26 Oct 2020

New York: Credit Allowed for Prior SLU Award to Same Member

Where a claimant received a schedule loss of use (SLU) award of 10 percent to the left leg related to a 2015 left hip injury, and the claimant's orthopedist opined that he had sustained a 17.5 percent SLU of the left leg, following a subsequent work-related injury, it was appropriate for the Board to allow the employer a credit for the earlier injury, such that the "new" award was 7.5 percent. There was no statutory basis to award separate SLU awards for the knee and the hip as they were not "members" listed in the schedule. Instead, compensation for impairments to separate parts of the same member were reflected in the overall SLU award for the statutorily-enumerated member.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Matter of Rickard v. Central New York Psychiatric Ctr., 2020 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5385 (Oct. 1, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 86.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see