February 22, 2017
Our team of lawyers and our paralegal recently won a significant case in front of a Harrisburg WC Judge.
The injured worker injured her right hand. The WC Insurance Company agreed to pay medical bills for the injury but refused to pay wage loss benefits. They then filed a Petition for Termination claiming that the injured worker was fully recovered and able to return to work based on a note from one of her treating doctors. We filed Claim and Penalty Petitions alleging the injured worker sustained a right-hand crush injury. We requested wage loss benefits for the injured worker and filed the Penalty Petition due to the Defendant’s violation of the WC Act.
The injured worker testified that she was injured when a piece of the machinery she was working with broke and fell on her hand.
The Human Resource Manager testified that the injury could not have happened the way the Claimant said it did. He claimed that the injured worker had not reported the injury although he had testified that he met with her when the injury occurred.
The Claimant’s doctor testified that the claimant had early signs of complex regional pain syndrome and she had chronic radiculopathy of the right arm. Unfortunately, he was vague about whether the injury was definitely work-related.
Dr. Naidu, the doctor who performed an independent medical examination on the injured worker on the Defendant’s behalf, testified that she sustained work injuries to her right hand, wrist and forearm but he also testified that she was fully recovered from her injury.
The Judge reported that the injured worker sustained a work injury described as ‘right hand, wrist and forearm contusions’ and that she was fully recovered from her work injury seven months after the work injury had occurred.
The WC Judge granted our Claim Petition and the injured worker was awarded wage loss benefits for a five-month period of time. The Judge also granted our Penalty Petition and the WC insurance carrier was ordered to pay a 10% penalty for its failure to either accept or deny the initial claim within 21 days of the work injury. This is important. The WC law says that the WC Insurance Company has 21 days from the first day off to Accept or Deny the Claim. Employers and WC Insurance Companies routinely ignore this important part of the law. Frankly, many lawyers don’t bother to fight for this important right.
It certainly is important to the injured worker to have the claim accepted or denied on a timely basis which is why Calhoon and Kaminsky P.C., fought and won.
