Nebraska: Blood Clot in Sinus Cavity Not Connected to Claimant’s DVT

A Nebraska appeals court recently affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Court that had denied workers’ compensation benefits to a worker who sustained a serious blood clod in his sinus cavity after earlier suffering a deep venous thrombosis (DVT) in his thigh, as well as a pulmonary embolism, brought about by knee surgery for a work-related injury. Acknowledging that the medical experts had been quite cautious in their causation analysis, the court indicated that while one expert opined the clot in claimant’s sinus was likely related to the earlier DVT, another expert disagreed, and still another said the connection was unclear. Under those circumstances, the Compensation Court was free to weigh the evidence and come to the conclusion that claimant had failed to meet his burden of showing medical causation.

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 Homstad v. Block 21, LLC, 2019 Neb. App. LEXIS 329 (Oct. 29, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 130.05.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see