North Carolina Court Approves Medical Claim for Non-FDA-Approved Compound Cream

A North Carolina appellate court recently held that non-FDA-approved drugs could not be categorically excluded from medical compensation under the state’s workers’ compensation system. The court noted that the text of the Workers' Compensation Act did not limit the types of drugs that might reasonably be required solely to those that are FDA-approved. The court stressed that instead, the statute indicates that whether a particular medical treatment “may reasonably be required to effect a cure or give relief” is a fact question that must be individually assessed in each case [N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-2(19)]. The court concluded that were the court to create a categorical exclusion for non-FDA-approved medical treatments, it would, in effect, be adding an exception to the Act where one does not exist in the text. 

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. 

See Davis v. Craven County ABC Bd., 2018 N.C. App. LEXIS 368(Apr. 17, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 94.03.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see