Pennsylvania: WCJ’s Rejection of Uncontradicted Medical Evidence Offered by IRE Physician Was Appropriate

Emphasizing that with regard to expert medical testimony, one should not conflate the qualifications of the expert with the persuasiveness of the expert’s testimony, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed a decision by the state’s Commonwealth Court and held that a WCJ’s rejection of the expert medical opinion of the IRE physician was authorized where the WCJ found the IRE’s opinion was underdeveloped and out-of-specialty. The IRE physician offered his opinion regarding the degree of impairment associated with claimant’s traumatic brain injury. The WCJ said she was not persuaded by the medical opinion, in part because the IRE physician specialized in physical medicine and pain management, not neurology. Claimant offered no actual contradictory medical testimony, however. The Commonwealth Court reversed, finding that the physician met the WCA’s stated qualifications for IRE physicians and that he had followed the prescribed methodology for conducting the examination. The Supreme Court said certainly the physician was “qualified.” That did not mean, however, that his testimony and reports were persuasive. The Court acknowledged that the WCJ could not base the persuasiveness issue merely upon the fact that the expert was testifying out of his or her specialty. Here, however, the physician apparently based his mental acuity determination after asking the claimant a few basic questions, whereas the AMA Guides required a much more detailed mental status examination. The Court added that to the degree that there was an element of unfairness associated with the Bureau’s handling of individual IRE physician assignments, that was a systemic concern most appropriate to administrative and/or legislative consideration.

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 IA Constr. Corp. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (Rhodes), 2016 Pa. LEXIS 1070 (May 25, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 128.03.

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