Law // Rights and Duties between Employer and Employee
Rights and Duties between Employer and Employee
GILLIS v. WHITE OAK CORPORATION | 262 Conn. 936 (2003)
FACTS:
Richard Gillis, who was a construction worker, first injured his right knee on July 7, 1981, while working for an employer unrelated to this appeal. Gillis again sustained a compensable injury to the same knee on November 6, 1986, while working for the respondent White Oak Corporation. Gillis injured his right knee a third time on April 20, 1992, while working for the third employer. The trial commissioner rendered decision in favor of the plaintiff and found that the 1986 injury exacerbated the claimant’s preexisting arthritic condition, increased permanent partial disability, and liability for recommended surgery, which was performed on January 5, 1987, and total right knee replacement.
ISSUE:
Whether the Worker’s Compensation Commission erred in rendering decision in favor of plaintiff.
RULING:
The Supreme Court of Connecticut denied the defendant’s appeal and affirmed the findings of the trial commissioner.
ANALYSIS:
In this case, the Commissioner of Worker’s Compensation has rendered right decision based on the medical records of the plaintiff. The majority fails to appreciate the significance of the fact that the statutory workers’ compensation system contemplates injuries that may be only temporarily totally disabling (Richard Gillis v. White Oak Corporation et al., 2002). Finding number five was made as of an October 14, 1992 date of maximum improvement after the plaintiff had suffered a third injury on April 20, 1992. The majority cites no authority for the proposition that once partial permanent disability rating is established, it must be continuously disabling even if there was surgical amelioration and no further medical evidence of impairment or disability for a long period of time after the injury, or where only with the passage of time the injury contributed to deterioration of the previously arthritic knee resulting ultimately in a partial permanent disability. I find no logic in the majority’s premise precisely because competent medical evidence before the commissioner from the treating physician, Taylor, indicates no continuous impairment from what originally was viewed as a minor injury to a brittle plaintiff suffering from preexisting degenerative arthritis unrelated to any of his work injuries.
As work environments become safer, the quantity of workers’ compensation claims continues to beg off. Simultaneously, the cost per allege has sustained to grow along with the increasing cost of health care in wide-ranging, making the business costs considerable. Along with issues concerning death and taxes, workers’ reparation is somewhat every health care organization – business owner with employees must cope with. This, in turn, leads to working with risk management by help of insurance and premium carrier, so as to reduce the workers’ compensation costs in general. Putting into practice that create the strategy in business becomes a more beneficial client in forms of insurance rates, further on risk management costs by employing practices. Accordingly, nonfatal injuries accounted for sprains and strains, fractures and other illness are concentrated in retail trade and service sector. As it was investigated that factors attributed to the plaintiff’s injury was due to arthritic condition and that working in his second employer aggravate the preexisting underlying condition. Hence, the plaintiff should be granted with respective compensation as provided to worker’s compensation for permanent partial disability of workers.
Reference
Richard Gillis v. White Oak Corporation et al., (2002). Connecticut Law Journal. Retrieved 9 May 2017 from https://www.jud.ct.gov/external/supapp/Cases/AROap/AP73/73ap592.pdf.
2017/5135
