 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Jacobs v. State8/26/2005
Before HILL, C.J., and GOLDEN, KITE, VOIGT, and BURKE, JJ.
[ ] Kirk Jacobs (Jacobs) appeals from the district court's affirmance of a Medical Commission order denying to him worker's compensation benefits. We reverse and remand to the Medical Commission for further remand to the Wyoming Workers' Safety and Compensation Division (the Division) for referral to the Office of Administrative Hearings for proceedings consistent herewith.
ISSUE
[ ] The parties have listed and briefed four issues, but have failed to address the issue that we consider determinative of this matter: Does the Medical Commission have jurisdiction to reach legal conclusions in a case where it finds there are no medically contested issues?
FACTS
[ ] In 1982, Jacobs suffered a work-related injury when a piece of rebar fell on his right little toe. Jacobs later developed an allergic reaction to an antibiotic used to treat an infection that developed in his foot. In 1996, we stated the following relevant facts in an opinion reversing a hearing examiner's award of home health care to Jacobs:
The reaction manifested itself as colitis and nerve damage which left Jacobs with severe chronic pain and an intermittent inability to accomplish the activities of daily life without assistance.
Jacobs received a seventy-eight percent permanent partial disability award in 1990, and still requires high doses of morphine for reported pain. Approximately $400,000.00 in worker's compensation benefits have thus far been awarded to Jacobs, who continues to receive approximately $3,000.00 per month for morphine alone.
Matter of Workers' Compensation Claim of Jacobs, 924 P.2d 982, 983 (Wyo. 1996) (Jacobs I). The award of home health care was reversed because Jacobs had not proven the statutorily required mutual agreement among the employer, the employee, and the Division that such care be provided. Id. at 984. The work-relatedness of this condition, characterized throughout these and related proceedings as "chronic abdominal pain," was not the ratio decidendi of our opinion, and we did not directly address the hearing examiner's finding that Jacobs "is a severely disabled individual who is able to function only with the administration of high doses of narcotics."
[ ] In 2001, Jacobs filed worker's compensation claims for lung and knee problems that he alleged were caused by the narcotic pain medication he took for the chronic abdominal pain. The matter was referred to the Medical Commission when Jacobs objected to the Division's claim denial. The resolution of the lung and knee claims was described in Jacobs v. State ex rel. Wyoming Workers' Safety and Compensation Div., 2004 WY 136, 4, 100 P.3d 848, 849 (Wyo. 2004) (Jacobs II):
The Commission sustained the Division's denial of benefits, finding that Jacobs failed to prove that the pain medication caused his lung or knee problems. As part of its findings, the Commission also stated that Jacobs failed to establish a causal link between the work-related toe injury and his chronic abdominal pain.
[ ] In Jacobs II, Jacobs did not appeal the denial of benefits for his lung and knee problems, but instead, contested what he discerned to be the Medical Commission's denial of medical benefits for the chronic abdominal pain. We declined to address that issue because, despite the Medical Commission's finding that Jacobs had not even proven that the work-related toe injury caused his chronic abdominal pain, Jacobs was not an "aggrieved party" because the Division had not yet denied benefits for the chronic abdominal pain. Jacobs II, 2004 WY 136, 6-8, 100 P.3d at 849-51.
Page 1 2 3 4 Wyoming Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|