Alabama: Non-occupational “Factors” No Bar to Compensability of Successive Injury Claim

Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 10.01 and stressing that with regard to successive injuries, (a) the location of the claimant’s second injury need not be the same as the first and (b) the fact that non-occupational factors may have caused the second injury was not relevant, an Alabama appellate court recently reversed a trial court’s determination that a claimant’s subsequent injury was not an aggravation of an earlier, work-related injury.  The court observed that since the trial court had not indicated how claimant’s subsequent injury was the result of an independent, intervening cause, it was error to deny the claimant additional benefits.  The matter was remanded for a determination of those issues.

Reported by Thomas A. Robinson, J.D.

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See McRae v. Second Mile Development, Inc., 2013 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 172 (Aug. 2, 2013) 

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 10.01 

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