Board's denial of claimant's petition to determine compensation due affirmed where there is substantial evidence to support conclusion that claimant's low back condition was not result of employment. Need not pinpoint exact cause of claimant's condition.

This case involved an appeal by the claimant to the Superior Court from the Board's decision which denied the claimant's petition to determine compensation due by finding that the claimant had not established by a preponderance of the evidence that his low back injury was caused by his employment as a car mechanic. The facts showed the claimant had worked for the employer for 16 years as a mechanic and for 11 years prior to that he had worked as a mechanic for a different car dealer. The claimant worked 10-12 hours per day, four days a week, and his job duties required bending and lifting between 30-70 pounds. The claimant also spent some of his time off the job working on cars. The evidence showed that the claimant first missed work due to back pain on April 27, 2009, but he did not report this to the employer as a work injury. Shortly thereafter, the claimant received medical treatment but did not inform the physician of a specific trauma or that his low back pain was generally related to his employment. The claimant stopped working in July 2009, and the employer presented a fact witness who testified that the claimant gave as his reason that he hated working for the employer.

At the hearing before the Board, the claimant presented medical testimony from his medical expert, who testified that the claimant's low back condition was the result of his employment and was likely caused by the years of bending over and performing heavy lifting. However, in other portions of this expert's testimony, he indicated the possibility that the claimant's condition was chronic and was unrelated to his employment. The employer presented testimony from their own medical expert, who frequently testifies as a treating physician on behalf of claimants. The employer's expert testified that the claimant had a degenerative condition in his lumbar spine typical of a person of his age who has been performing labor for over 20 years.

The Board's decision issued on July 26, 2010, denied the petition and rejected as not persuasive the testimony of both the claimant and his medical expert. The claimant's appeal to the Superior Court argued that the Board defied common sense by finding that the claimant's non-work-related activities could have caused his lumbar condition but that his employment did not do so. The court, in affirming the Board's decision, rejected that argument and stated that this is not what the Board found. To the contrary, the Board found based on the testimony of the employer's expert that the claimant's condition was simply not related to his employment. The court emphasized that the Board need not ascertain the precise cause of the claimant's lumbar condition since that is the claimant's burden of proof. It is sufficient that the Board determine whether the claimant has met his burden of proof, and in this case, they had substantial evidence and committed no errors of law in finding that the claimant had not done so. In short, the Board properly concluded that the evidence was not sufficient to show a causal relation between the claimant's low back condition and his employment, even under a cumulative detrimental effect theory.

Case Law Alert - 1st Qtr 2012