Alabama: Benefits Limited to Scheduled Award Where No Other Body Part Involved

An Alabama appellate court recently reversed a state court’s judgment awarding compensation to an employee based on its determination that his work-related injury affected the employee’s body as a whole, rather than being limited to his knee.  Quoting extensively from Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the appellate court reasoned that since competent medical testimony had indicated the employee’s injury was limited to his knee and since the doctor also opined that the employee’s medical issues would not have caused any limp, the overall substance of the evidence did not support the trial court's conclusion that the employee's knee injury affected his lower back.  Therefore, the trial court erred in awarding workers' compensation benefits outside of the compensation schedule for a leg injury.

Reported by Thomas A. Robinson, J.D.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis 

See DuBose Construction Company, LLC v. Simmons, 2013 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 189 (Aug. 16, 2013) 

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 87.02 

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