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Woodrum v. Premier Auto Glass Co.5/17/1995
GWIN, Presiding Judge.
Plaintiff, Robert Woodrum, appeals the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas of Fairfield County that held that he was not entitled to participate in the Workers' Compensation Fund for injuries he sustained while returning from an independent medical examination ordered by the Bureau of Workers' Compensation ("bureau") to determine his eligibility to continue to receive benefits from a prior, work-related injury. Appellant had appealed the matter to the Fairfield County Court of Common Pleas pursuant to R.C. 4123.512, after the bureau had denied his application to add the injuries sustained in the automobile collision to his original claim. Appellant assigns a single error:
"The lower court erred when it held that plaintiffs injuries received while traveling from a medical examination ordered by the Bureau of Workers' Compensation were not compensable under the workers' compensation law."
The record indicates that appellant first sustained injuries to his back on September 22, 1990, in the course of and arising out of his employment with Premier Auto Glass Company. The Industrial Commission of Ohio allowed his claim for lumbar disc syndrome, lumbar sprain/strain, muscle spasms, sciatica and a herniated disc. Appellant collected temporary total disability benefits from October 20, 1990 until November 4, 1990, and from November 8, 1990 until January 6, 1991. On the latter date, appellant returned to work, although he continued to have difficulty with his low-back condition. Eventually, appellant was again unable to return work, and his treating physician certified that
R.C. 4123.01(C) defines a compensable injury as one which is accidental and received in the course of and arising out of the injured employee's employment. That statute also defines three groups of injuries that are not compensable, including psychiatric conditions not arising from an injury or occupational disease, injuries caused by the natural deterioration of a tissue, organ, or part of the body, and injuries received in voluntary participation in an employer-sponsored recreation or fitness activity. Appellant urges that his injury does not fall within the list of non-compensable injuries, but, rather, that there is a causal connection between his injury and his employment.
Appellant cites various jurisdictions that have held that injuries occasioned during the course of seeking treatment for prior compensable injuries are themselves compensable, but urges that the case is one of first impression, never addressed by this court, of appeals or the Supreme Court of Ohio. The trial court cited a 1959 Mahoning County Court of Appeals' case, Carlson, v. Young (App.1959), 84 Ohio Law Abs. 403, 171 N.E.2d 736, as authority for the proposition that appellant must show that the injuries were the result of a special hazard of employment in order to recover under these circumstances.
Appellant urges that we should not follow Carlson because R.C. 4123.95 became effective after the Carlson decision. That statute requires courts to liberally construe the provisions of the workers' compensation statutes in favor of employees and the dependents of decease[.] employees. Appellant further urges that the Supreme Court has recently expanded the rights of injured workers, see Village v. Gen. Motors; Corp., G. M A. D. (1984), 15 Ohio St.3d 129, 15 OBR 279,
472 N.E.2d 1079; Ryan v. Connor (1986), 28 Ohio St.3d 406, 28 OBR 462, 503 N.E.2d 1379; and Schell v. Globe Trucking, Inc. (1990), 48 Ohio St.3d 1, 548 N.E.2d 920. All the above-cited cases expand the rights of injured workers and cause workers' compens
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