By: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel M. Pedriana and Claudia R. Harke<\/p>\n
On August 28, 2018, District I of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held that the Plaintiff was not entitled to further worker\u2019s compensation benefits because her disability-causing surgery was not related to a compensable work injury.<\/p>\n
In Theresa Payton-Myrick v. LIRC<\/em>, Theresa Payton-Myrick was diagnosed with arthritic changes and degenerative disc disease in her spine. Payton-Myrick was employed as an administrative assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. On July 21, 2009, she fell out of her desk chair and sustained several muscle strains. She subsequently received opinions from several doctors, one of whom recommended a spinal fusion surgery.<\/p>\n Despite conflicting medical opinions, Payton-Myrick underwent surgery, which resulted in multiple procedures and left her \u201carguably disabled.\u201d Payton-Myrick applied for worker\u2019s compensation benefits. The UW System denied her benefits, which caused Payton-Myrick to file a worker\u2019s compensation claim.<\/p>\n An administrative law judge concluded that Payton-Myrick had \u201csuffered a work-related injury that aggravated Payton-Myrick\u2019s back condition beyond its normal progression\u201d and that \u201cthe treatment, including surgery, was necessary and reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n The Labor and Industry Review Commission (\u201cLIRC\u201d) reversed the ALJ and found that Payton-Myrick\u2019s muscle strains were from a compensable work injury, however, the work injury had healed and did not aggravate her pre-existing condition enough to necessitate surgery. LIRC also made several factual findings including that Payton-Myrick\u2019s disability causing surgeries treated her pre-existing condition, not her compensable work injury.<\/em><\/p>\n The Court of Appeals upheld LIRC\u2019s denial of further benefits based on a holding from the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Flug v. LIRC.<\/em> In Flug<\/em>, the Supreme Court ruled that Wis. Stat. \u00a7 102.42(1m), which states that if an employee who has sustained a compensable injury undertakes treatment in good faith that is medically acceptable, but unnecessary, the employer shall pay for all disability incurred as a result, only applies if the unnecessary, but acceptable surgery is to address the workplace injury. <\/em><\/p>\n Since LIRC made a factual finding that Payton-Myrick\u2019s two spinal surgeries were focused on her pre-existing disc problems, not the workplace injury<\/em>, the Court of Appeals upheld LIRC\u2019s denial of further benefits.<\/p>\n This Decision does not drastically change the law surrounding whether an employee is entitled to further worker\u2019s compensation benefits, however, it reinforces that Wis. Stat. \u00a7 102.42(1m) only applies if the unnecessary-but-acceptable surgery was done to address the workplace injury. However, it will be important to have treating and independent doctors specifically note the reason for an employee undergoing an unnecessary-but-acceptable surgery, as that will determine whether they are owed additional benefits.<\/p>\n The time to appeal this decision has passed and the decision remains unpublished.<\/p>\n If you have questions about this decision, please contact Daniel M. Pedriana by email at dpedriana@lindner-marsack.com<\/a> or Claudia R. Harke by email at charke@lindner-marsack.com<\/a> or any other attorney with whom you have been working with at Lindner & Marsack, S.C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel M. Pedriana and Claudia R. Harke On August 28, 2018, District I of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held that the Plaintiff was not entitled to further worker\u2019s compensation benefits because her disability-causing surgery was not related to a compensable work injury. In Theresa Payton-Myrick v. LIRC, Theresa Payton-Myrick was diagnosed with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-court-decisions-legislation","category-wi-law","category-workers-comp"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5WrIF-8d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}