Sandy Koehn v Accessibility Remodeling
Inj. No. 20-078387
release date: 9 19 2024
The Commission reverses a PTD award against the second injury fund and notes the ALJ erred by including non qualifying prior disabilities below threshold.
The Comission noted claimant's expert attempted to unbundle a prior settlement allocated to joint body parts, and found the opinon of allocation inconsistent with other medical records and prior deposition testimony. The Commission criticized the expert for legal opinions about compensability outside his expertise of opinions with a reasonable degree of medical certainty and that claimant could not rely upon an Oregon settlement when fund liablity was predicated on finding of compensaiblity of prior settlements as defined by compensable injuries and accidents under Missouri law.
ALJ Rebman had awarded PTD to the 59 year old claimant who settled with the employer for 30% for an operated shoulder and relied upon opinions of Dr. Koprivica for a PTD award against the Fund for the back, other shoulder and hand. The ALJ noted the expert did excluded nonqualifying priors from consideration.
