Decided: March 16, 2021
Topic: Gradual Injury, Arising Out of, and Within the Scope of Employment
This decision involved a gradual injury that first manifested symptoms while the employee was at home and not working. The employee had worked as a dispatcher for United Ambulance Service for roughly 12 years, taking nearly 250 calls per day and working four 10-hour days, plus frequent overtime.
On the date of the injury, the employee was at home during his day off. He was reaching over his bathtub with his arm extended when he felt a “pop” and experienced immediate pain in his neck and left shoulder. He pursued a workers’ compensation claim alleging that his employment caused his eventual diagnosis of cervical disc herniation.
A Section 312 independent medical examination by Dr. Bradford concluded that the employee sustained a compensable cervical injury, opining that the injury “occurred gradually due to repetitive computer activities and static posturing while functioning as a dispatcher over many years.” Dr. Bradford further reasoned that the bathtub incident was the culmination of a delayed-onset work injury rather than a specific nonwork-related event.
The ALJ (Goodnough) granted the petitions and awarded protection of the Act, and ordered payment of medical bills. On appeal, the Appellate Division upheld the decision, ultimately holding that the final test in such a claim is not whether the symptoms occurred at work, but instead, whether the injurious activities that caused the injury were undertaken in the course of employment.
To discuss how this decision and others like it may affect you as an employer or insurer, please give one of the attorneys at Tucker Law Group a call.