Dec. 28, 2006 two Court of Appeals cases

These cases are not favorable to claimants. In one case, Sigala, the claimants temporary benefits were "suspended" for missing an appointment with his authorized doctor. The appointment was set by the insurer and sent certified mail to the claimant after he missed an earlier appointment. The rule permits a suspension and in this case the claimant finally went ahead with a later appointment and then wanted the suspended back benefits to be provided. While his temporary benefits were reinstated the back suspended benefits were never provided. In this case several weeks were never paid. The Court of Appeals decided the "suspension" for those several weeks was a forfeiture for those weeks. I disagree with this decision. Despite the Court's view I see no due process and cannot understand how "suspension" can mean "forfeiture" as the statute could have said forfeiture. The next case, Holnam, involved a claimant trying to win on two different theories. First he said he had a work injury to his neck. He lost. Then he said, okay, my neck problem comes from an occupational disease in that work activities caused or aggravated it. The hearing Judge agreed and the insurer/employer appealed. The court decided that you only get one bite of the apple here and the claimant loses on both theories. The concept is what they called claim preclusion. My view is the court was wrong. Workers comp hearings are very specific on issues and evidence and dates. A work injury is date specific and the mechanism of injury is one specific incident. An occupational injury develops over time and was never addressed in the first hearing when one date one incident was the theory. The issues are quite different in the two hearings. If a trauma on one date did not cause the problem then other dates with work activities are ongoing aggravations. It really requires more medical evidence beyond one date one trauma. In any event the court focused on it being a neck claim and you do not get two tries to establish a neck claim. To me this is off base. I hope both cases either go to the Supreme Court or are limited in how they are interpreted.