Practice Areas

Sign up

Insert your Email address to sign up for our E-Newsletter

News

Library

Share

Workers’ Compensation - Knee Injury

By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 30, 2009

The Court of Appeals upholds the commission’s rejection of a claim for knee injury, based on a 1997 incident when claimant fell from her chair at work, on the ground that claimant abandoned her left knee claims when she executed a memorandum of agreement in 1997 that identified her injuries as cervical and dorsal strains, left arm and hand injury.

Following a long line of its own precedent, the commission in this case explained that it does not adjudicate cases piecemeal. Issues raised and not pursued or determined by hearing or formal agreement are abandoned unless specifically deferred. Claimant does not challenge the commission’s restatement of the abandonment doctrine or seek to overturn it. Instead, she contends the commission’s application of the doctrine to her left knee injury was unsupported by the evidence and should be reversed.

We find no error in the commission’s application of the abandonment doctrine to this case. As the commission rightly observed, it cannot administer a complex adjudicatory system in a piecemeal fashion. When parties advise the commission prior to an evidentiary hearing that a disputed claim has been settled and an agreement reached, the commission should be able to rely on that agreement to define the agreed-upon scope of the claim and to set the boundaries for a consent award.

Finding no error in the commission’s application of the abandonment doctrine to the facts of this case, we affirm.

Rejection of comp claim affirmed.

Jones v. U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union (Kelsey, J.) No. 0309-09-4, Nov. 24, 2009; Workers’ Comp. Comm’n; W. David Falcon Jr. for appellant; John C. Duncan III for appellees. VLW 009-7-494,6 pp.

Do You Have A Case?

Resources