Ohio: Loss of Vision Determined by Measurement of Uncorrected Vision Following Injury

Pursuant to Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4123.57(B), for the permanent partial loss of sight of an eye, a claimant is entitled to “the portion of one hundred twenty-five weeks as the administrator in each case determines, based upon the percentage of vision actually lost as a result of the injury.” Moreover, loss of uncorrected vision means the percentage of vision actually lost as a result of the injury or occupational disease. Under this standard, a state appellate court observed that “correction enhances vision but does not eliminate the vision loss” (quoting State ex rel. La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries v. Thomas, 126 Ohio St.3d 134, 2010-Ohio-3215, ¶ 16, 931 N.E.2d 545. Loss of vision is determined by the measurement of uncorrected vision following the injury, but prior to any corrective surgery such as a lens implant or cornea transplant. Here, the undisputed medical evidence in the record, the claimant had a pre-injury uncorrected visual acuity of 20/20 in his right eye, and a post-injury uncorrected visual acuity of 20/100 in that eye. Using the tables supplied in the AMA Guides, 5th Edition, the court concluded that the claimant had sustained a 35 percent loss of use. 

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 State ex rel. Beyer v. Autoneum N. Am., Inc., 2018-Ohio-1700, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 1832 (May 1, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 86.04.

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