Fifty-three year old Claimant ET, a resident of Harrisburg, Dauphin County, PA, suffered a work injury while employed as a hoist lift operator for Reynolds Construction Management. Claimant ET was hit on the head with a hard hat by another employee. Gallagher Bassett and Fidelity & Guarantee Insurance Company, the workers’ compensation insurance carrier, accepted the work injury as a neck strain. Claimant has treated with Vitaly Gordin, M.D., William Beutler, M.D., Concentra, Hershey Medical Center Pain Management and Dr. Edward Garrido.
Gallagher Bassett and Fidelity & Guarantee Insurance Company filed a Termination Petition alleging full recovery to stop Claimant ET’s workers’ compensation benefits and, in the alternative, a Modification Petition alleging that two job offers should either modify or stop Claimant ET’s wage loss benefits. The WCJ found Claimant, Dr. William Beutler and Dr. Vitaly Gordin credible that Claimant was not fully recovered from his 5/1/08 work injury, and that the description of injury should be amended to include an aggravation of pre-existing cervical spondylosis and occipital neuralgia. The WCJ also found that the job offers were outside of Claimant’s work-related restrictions and therefore could not be used to modify or stop Claimant’s workers’ compensation benefits.
While Ron feels there are many factors that resulted in Claimant winning all petitions, among them are that we were representing Claimant well before the Employer offered the light duty jobs and were able to immediately respond and defend against the job offers.
Claimant ET was awarded continuing total disability benefits at the rate of $807.00 per week, payment of medical bills, and an expansion of the injury to be covered by workers’ compensation. Later that year, a very favorable lump sum settlement of future workers’ compensation benefits was obtained.
