Workers' Compensation
Listed below is McConnaughhay, Coonrod, Pope, Weaver & Stern, P.A.'s workers' compensation case law database. The database dates back until 1971 and includes over 5500 workers' compensation court decisions.
To view the case summaries, select one of the general topics listed below.
Claims Management, Inc. & McClanes #34-020 v. Drewno
24 FLW D682
On Motion for Rehearing (Original opinion at 23 FLW
D2351) Court determined that JCC erred in awarding
permanent total disability benefits and permanent
impairment benefits. Permanent impairment and
permanent total benefits are alternative remedies and
not cumulative.
An injured worker seeking compensation for a
psychiatric condition which resulted from physical
injury must prove that the initial injury or accident
arose out of work performed in the course and scope of
his employment, that the work performed is the major
contributing cause of the initial injury, and that the
psychiatric conditions are directly linked to the
original injury. In this case, claimant suffered a
compensable accident to his back and left groin area
and thereafter developed psychiatric problems.
Claimant is not required to separately prove that his
work was the major contributing cause of his
psychiatric condition. Competent and substantial
evidence supported the judge's decision as to a causal
relationship between the claimant's psychiatric
conditions and the compensable physical injury within a
reasonable degree of medical certainty. There was no
error in the JCC's determination that the evidence
presented by the claimant established that the mental
injury occurred as a manifestation of the compensable
original injury. Such evidence was based upon clear
and convincing standards.
