NY Court Reminds Board That, As Finder of Facts, It Must Actually Elucidate Such Findings

NY Claimant’s Verbal Statement to Assistant Manager Was Sufficient Notice to Employer

NC Court Reiterates that Full Commission, Not the Deputy Commissioner, is the Ultimate Factfinder

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-85(a), which empowers the North Carolina Industrial Commission to reconsider the evidence before the deputy commissioner, and to amend the deputy commissioner’s award “if good ground...

Ex Parte Letter to Treating Physician Sinks NY Truck Driver’s Occupational Disease Claim

Stressing that it is for the New York Workers’ Compensation Board to weigh the evidence—including the medical evidence—and that the Board’s findings will be upheld if supported by substantial evidence,...

Waiting 19 Months to Seek Medical Treatment Proves Fatal to NY Claims Examiner’s Case

A New York appellate court affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that denied benefits to a claims examiner who alleged that she had sustained injuries to her...

Arkansas Muscle Strain Claim May Be Compensable Where Physician Did Not Observe Spasms

Construing Ark. Code Ann. § 11-9-102(4)(D) (Supp. 2019), which indicates that a compensable injury must be established by medical evidence supported by objective findings [emphasis mine], an Arkansas appellate court...

West Virginia Court Reverses Medical Findings of Board of Review

Acknowledging the broad latitude afforded the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board of Review when it comes to weighing the medical evidence before it, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia,...

SC Supreme Court Stresses Commission May Not Use Credibility as a Wild Card

Acknowledging that when South Carolina’s Workers’ Compensation Commission makes a credibility determination based on substantial evidence, that credibility finding itself is substantial evidence, and factual findings properly based on such...

SC Commissioner Should Have Recused Herself from Comp Case

The Supreme Court of South Carolina, reversing a decision by the state’s Court of Appeals, held that a Commissioner should have recused herself from a workers’ compensation dispute where the...

Facebook Party Pics Help Defeat Worker’s Claim for Benefits

Until a number of my high school classmates began to plan our 40th reunion gala several years ago, I had successfully avoided Facebook® and the other social media (I’m still...

For Second Time in Eight Months, Arkansas Court Sends Case Back to Workers’ Compensation Commission to Determine if Claimant Successfully Rebutted Statutory Presumption Related to Alleged Methamphetamine Use

It’s axiomatic that in virtually all workers’ compensation cases it is the fact-finder–the Industrial Commission, Appeals Board, or the hearing officer–who must pass upon the credibility of witnesses; the appellate...