Delaware Industrial Accident Board Orders Claimant to Produce Expert Report on Causation in Petition to Add Body Part

The claimant suffered a work-related injury to his back on January 28, 2023, resulting in the parties entering into a “Medical Only” agreement acknowledging the back injury. The claimant later filed a petition seeking to add the right lower extremity as a compensable body part.

As part of its defense of the petition to add the right lower extremity, the employer reviewed the records of the claimant’s medical expert, Dr. Neves, and noted that they contained no opinion as to the causal relationship between the right lower extremity (amputation) and the back injury. Therefore, the employer filed a motion to compel the claimant to produce a report from Dr. Neves addressing the causal relationship of the right lower extremity to the previously accepted back injury. 

The claimant argued that his Pretrial Memorandum included a statement about the grounds on which Dr. Neves would testify and that, if the employer was not satisfied with the statement provided on the Pretrial Memorandum, then the employer could ask for an additional statement from Dr. Neves at its own expense. 

The Industrial Accident Board disagreed and held that the claimant is required to obtain from Dr. Neves a report indicating his opinion and the basis for his opinion regarding the causal relationship of the right lower extremity to the industrial accident. The Board referred back to its March 3, 2025, order involving the same parties (Wingate v. Blades Fire Company, IAB No. 1532362 (March 3, 2025)), where is was held that it would be unfair to proceed without producing the requested report on causation. In the prior order, the Board reasoned that the claimant must have received an oral opinion from Dr. Neves upon which he relied in order to file his petition and that not having this opinion set out in writing was unfair to the employer. 

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