What's Hot in Workers' Comp - News and Results*

NEWS

Linda Wagner Farrell (Jacksonville) presented “Permanent and Total Disability” for the Association of Workers’ Compensation Claims Professionals on October 25.

RESULTS*

Heather Carbone (Jacksonville) successfully defended a workers’ compensation exposure claim. The claimant alleged an exposure to a toxic airplane paint thinner at a Boeing Plant in Kentucky in December of 2019. He was a subcontractor of Boeing, but a Florida employee. The claimant complained of breathing issues and skin rashes. He sought treatment at an emergency room in Kentucky on the date of alleged exposure and again approximately 10 months later for skin rashes. However, the employee was able to continue working without any wage loss the entire time. The employer/carrier denied and defended on the grounds that the he could not prove causation by clear and convincing evidence pursuant to F.S. 440.02. The employee obtained an IME, who opined that the breathing issues could be attributable to the alleged exposure but the rashes most likely were not. The employee’s IME physician opined that the employee undergo additional testing to determine causation. The employer/carrier’s IME opined that the major contributing cause of the claimant’s rashes and breathing issues was not the alleged exposure. The Judge of Compensation Claims accepted the employer/carrier’s IME and held that the claimant failed to prove that a workplace chemical exposure is the major contributing cause of his current complaints. Interestingly, Boeing had an employee, Mr. White, who was also exposed in the same incident, but had a different employer and a different carrier. In that claim, the carrier initially accepted the claim as compensable and then subsequently denied for major contributing cause. The White case went to trial in August with the same judge and the same claimant’s attorney. In White, the judge found the claim compensable and ordered treatment. The difference in the White case and this case was that the employer/carrier in this case denied the claim outright and defended it under an exposure theory, which proved successful. 

Judd Woytek (Allentown) successfully defended a joinder petition which alleged that the claimant suffered an aggravation of a prior wrist injury. The judge credited the opinions of our medical expert that the claimant’s prior injury never fully resolved and that he did not suffer an aggravation while our client was on the risk.

In another matter, Judd successfully argued that our client’s refusal to pre-approve an MRI was not a basis for the claimant to refuse to attend an IME. The judge ordered the claimant to appear for the IME.

*Prior Results Do Not Guarantee A Similar Outcome
 

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