Utah: Court Stresses Unusual or Extraordinary Exertion Required for Claims Involving Preexisting Conditions

In Utah, a worker ordinarily need not show that his or her work-related injury was caused by unusual or extraordinary stress or strain. Applying the framework established in Allen v. Industrial Comm’n, 729 P.2d 15 (Utah 1986), and its progeny, however, a state appellate court held that unusual or extraordinary stress or strain isrequired if the worker’s claimed injury is also associated with a preexisting condition. Accordingly, where a delivery driver suffered four separate work-related injuries to the driver’s lower back, but the fourth did not arise from any unusual or extraordinary strain or stress, he was appropriately denied compensation for disability benefits and medical benefits associated with that claim.

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 Estate of Layton v. Labor Comm’n, 2019 UT App 59, 2019 Utah App. LEXIS 59 (Apr. 18, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 46.01.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see