compensable Aggravation During Routine Act of Cleansing After Toilet Use

An Ohio appellate court found that Ohio’s Industrial Commission acted within its discretion with it determined that the ordinarily daily activity of cleansing after using the toilet, which resulted in the exacerbation of the claimant's allowed conditions for disc protrusion, herniated disc, and lumbar radiculopathy, was not of sufficient magnitude to break the causal connection between the work-related injury and the allowed claim. Here, claimant sustained a work-related injury to her back in 2009, reached MMI in 2012, underwent a 2015 MRI that showed disc herniation at L4-L5, posterior annular tear and posterior disc bulge at L5-S1 and other issues. She presented to an ER on 4/11/2016, with acute exacerbation of her chronic back pain and required surgery the following day. The employer contended claimant had suffered an intervening injury that broke the causal connection with the original injury. The Commission disagreed. 

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

See State ex rel. Bravo Brio Rest. Grp., Inc. v. Industrial Comm’n of Ohio, 2018-Ohio-2735, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 2942 (July 12, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 131.03.

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