Ohio: No Total Loss of Use of Hand Where Three Fingers Were Partially Amputated

Where an Ohio worker sustained partial amputation of three fingers on his left hand in an industrial accident, leaving him with a fully functioning thumb and index finger on that hand, he was not entitled to an award for total loss of use of his hand, held a state appellate court. The court acknowledged that under Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4123.57(B), where two or more fingers have been amputated and the nature of the employee’s work is such that the handicap or disability is greater than from the two fingers alone, the administrator can increase of the loss of use award beyond that for the fingers alone up to an award equal to the loss of the entire hand. The court stressed that since none of the worker’s fingers had been fully amputated and medical evidence indicated that the thumb and index fingers retained feeling and retained the ability to exert pressure, allowing items to be picked up by those digits, there had been no total loss of use of the hand.

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 State ex rel. Root v. Industrial Comm’n, 2017-Ohio–512, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 502 (Feb. 14, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 86.03.

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