Ohio: Court Reiterates “Eggshell-Claimant” Rule Regarding Preexisting Conditions

A 1986 amendment to the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Act’s definition of “injury” to exclude injury or disability “caused primarily by the natural deterioration of tissue, an organ, or part of the body” [Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4123.01(C)(2), emphasis added], did not abrogate the long-standing eggshell-claimant rule, held a state appellate court. Accordingly, an employee suffering from preexisting health impairment was entitled to compensation for a subsequent injury precipitated by a specific work-related strain or trauma that would not have injured a normal, healthy person. Here the claimant suffered an acute partial tear of the left quadriceps tendon when she turned her body to maneuver within a loading area. Medical evidence indicated that she had progression of an earlier diagnosed tendinitis condition. It was stipulated that claimant’s turning maneuver would not have injured a normal, healthy person. The court stressed that it was well settled that workers’ compensation law prescribed no standard of physical fitness to which the employee must conform. In spite of the 1986 amendment, courts had continued to adhere to the proposition that employers take their employees as they are.

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. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Luettke v. Autoneum North America, Inc., 2015-Ohio–3210, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3124 (Aug. 7, 2015) [2015-Ohio–3210, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3124 (Aug. 7, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 9.02 [9.02]

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

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